LONDON (UP) – Brig. Gen. Elliott Roosevelt left for the United States in an American plane early today to attend his father’s funeral.
Gen. Roosevelt was visiting friends in London last night when his Army chauffeur heard the news of the President’s death on a British broadcast.
The chauffeur informed Gen. Roosevelt, who returned immediately to Eighth Air Force headquarters and prepared to leave for the United States.
WITH THE U.S. FIRST ARMY (UP) – Speaking for the men in his unit, Lt. Alfio Vielmetti of Norway, Michigan, said last night of the death of President Roosevelt:
It is an awful shock. The Doughboys are going to be jolted when they awaken in the morning and learn of the President’s death. But after the first impact hits them they are going to be like a college football team.
I think they are going into battle to win it in a hurry for the old man – their coach.
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt’s last public appearance here was at the White House Correspondents Association dinner March 22.
He enjoyed the show, during which well-known radio artists quipped about his extended stay in office.
Mr. Roosevelt made no formal talk, but at the close of the evening’s entertainment, he spoke for a few minutes. He began in a seemingly serious vein about his constant concern for humanity. He wound up with the announcement that he would not hold a press conference the following day. The crowd roared.
Succession provided by act of Congress
WASHINGTON (UP) – With Harry S. Truman installed as President, the nation will be without a Vice President until January 19, 1949, when the present term of office ends.
While there is provision for succession of Cabinet members to the presidency in event of the death or removal from office of both the President and Vice President, there is no provision for a successor to the Vice President when that office becomes vacant.
In event of Mr. Truman’s death, the line of succession to the presidency would be:
The order of succession was established by Congress January 19, 1886. It makes no mention of the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce and Labor whose offices had not been created at that time.
Meanwhile, the job of presiding over the Senate, customarily held by the Vice President, falls to Sen. Kenneth McKellar (D-Tennessee) at 76. He is the oldest member in point of service and has been serving as President Pro Tempore since January 6.
The post of President of the Senate carries with it the important function of deciding to which committees bills should be sent. Since the makeup of a committee sometimes plays an important part in the treatment a measure will receive, this is an important function in determining the fate of legislation.
Mr. McKellar, who retains his status as senior senator from Tennessee, gets a salary boost from the Congressional $10,000 a year to $15,000 the vice-presidential allotment.
As a senator, he will still be entitled to a vote in all matters before the Senate. A Vice President can vote only in case of a tie.
Mr. McKellar will have only his one vote as a senator, however and will not be entitled to cast a second deciding vote in case of a tie.
Roosevelt’s closest friend calm in crisis
WASHINGTON (UP) – Probably no one will ever know what it cost Stephen T. Early to pick up the telephone and say, “Flash: The President is dead.”
The 56-year-old Steve, the oldest and closest friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, hadn’t expected he would ever have to handle this story.
In 12 years at the White House, he had done a lot for the Chief. For 24 hours a day through most of those years, he had been on call to reporters. Almost daily he met with them in person at regularly scheduled press conferences and fielded their questions expertly and honestly.
Steve had been the buffer between the administration and a news-hungry public. Often the questions he got were put with hostile intent. Steve always gave the best answer he could.
But he had reason to hope there was one story he would not have to cover. For the time finally came when Steve decided to return to private life. The years were passing, and he was staying at the White House at a considerable financial sacrifice.
Howe, McIntyre die
Only he and the Chief were left of the quartet of friends who moved into the executive mansion offices when Mr. Roosevelt became President in 1933. Lewis McHenry Howe was the first White House secretary to go. Marvin McIntyre was next. Their deaths left Mr. Early the only one left of the original group of secretaries.
Last month, the President said regretfully that Steve could go – if he would stay on until a successor could be found to Maj. Gen. “Pa” Watson, Mr. Roosevelt’s military aide and secretary who died January 20. They agreed that Steve would leave his post early in June.
That was why Steve never thought he would have to handle the story which hit him between the eyes yesterday.
