President kept going at top speed despite signs of failing health
Had planned full day’s schedule yesterday – stayed at desk until sudden collapse at 1 p.m.
By Merriman Smith
The writer of the following article has been chief of the White House staff of the United Press since before Pearl Harbor. He accompanied the late President on all of his domestic inspection trips, his visits to Quebec and Hawaii, all of his fourth-term campaign tours, and met him in North Africa after Yalta.
WARM SPRINGS, Georgia – Did President Roosevelt know that he was an ill man and that the time had come to husband his strength?
Many of us who saw him often and traveled with him believe he did.
There was nothing wrong with him organically. But the tremendous pressure of the toughest job on earth had begun to take its toll in nervous energy.
This was first noticeable last year after the Tehran Conference. For two months, he suffered from sinus trouble and bronchitis, and it was then that he decided to go to Bernard M. Baruch’s estate near Georgetown, South Carolina, and fight it out for himself.
Thought he had won
He was fighting more than bronchitis. He was, I think, trying to decide whether he was able to go through the rigors of another presidential campaign. He thought he had won. He took it easy in South Carolina for a month and came back to Washington, confident that he was in tiptop shape.
But he did not snap back as he used to do. His voice was weaker, his tan faded faster and he began spending almost every weekend in the restful atmosphere of Hyde Park.
Then came the fourth-term campaign, a terrific physical beating. He spent hours touring cities in an open car, often in miserable weather. He delivered a speech at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn standing bareheaded in a cold, driving rain. Next day at Hyde Park he laughed at those in his party who had the sniffles and told them he felt fine.
Drain on vitality
But the Yalta Conference was ahead of him and that trip, I think, was a serious drain on his vitality. It was probably the hardest 10 days he went through in his life.
On the ship coming back I saw more of him than I had ever seen in the same length of time. It seemed he had aged ten years in ten days. He sat all day in the sun on the boat trip back. He had lost weight, but he refused to take it seriously, said he would gain it back at Warm Springs.
On March 1, he made this report on his own health in his speech to Congress on the Yalta Conference:
I hope you will pardon me for the unusual posture of sitting down during the presentation of what I wish to say, but I know you will realize that it makes it a lot easier for me not having to carry about 10 pounds of steel around the bottom of my legs and also because of the fact that I have just completed a 14,000-mile trip.
…I am returning from this trip that took me so far, refreshed and inspired. I was well the entire time. I was not ill for a second until I arrived back in Washington and here I heard all the rumors which had occurred in my absence. Yes, I returned from the trip refreshed and inspired. The Roosevelts are not, as you may suspect, averse to travel. We seem to thrive on it.
That was the first time he had referred publicly to his affliction of infantile paralysis. It was also the first time he had taken official notice of rumors that swept the country occasionally – especially when he was running for reelection – that he was seriously ill, or. in extreme cases, that he had died.
Health radiantly good
In the light of his physical infirmity, the “killing pace” of the presidency was spoken of frequently during Mr. Roosevelt’s first campaign. There were those who believed that the polio attack in the early twenties had left more than its obvious mark.
But the President’s buoyant spirit and tremendous physical energy soon overcame all doubt about his fitness to carry the burdens of the presidency. In those early days of the New Deal’s historic fight for national economic recovery, Mr. Roosevelt’s health was radiantly good. The theory was advanced that his inability to walk actually conserved his energies and that he probably was much more vigorous than most men of his age.
Makes big concession
Last fall, some of the people around him became concerned about his loss of weight and his slowness in snapping back from periods of fatigue. One of the jobs assigned to his daughter, Mrs. Anna Boettinger, was to see that he was protected as much as possible from persons who placed a drain upon his time and energy.
Vice Adm. Ross T. McIntire, his physician, ordered Mr. Roosevelt to quit holding conferences at luncheon. That lasted for about three months and then the President went back to his practice of discussing affairs of state while he ate from a tray at his desk.
However, he did agree to take a nap afterwards – a big concession from a man who liked to work at top speed all day.
Reporters who attended his press conferences noticed a change. His voice used to boom through the office as he answered our questions. Toward the end his voice was low, at times almost inaudible to those far back in the room.
Hearing becomes impaired
His hearing had become impaired by sinus trouble and after many days of hard work, his hands had a tendency to tremble.
Perhaps he noticed these things himself, for he began to get away from Washington at more frequent intervals. Just before coming here, Mr. Roosevelt had been to Hyde Park where he always seemed able to relax. And yesterday, sitting in a little room overlooking a green Georgia valley, he apparently was in the best of spirits. He had planned a full day’s work.
Early in the morning Mr. Roosevelt was ready to go to work on official papers, but the plane bringing the documents here was delayed by weather. When they did arrive, William Hassett, one of the White House secretaries, asked the President if he would like to wait until after lunch before starting work. Mr. Roosevelt shook his head. They started working immediately.
The President signed several State Department appointments, some citations for the Legion of Merit for war heroes and a lengthy list of postmaster nominations for small towns. Then he put his signature on legislation to extend the life of the Commodity Credit Corporation, remarking to Mr. Hassett: “Here’s where I make a law.”
Mr. Hassett then left the Little White House. Mr. Roosevelt still had a stack of papers before him. His next visitor was Nicholas Robbins, who took pictures of the President while he continued to examine the papers Hassett had left.
‘I have a terrific headache’
Suddenly – around 1 p.m. – the President put his hand to the back of his head and said, “I have a terrific headache.”
Those were his last words.
About 1:15 p.m., he slumped over unconscious.
Arthur Prettyman, Mr. Roosevelt’s Negro valet, picked him up and carried him into a small bedroom just to the left of the entrance to the Little White House.
Call McIntire
In another part of the building were two of the President’s cousins – Miss Margaret Suckley and Miss Laura Lelano – and his private secretary, Miss Grace Tully. Miss Delano called Dr. Bruenn who arrived at once with another physician, Lt. Cmdr. George Fox. They took off Mr. Roosevelt’s dark blue suit and put on his pajamas.
Dr. Bruenn telephoned Vice Adm. McIntire, who was in Washington. Adm. McIntire, in turn, phoned Atlanta and asked Dr. James P. Paullin, a specialist in internal medicine, to hurry to Warm Springs.
Dr. Paullin arrived while the President was still alive but unconscious. He was in the bedroom with Drs. Bruenn and Fox when Mr. Roosevelt died at 3:35 p.m. CWT.
At 4:30 p.m., Mr. Roosevelt was to have gone to the mountainside cottage of Mayor Frank Allcorn of Warm Springs to attend a barbecue. At the moment he died, fiddlers outside the Allcorn cottage were tuning their violins and talking about the songs they were going to play.
Later, he was to have attended a minstrel show by the youthful patients of Warm Springs Foundation.
