Roll of drums starts body on way home
Church bell peals in country steeple
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
How to place flag at half-mast
All flags displayed by civilians should be flown at half-mast for 30 days – the same period as that being observed by the Army – in mourning the death of President Roosevelt, Army officials in Pittsburgh announced today.
In raising a flag to half-mast, they said, the flag should first be hoisted to the top of the mast and then lowered gently to half-mast. In lowering the flag at sundown, it should be raised from its half-mast position to the top of the staff and then lowered completely.
Where flags are fastened to masts and cannot be raised or lowered, the Army official said that civilians should attach black ribbon streamers, about half the length of the flag. These, it was pointed out, should be placed at the top of the staff directly under the ball or eagle, and left to hang down and fly with the colors.
WARM SPRINGS, Georgia – The body of Franklin D. Roosevelt today was borne from the “Little White House” in Georgia to the roll of muffled drums, starting the long, last journey to Washington.
The hot southern sun shone in a blue sky as the funeral cortege left the green hills the president loved so well. The procession moved slowly down the winding mile-long road to Warm Springs station.
Church bell peals
In the distance a church bell pealed from some country steeple.
The cortege left the “Little White House” at 10:30 a.m. Along the road stood hundreds of residents of the president’s “Other Home.” They bared their heads and stood in silence as the cortege passed.
First came the U.S. Army Band from nearby Fort Benning, Georgia. The roll of its muffled drums tied softly over the countryside in the still, warm air.
Behind the band marched 1,000 infantrymen, led by three companies of carbine-carrying troops, followed by riflemen. Their colors flew black streamers to signify the mourning of the nation.
Troops present arms
Then came the hearse bearing the president’s body in a copper-lined, flag-draped mahogany casket.
As the troops reached the little station across the tracks from the Warm Springs Hotel and the little row of Warm Springs stores and business buildings, they deployed into company front and presented arms.
Honor guard afoot
Behind the hearse and at each flank was the Honor Guard of high naval officers, afoot. Next came Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, dressed in black, with a fur cape. She sat stiffly upright, outwardly composed as she has been throughout.
With Mrs. Roosevelt rode Fala. He sat quietly at Mrs. Roosevelt’s feet, apparently sensing that something was wrong – what, he could not quite know.
Along the route, troops – overseas veterans – stood at attention. Many of them cried openly as they stood rigidly presenting arms.
The cortege wound through the pleasant grounds of the Warm Springs Foundation. Some two hours before the faint beat of the drums signaled the approach of the cortege, the patients – like Mr. Roosevelt, victims of infantile paralysis – had hobbled out in front of the main dormitory. Some were wheeled by their nurses.
Frank and open sorrow
In a semi-circle they watched the cortege pass. Here there were tears, and frank and open sorrow.
A thirteen-year-old, Jay Fribourg, said: “I love him so much.” He clenched his teeth to keep back the sobs.
Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson, a Georgia Negro who was a favorite of the president’s, stepped from the circle of mourners. He had his accordion which he had often played for Mr. Roosevelt.
As the cortege approached, he lifted the accordion and played the haunting strains of Dvorak’s “Going Home” from the New World Symphony. Then he played “Nearer My God to Thee.”
Standing there, too, was old Tom Logan. For 14 years he had been Mr. Roosevelt’s waiter at Warm Springs. His chin trembling and his shoulders shaking, the white-haired Negro watched the body of his friend pass by.
“Lord God, take care of him now,” said Logan.
Slowly the procession passed on. The victims of the malady with whom Mr. Roosevelt had a special bond watched it disappear in the distance.
Casket put on train
At 10:55 a.m., the president’s casket was placed aboard the train by eight enlisted men, the picked Body Guard for the last journey.
Mrs. Roosevelt, accompanied by the president’s two cousins, Miss Laura Delano and Miss Margaret Suckley, and Grace Tully, the president’s secretary, boarded the train.
The train was the same as the president’s usual special, with one extra car, making 11 cars in all.
As the troops in their olive drab stood at attention and the townsfolk of Warm Springs bared their heads, the train pulled out at 11:13 a.m.
Crowd stands silently
The crowd stood silently as the train gathered speed and rumbled northward along the tracks. Finally, it rounded a bend and all that could be seen was a thin trail of black smoke.
Even then the townsfolk and the troops stood silently as the Georgia sun beat down more strongly. Then, in little knots the crowd broke up.
The Army troops broke rank and clambered into the buses that were to take them back to Fort Benning.
Townsfolk strolled to their homes and businesses. Farmers climbed into their cabs for the drive back. For the last time the president had left Warm Springs.
The train will make a slow run to Washington. It is scheduled to arrive in the capital’s Union Station at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
Mrs. Roosevelt, bearing her sorrow bravely, flew here to make the sad journey with the body back to Washington.
Death struck at 4:35 p.m.
The president died at 4:35 p.m. yesterday of a cerebral hemorrhage that struck him two and a half hours earlier. Death came to him in a small bedroom of “The Little White House” at the Warm Springs Foundation, his “other home.” He was 63.
Funeral services will be held in the East Room of the White House at 4 p.m. tomorrow. At 10 p.m., the funeral party will leave Washington by train for the ancestral Roosevelt estate on the Hudson at Hyde Park, New York. It will arrive there at 9 a.m. Sunday.
The president will be buried at 10 a.m. Sunday in the sunlit garden between his Hyde Park home and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library – a garden bordered by a hemlock hedge and a profusion of rose bushes.
Until the burial, the president’s body will be guarded 24 hours a day by sentries chosen from enlisted men of the Navy, the Army and the Marine Corps.
First lady ‘heroic’
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early, who accompanied Mrs. Roosevelt here from Washington, said she bore her grief “very nobly – in fact, she was heroic.”
Shortly after she reached the Little White House, Mrs. Roosevelt went into seclusion. Previously, however, she had discussed the funeral plans with members of the staff and reached quick, clear-cut decisions for the simple rites which she felt the president would have wanted.
Staff works on
All through last night the president’s staff worked at a feverish pace for “The Boss,” as they called him. Hundreds of Warm Springs and Meriwether County neighbors wanted to stop by and shake a hand and offer a word of consolation, but Marine and Secret Service guards stopped them at the gates to the Foundation.
While Mr. Roosevelt lay dying yesterday, a large party of his friends were waiting in innocence for him to appear at an old-fashioned barbecue given by Mayor Frank Allcorn of Warm Springs. The Brunswick stew was bubbling in a huge cook pot, country fiddlers were playing “The Cat and the Chicken,” and everyone was on his toes for the chief executive’s arrival.
He was supposed to have been there at 4:30 and when he didn’t arrive at that scheduled moment, someone called the Little White House switchboard to ask what the trouble was. At the same moment, Louise Hackmeister, the president’s personal telephone operator, reached Mr. Allcorn’s cottage with the news.