Shocking personal loss
But he was wrong, and when the time came Steve performed like the veteran newspaperman he is. The President’s death was a shocking personal loss to him; it also was the biggest news story of his career, bigger than the death of President Harding which he covered as a newspaperman.
Before telling the story to the newspapers, however, there were other unhappy tasks which Steve had to perform first. It was Steve who, with Vice Adm. Ross T. McIntire, broke the news to Mrs. Roosevelt. It was he who called the soon-to-be President Truman to the White House.
This took time, and it was already late afternoon. So, Steve didn’t waste any precious moments summoning reporters to his office. Instead, he got on the phone to the three press associations for a “conference call” and made his report.
Give all details
Later, he received reporters in his office, as he had so often before. He told them everything that had happened that tragic afternoon in the White House – down to the last detail.
But it was the telephone call that revealed Steve at his crisp, efficient best. Everyone knew how deeply he loved the Chief. It would have been understandable if his voice had trembled a little.
But it didn’t. It was an apparently calm Early, who picked up the telephone and said, “Flash: The President is dead.”
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.
Death called loss for world freedom
By the United Press
The world’s and the nation’s leaders mourned today the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt but voiced confidence that his aims – complete victory over the Axis and a just and lasting peace – will be achieved.
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, in a message to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt:
I send my most profound sympathy in your grievous loss. It is also the loss of the British nation and the cause of freedom in every land.
Soviet Marshal Joseph Stalin:
The government of the Soviet Union expresses its sincere sympathy to the American people in their great loss and their conviction that the policy of friendship between the great powers who have shouldered the main burden of war against a common enemy will continue to develop in the future.
Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek:
I am convinced the American people and Roosevelt’s successor will finish his uncompleted task.
Thomas E. Dewey, Governor of New York:
In building boldly for the future peace of the world, even as the war progressed, Franklin Roosevelt made his final and perhaps his greatest contribution… All people of good will, with equal determination, will do their part in bringing to final success the work of the United Nations in establishing the foundation for a just and lasting peace.
Herbert Hoover, former President:
The nation sorrows at the passing of its President. Whatever differences there may have been, they end in regrets of death. It is fortunate that in this great crisis of war our armies and navies are under such magnificent leadership that we shall not hesitate. While we mourn Mr. Roosevelt’s death, we shall march forward.
James F. Byrnes, former director of the Office of War Mobilization:
I am sure that the sacrifice of his life will prove an inspiration to the statesmen of all nations to bring about the fulfillment of his dream that the mothers of this world should never again be called upon to offer up their sons as sacrifices to the god of war.
Harry Hopkins, former Secretary of Commerce and close friend of Mr. Roosevelt:
The people all over the country and indeed all over the world will mourn with you [Mrs. Roosevelt] tonight He was so gallant and brave.
Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Provisional President of France:
At least the decisive successes to which he so powerfully contributed will have given him the certainty of victory before he succumbed at his post. He leaves to the world an undying example and an essential message. This message will be heard.
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr.:
He, more than any one person, is responsible, in my opinion, for the successful conduct of this terrible war against the aggressor nations.
Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes:
President Roosevelt has died for us.
Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-Michigan), an outstanding critic of Mr. Roosevelt’s domestic policies:
A successful peace must be his monument.
Edward Martin, Governor of Pennsylvania:
All of us must give to Vice President Truman every ounce of strength and energy which we possess to assist in carrying on the great task which is yet unfinished.
Methodist Bishop G. Bromley, president of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America:
The world is now Ready, if it follows on in his spirit and wisdom, to possess the promised land of the Four Freedoms.
Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, president of the Synagogue Council of America:
In the death of President Roosevelt, the world lost its first citizen, the United States its greatest American and Jewry one of its staunchest friends.
Earl Browder, president of the Communist Political Association:
We must complete his task as he would have it done.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Felix de Laquerica:
All Spain senses the deepest possible sorrow at the death of a man whose disappearance is an irreparable loss, not only for his own country but for the entire world.
