Stokes: The old master
By Thomas L. Stokes
With Dewey party –
Everybody on this campaign train including the Republican candidate for President, is continually conscious of the Democratic candidate – “That Man in the White House,” as he has been called so bitterly now for some years.
So, it was only natural that there should be keen interest in this campaign cavalcade in what President Roosevelt would say in his first avowed political speech bidding for a fourth term, and how he would say it.
Well before the scheduled hour, the lounge car – with bar attached – was filled with newspaper correspondents. Several stood, a little knot about the radio. These included Henry Turnbull, radio director for the Republican National Committee. John Marshall, Governor Dewey’s private secretary, sat at one of the tables, notebook and pencil ready to take down the words of Mr. Roosevelt.
The gong sounded then there came a din of showing and tumult from the dining room in Washington. It went on and on, interminably. Those in the car, wise in the ways of pumped-up radio demonstrations, grinned knowingly at one another. They whispered that the Teamsters were trying to outdo that cascade of sound that had greeted Governor Dewey in Los Angeles’ Coliseum the night before. That had come, too, at the signal of a man at the microphone with his watch in hand. Henry Turnbull glanced at his watch, smiling.
‘A voice in the wilderness’
Dan Tobin’s voice did not come through so well, sounding like a foghorn in the midst of a storm-tossed sea. He finished. Then that other voice for which everyone had waited was there, strong, confident and masterful.
The line of the poet “A voice in the wilderness singing” came to mind, but Lord Byron was writing of love, and this was no love feast going on there over the radio. Not on your life. It was the familiar Roosevelt political voice, unheard for so long, now sweetly ironic, now brutally sardonic, now raw with sarcasm, now rising to an emotional climax.
We were in the middle of the wilderness, it was true. Away from the train, on each side, the desert swept off like a giant dirty plate littered with scraps of sage brush to the purplish rim of the mountains.
Ears were sharp for the voice from the radio. Inside was the sound of laughter as the voice spoke of the rope that one didn’t mention in the house of one who has been hanged. the story of Fala, the dog with the Scottish soul, the young man who could not remember the 1929 depression.
Hard-boiled newsmen appreciative
Correspondents with New Deal sympathies – and there are quite a few along – beamed as they chuckled and hooted. Hard-boiled men of the press, who look on all politics with a cold and calculating eve, laughed in appreciation of the Roosevelt technique. From the grins and comments, you learned, too, that some who write for newspapers in which there is never a kind word said for the New Deal have their secret affections outside of editorial policy.
As the President talked on, a very pained expression came over the face of Henry Turnbull. He was not having any fun.
There was a babble as the speech ended.
“The old Roosevelt” … “The greatest political speech he ever made” … “He canceled out this whole trip we’ve made” … “He took up every Dewey speech in this one” and so on.
Had the Republican candidate heard the speech?
It turned out that they were unable to get the radio to work back in the private car. It has been out of whack ever since the wreck.
Before the speech was ended, the train had come into Needles, California. There Governor Dewey made a speech from the back platform to a crowd in which there were some few Roosevelt hecklers, mostly kids.
As we left, somebody slapped red, white and blue stickers on the car windows, showing to the inside of the train the one word: “Roosevelt.”