Farley resignation seen as prelude to 4th term fight
May enter race for nomination
Democratic and Republican leaders today agreed in interpreting the surprise resignation of James A. Farley as State Democratic chairman to mean that he intends to take an active part in attempting to prevent a fourth-term nomination for President Roosevelt, even if his own name has to be entered as a contender for the nomination.
Farley’s announcement, based on his claim that “business duties and obligations” would prohibit him from giving to the campaign the time he felt would be necessary to its success, had a hollow ring to most political experts, who said they saw in the explanation a literal warning to the President that his former staunch ally was preparing to fight a fourth-term nomination more vigorously than he opposed a third term for Franklin Roosevelt.
After the former Postmaster General released his prepared statement announcing the resignation in his Hotel Biltmore office yesterday, newsmen piled him with questions, but he refused to be pinned down. The only query he answered for the record concerned his future interest in politics.
“It is only natural for a fellow who has always been a Democrat to be interested in the success of the Democratic Party,” he said. Beyond that, he would not go.
Farley said he will attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, July 19, as a delegate. But he flatly refused to say if he would be a candidate for the presidential nomination.
It was reported that President Roosevelt knew in advance of the resignation, but that the information did not come from Farley himself.
Farley called a meeting of the state committee for July 11, just a week before the national conventions opens, at which his successor will be chosen, but he made it clear he had made no recommendations to the committee or any of its members.
Kelly’s name mentioned
Although Frank V. Kelly, Kings County Democratic leader, announced that he is not a candidate to succeed Farley as chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Rudolph Reimer, former Commissioner of Immigration, said today he believes the committeemen should urge the election of Mr. Kelly to that post.
Farley’s political career began when he was elected town clerk of Stony Point when he was only 22. He rose through a succession of posts, including assemblyman, member of the State Athletic Commission, Postmaster General and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His success in the party’s top position led Franklin Roosevelt to choose him to run his campaign for nomination in 1932. It was during the President’s second term that the rift between them began to make itself noticeable. Farley had never been a full New Dealer. He opposed the President’s Supreme Court “packing,” the purge of anti-New Dealers and the third term.