Frank Hague, Mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey:
The President, by ceaseless work, gave his life for his country as surely as though he died on the battlefield.
Edward J. Kelly, Mayor of Chicago:
I am sure that our Commander-in-Chief would want every American citizen to continue in the great fight to preserve civilization which he has waged with our allies during these war years.
Winthrop W. Aldrich, chairman of the Chase National Bank:
It is doubly tragic at this time because of the overwhelming influence his leadership would have exercised in the post-war world.
Most Rev. Francis J. Spellman, Catholic archbishop of New York:
Our President has taken his place among the gallant dead who have made our nation consecrate and it falls upon us, the living, to preserve this nation in fulfillment of our sacred debt to all our martyred dead.
Former Secretary of State Cordell Hull:
No greater tragedy could have befallen our country and the world at this time.
Fleet Adm. Ernest J. King:
The U.S. Navy mourns the loss of a great, good and gifted leader.
Gen. George C. Marshall:
His far-seeing vision in military counsel has been a constant source of courage to all of us who have worked side by side with him from the dark days of war’s beginning.
Sen. Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio):
He dies a hero of the war.
Associate Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy:
When tyranny stalked the civilized world, he challenged it with imagination and matchless vigor.
James A. Farley, former Postmaster General:
Words are inadequate… to properly express my sorrow.
Abusive Berlin tirade shocks even the Japs, who concede President was ‘great man’
LONDON (UP) – The Nazis burst the last bounds of decency today and continued a vilification of President Roosevelt – even in death.
German propagandists gloated openly over the President’s death. They poured out an abusive tirade that shocked the rest of the world, perhaps even Japan.
While the Japs joined with the Germans in accusing Mr. Roosevelt of causing the present war, Tokyo conceded at least the President was a “great man.”
But Berlin’s commentaries heaped abuse upon the President’s memory.
Called war’s ‘inventor’
One commentator, in a speech which was apparently written by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, said that the miracle which had saved Adolf Hitler had killed the “inventor of this war.”
The commentator was Wilfred von Ofen, one of Berlin’s best. But expert listeners said his remarks did not follow his usual tone and that they were termed much after the way Goebbels writes.
The broadcast was unusual in that Von Ofen spoke in the first person. It broke all rules and it appeared obvious that Goebbels was directing the “hate” program against Mr. Roosevelt’s name.
‘Deep satisfaction’
“It is for me, who believes in justice of fate, a deep satisfaction to witness the fact that this man, himself chiefly responsible for this second World War, does not himself survive it,” Von Ofen said. “I have never more firmly than at this moment believed in Divine justice.”
He added that a Divine miracle saved Hitler during the July 20 attempt on his life “but it struck down the other mercilessly and justly by sudden, unexpected death.”
The Jap admission was in direct contrast to the reaction in Berlin, where the news of the President’s death reached the German capital while it was undergoing an Allied air raid.
Lack official comment
While official German quarters declined to comment, one Berlin radio commentator said Mr. Roosevelt would go down in history “as the man on whose drive the present war has expanded to a second World War.”
“He was the most expensive President of the United States who above all achieved one thing – to lift in his own camp the strongest competitor into saddle: The Bolshevist Soviet Union,” the German commentator said.
Japs pay tribute
The Japs paid tribute to Mr. Roosevelt’s position in world affairs and his place in history. When news of the death reached the Jap capital, Tokyo radio interrupted a program of prisoner of war messages and announced: “We now introduce a few minutes of special music to honor the passing of this great man.”
A Jap commentator later described Mr. Roosevelt as “the symbol of American imperialism, a mixed phenomenon of the contemporary type.”
Cabinet called – Eden to attend funeral
LONDON (UP) – Prime Minister Churchill called the British cabinet into special session today to consider the effect of President Roosevelt’s death, which many diplomats feared might have grave repercussions on world security plans.
Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was named to represent the British government at Mr. Roosevelt’s funeral.
