Ovation in the Rain

Franklin Roosevelt donned his blue-black Navy cape and his famed campaign hat--the gear in which he campaigned successfully into Terms I, II & III. Out of the White House garage came the huge black Packard touring car with the bulletproof windows. To the Secret Service went the order to mobilize all resources. Franklin Roosevelt had decided to campaign in the usual partisan sense.

The President always heeds the campaign advice of New York's shrewd little Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Last week "The Hat," as he is known in New York, was a White House luncheon guest. A few hours later, in Manhattan, bumbling Bob Hannegan, Democratic national chairman, announced that the President would tour New York City. Said Hannegan: "After the people have seen him, they can make up their own minds about his vigor and health."

Then Bob Hannegan took a back seat again (which as often as not turned out to be a seat at Toots Shor's Manhattan restaurant). This Roosevelt trip--perhaps the most crucial in his political career--had to be handled by professionals. New York's 47 electoral votes were at stake, and few men know the strategy of capturing those votes better than The Hat.

The Hat took over, and in moved the C.I.O.'s potent P.A.C., which has replaced Tammany as a power in Manhattan politics. All leaves and vacations were canceled for New York's 15,000 policemen. To the members of New York's garment, clothing and furriers unions--usually off on Saturdays--went orders: be on hand to greet the President, rain or shine.

The Roosevelt Luck. It had poured before on Roosevelt occasions, notably at the 1937 inaugural when the drops came down like icicles, although generally the Roosevelt luck with weather had been fabulous. But it had never rained more incessantly and gloomily than now. It had begun long before 9:50 a.m., when Franklin Roosevelt climbed out of his private railroad car at the Brooklyn Army base. He eased himself into the black Packard, ordered the canvas top drawn back, and threw the Navy cape about his broad shoulders.

Franklin Roosevelt, in his role as Commander in Chief, gazed through the dull drizzle at the tanks and bulldozers, the jeeps and howitzers ready for loading on merchant ships, took the cheers of 40,000 workers, then moved on to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the super-battleships Missouri and Iowa were built, where the battered old Texas rested in dock for repairs. Driving down the bustling streets, past the giant Hammerhead Crane, the President was seen by more than half the yard's 70,000 workers. They cheered.

Then Franklin Roosevelt became the Term IV candidate. He headed for Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, and a frankly political rally for New York's Senator Bob Wagner. In the damp morning, the Ebbets Field crowd was but 9,000.

Way out in right field, Franklin Roosevelt's Packard drove up a ramp. The President dismounted, stepped a few feet to a speaker's stand. It began to pour. The President took off his grey fedora, let the Navy cape drop from his shoulders. Standing in the rain in his grey sack suit, he spoke for five minutes. Said he: Bob Wagner "deserves well of mankind."

The Parade. Then the long trek began. The President's car moved at 25 m.p.h., with four Secret Service men on the running boards. The top was down, but the bulletproof glass sides up, beside the President. His car was flanked on each side by six sidecar motorcycles, and followed by three cars loaded with burly Secret Servicemen, eyes on the second-story windows, hands on guns. The cavalcade passed through Queens to The Bronx, from The Bronx to Harlem, from Harlem to the canyons of Manhattan, and down Broadway. All along the 51-mile route were crowds, heads covered with sodden newspapers or umbrellas, legs chilled by the wind, feet soaked. Water rolled down the President's cheeks and dripped from his chin, stood on the lenses of his pince-nez. His thinning hair was pasted flat, and the raindrops trickled down the sleeve of his right arm as he raised it again & again to the crowds. Sometimes there were cheers, and sometimes little more than the swish of heavy tires on the wet asphalt streets. Some people caught sight of his infectious grin, some never saw him at all. Most got a bare glimpse of a lifted hat, a waved arm.

On Broadway, and in Manhattan's garment district, where the crowds were thickest, the ticker tape fell, confetti and torn telephone books swirled down from the windows, pasting the wet streets with wastepaper. The parade had lasted four hours. New York police chiefs estimated the crowd at from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000.

Most of the time the President was smiling, and the chill and the rain brought a pink glow to his face. At times he relaxed, and when he did so, the sallowness in his cheeks showed, and the heavy lines on his face; then he looked tired. Pictures of him smiling or tired were taken by all newspapers, and they made their selections according to their political sympathies (see cuts).

Some thought the performance bravura, others brave. But whether or not the President had answered the questions about his health*--questions with which voters of both parties are naturally greatly concerned--would not be known until Election Day.

Meanwhile, Franklin Roosevelt, now fired with the old fire-horse enthusiasm, made plans for repeat performances. His Philadelphia speech this week would be preceded by a similar parade, and he planned a Chicago trip with an appearance at Soldier Field--where Mayor Ed Kelly presumably could be counted on to fill all 110,000 seats. In the final weeks, Candidate Roosevelt would give it all he had.

* Two days later, Presidential Secretary Steve Early announced that the President "did not have even a sniffle."

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