Smith: Roosevelt secret weapon – Double talk
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt has unveiled his secret weapon for use against those trying to pry out his 1944 political plans – double talk.
In 1940, reporters who asked him about his third-term intentions were told to wear dunce caps and go stand in the corner. His strategy this year, however, is to talk all around the lot, leaving the reporters breathless from the chase and more than mildly confused.
Like something from the realm of snasafran and biddleclip was his reaction to fourth-term questions at his news conference yesterday. A woman reporter sounded the keynote when she frankly told the Chief Executive: “I’m confused.”
So is everybody else, the President agreed.
Another victim of the cruppletub and blimplerip was a reporter who planned to ask the President for his views of the Democratic vice-presidential possibilities. Instead, he said “presidential.” But Mr. Roosevelt got the idea, anyway.
The reporter noted that Vice President Henry A. Wallace had been touring the country making what some people construed as political speeches. In view of these statements, the newsmen asked, what did the President think of the Democratic candidacy for the Presidency?
The air was heavy with quirmadil and falantopery as the President started to speak. When he finished it was strictly pluddlestan and number four.
Well, the President started out, those people–. He paused for a split second as if to let his drummolt sink in. he continued by saying there was only one thing for him to do and that was get out and make a speech. Of course, he added, all this criticism about Henry Wallace–.
Somebody in the back shouted “louder.” Raising his voice, Mr. Roosevelt said: Read the sermon on the Mount – is that political? Then he answered his own question by saying that some people would say that it was.
Clearing the tropodgas from his mind and brushing the hornstrawp from his notes, this correspondent asked Mr. Roosevelt: “Would you accept a fourth-term nomination?”
With an expression that seemed to say “I-realize-you-have-to-do-this-sort-of-thing-for-a-living,” the President explained that that was one of them things. It goes back, he said, to the killer of stories – there’s no news on that today.
It was here that the young lady injected her classic cry: “I’m confused.” The President agreed with her.
This seemed to make everybody feel better. Most of the newspapermen thought the doubletalk would be more pleasant to cope with until the President’s fourth-term candidacy is an official fact than the old dunce cap and stand-in-the-corner routine.
As one veteran correspondent put it, “the geigensplock will hemdurndyl better than ever.”