Mr. Churchill and King George led the British in paying tribute to Mr. Roosevelt. For the first time in history the House of Commons adjourned in observance of the death of an American President.
Eight-minute meeting
Commons met for eight minutes, heard Mr. Churchill speak briefly but feelingly, and adjourned. When it reconvenes next Tuesday, Mr. Churchill is expected to offer a traditional motion expressing sympathy to the King on the death of “his cousin” – the time-honored designation of the head of a great and friendly state.
Amid the mourning for Mr. Roosevelt, the realization persisted that the “Big Three” is dead with him. Diplomats felt that the peculiar personal type of negotiations of the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin triumvirate had passed away.
Whitehall and Allied government offices in London were filled with wonder at what would happen now.
Truman almost unknown
President Truman is virtually unknown in Britain. There was a fear born of uncertainty that he might be unable to get world security organization proposals through the U.S. Senate.
As one Allied government diplomat put it, “Everybody here rejoiced when Mr. Roosevelt was reelected, because we felt we knew what American policy would be for the next four years. But now we are confused.”
A high official of the Polish Foreign Office called the United Press today and asked, “Who will be the real power behind American foreign policy now?”
Mr. Churchill told Commons that Mr. Roosevelt’s “friendship for the cause of freedom and for the causes of the weak and poor won him immortal renown.”
Earlier, Mr. Churchill had cabled Mrs. Roosevelt that the President’s death was a “loss to the British nation and the cause of freedom in every land.”
King sends cable
King George cabled Mrs. Roosevelt that he and Queen Elizabeth were “deeply grieved and shocked” by news of the President’s death.
The British royal court suspended all activities for one week.
All the morning newspapers carried front-page editorials praising Mr. Roosevelt. Special editions were rushed to the streets at 1 a.m.
In Red Cross Clubs, public announcements were made – most of them twice, because nobody believed it the first time.
Telegram to Truman
King George sent a telegram to President Truman saying that his sorrow “will be shared by all my peoples who have long since felt that under President Roosevelt’s wise and understanding leadership problems of war and of the peace that is to follow were in the hands of one who had proved himself, in so signal a manner, to have at heart the welfare of mankind.”
It is especially grievous that at this moment, when forces of the Allies are bringing to a close the evil which has for so long overshadowed the continent of Europe, the knowledge and wise counsel of President Roosevelt should be taken from us…
WARM SPRINGS, Georgia (UP) – President Roosevelt was an enthusiastic stamp collector to the end.
White House Secretary William D. Hassett said the last direction he received from Mr. Roosevelt yesterday morning concerned the purchase of some stamps for his collection.
The President told Mr. Bassett he wanted to buy some of the San Francisco United Nations Conference commemorative issue which goes on sale April 25. And the President said he wanted to buy them from the San Francisco postmaster.
DETROIT (UP) – Congressional bestowal of the Medal of Honor to the late Franklin D. Roosevelt was proposed editorially today by the Detroit News.
The News said:
He was as truly a war casualty as any man who stepped into a withering fire at Iwo or the beaches of Anzio or Normandy. And let us here, in all reverence, propose that the Congress of the United States vote him posthumously the highest award for valor in its gift, the Medal of Honor.
Was best known of U.S. Presidents
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
WASHINGTON – The impact of President Roosevelt’s death on the governments and peoples of foreign lands will be scarcely less shocking than it was here at home. Abroad, he was known as no other American President ever was.
This is not only because he served more than three terms. It is because, long before World War II, he took his stand against Hitler and the Nazi-Fascist gang and called on America and the world to “quarantine” aggressor nations.
Throughout the Western Hemisphere, Mr. Roosevelt’s name stands for the Good Neighbor Policy. It is inextricably associated with the Atlantic Charter, today the beacon light of small nations everywhere. And his Four Freedoms have been translated into every tongue.
British favored him
In England, prior toa the last elections, I found the British government and the people alike overwhelmingly for Mr. Roosevelt. They had nothing against Gov. Thomas E. Dewey or the Republican Party. They were for Mr. Roosevelt, they told me, because they felt they knew him and liked him.
That was a typical bit of British understatement, however. For, to the British, Mr. Roosevelt was America. Somehow to them he was pretty much the whole war effort.
Hadn’t he aided Britain long before the shooting began at Pearl Harbor? Hadn’t he sent American weapons to England after Dunkirk? Hadn’t he traded 50 destroyers to Britain in exchange for some bases in the Atlantic?
Lend-Lease cited
To the British, Mr. Roosevelt was also Lend-Lease. He was the American Army, the American Navy and the American Air Force. They knew that to him, this war was not an American war, a British war, a Soviet war or a Chinese war, but a vast global conflict in which only two armies are at grips: The Allied army and the army of the enemies of mankind.
And they knew that Mr. Roosevelt had only one aim and that was to utilize all Allied men and ships and gun and tanks, planes, money, food and equipment wherever it would do the most good. Mr. Roosevelt made America “the arsenal of democracy” – another phrase with which his name will go down in the histories of foreign countries.
Wonder about changes
And what Mr. Roosevelt was to the British, he was to most other peoples the world over – except those of enemy countries. So, his sudden passing will not only be a tremendous shock to them but to their capitals as well. They will all be wondering what, if any, material changes will be made in his policies.
None of the Allies, of course, has any doubt that the United States will remain in the war to the very last. Or that it will continue to back the Dumbarton Oaks plan for international security after the war. One of President Truman’s first acts, after being sworn in, was to confirm that the San Francisco Conference would be held as scheduled, April 25.
But an American President, foreign capitals know, wields more power than any other one man on earth. And no two men are exactly like. They cannot help being anxious, therefore, to know whether the new man in the White House will put on the brakes a little, or go farther and faster along the road traveled by his predecessor.
Met with leaders
Moreover, in the international field there are bound to be many things – some perhaps of grave importance – about which the late President knew but which no other American does, at least not in such detail.
The first of our Presidents to make extensive journeys abroad in his official capacity, Mr. Roosevelt met again and again with Prime Minister Churchill, Marshal Stalin, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Gen. de Gaulle and other world figures.
Together they discussed affairs of state and reached understandings even involving the future peace. Because of the war, much of this necessarily was carried on in the greatest secrecy. It will be difficult for President Truman to pick up and carry on.
CIO president resumes statement about PAC and then tells of the ‘very bad news’
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
WASHINGTON – CIO President Philip Murray and Sidney Hillman, the labor leaders generally credited with mobilizing the margin of votes that won Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fourth election, were holding a press conference when news of the President’s death came.
They were completing an explanation of expansion and intensification of the CIO Political Action Committee work.
Several men entered Mr. Murray’s office. Among them were youthful “Jim” Carey, CIO secretary-treasurer, and C B. “Beany” Baldwin, former aide to Henry A. Wallace and now CIO-PAC manager. They whispered to Mr. Murray.
Fails to change expression
Nothing in the CIO president’s usually serious face indicated he had just heard of an event which must have affected him deeply.
He resumed his explanation of the CIO-PAC announcement.
Then he said, “Some very bad news has just come to me, some very bad news. It is that the President is dead.”
The press conference quickly broke up. Reporters asked Mr. Hillman for a comment.
Withholds comment
“No, no,” he pleaded. “Not now, please.”
His grief was obvious.
The main item of the CIO-PAC expansion program, as adopted by the CIO Executive Board, provides for establishment of Political Action Committees by each state and city industrial council. Thus, the organization is pointed toward activity in municipal and state, as well as congressional and presidential, contests.
All flags in France at half-staff
PARIS (UP) – Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered a 30-day mourning period for U.S. troops throughout the European Theater today in memory of President Roosevelt.
Gen. Eisenhower flashed back the order to Supreme Headquarters from the front, where he was conferring with his generals on the final phases of the Battle of Germany.
The battle was drawing to the end long ago envisioned by President Roosevelt. And it was under the direction of the man he picked to be supreme commander on the Western Front.
News spreads rapidly
Word of the death of the President spread rapidly through Supreme Headquarters and Paris, leaving sadness and grief in its wake.
Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Provisional President of France, cabled President Truman that the French government learned of Mr. Roosevelt’s death with “great emotion and deep sadness.”
He ordered flags lowered to half-staff throughout France.
In the cabarets, at the Red Cross Rainbow Corner and along the boulevards swarming with khaki the reaction was heartfelt.
Band silenced
At fashionable Ciro’s, the band was silenced and the leader read a brief announcement of Mr. Roosevelt’s death. All Allied troops left immediately.
A tank brigade sergeant on furlough tried to get through to his commanding officer to arrange to return to the front.
“I voted for him four times for President,” he said. “Since I can’t vote for him a fifth time, the least I can do is to go back up there and fight for him.”
At the Scube Hotel, headquarters of war correspondents assigned to Supreme Headquarters, a klaxon sounded three blasts – the signal reserved for major announcements. Then an officer read a United Press flash reporting the death.
‘He was a real guy’
Dumbfounded, sad-eyed American soldiers clustered about the radio in the Rainbow Corner’s big reception hall seeking further details.
Cpl. Joseph Koval of Boonton, New Jersey, was closest to the radio when the first flash was broadcast.
He leaped from his chair and screamed, “Good God, the President’s dead!”
“He was a real guy,” Sgt. Larry Buzin of Elizabeth, New Jersey, said. “We never had a guy like him.”
WASHINGTON – The announcement of President Roosevelt’s death flooded the Washington Telephone Company with the greatest “sudden peak” load of calls in recent years. Both local and long-distance circuits were swamped.
Government building flags at half-mast
By the United Press
The death of President Roosevelt was mourned through Latin America today.
Official periods of mourning were decreed, business and schools closed in cities and flags on government buildings were flown at half-mast.
In Brazil, President Getulio Vargas ordered three days of official mourning beginning today.
National mourning was decreed in Argentina by President Edelmiro Farrell and a funeral service was planned in the Buenos Aires cathedral.
Embassy flags lowered
The Cuban cabinet ordered three days of mourning beginning today.
Peru’s President Manuel Prado and Foreign Minister Manuel Gallagher cabled condolences to President Harry Truman and Secretary of State Edward Stettinius.
Banks and stores closed at Managua, Nicaragua, when the large flag on the U.S. Embassy building was lowered to half-mast, confirming reports of the death. The government declared eight days of mourning.
Play religious music
Radio stations in Chile went silent or played solemn religious music last night following news of the death.
In San Juan, Puerto Rico, nightclubs and public entertainment closed for the weekend in respect to the memory of President Roosevelt.
Dutch Guiana flags were lowered in Paramaribo to half-mast today.
In Caracas, Venezuela, the semi-official newspaper El Tiempo declared in an extra edition last night that “the greatest champion of democracy is dead.”
War pals, party workers are cronies
WASHINGTON (UP) – The “Men Closest to the President” at the start of the Truman administration fall into two principal categories – cronies of World War I and old-line Democratic Party workers.
If the new President decides to make many changes in the White House official family – and he may not because of the war – the men whom he picks to help him guide the nation’s destiny probably will come from among those two groups.
Politically, President Truman is 100 percent a Democratic Party man.
War buddies are closest
Personally, he has many friends but those of whom he speaks with the greatest affection are the men with whom he served im the last war.
One of them, Col. Harry Vaughn, is probably the closest friend of them all. Col. Vaughn, who also is a veteran of the present war, has been military aide to Mr. Truman since he became Vice President last January.
Mr. Truman keeps up an active correspondence with many of the others. One of his proudest possessions is a dog-eared black notebook in which he keeps the names and addresses of those friends. He says that it lists every surviving member of the field artillery battery which he commanded “and I can tell you a story about every one of them by just glancing through and picking out the names.”
Hannegan is pal
His devotion to the Democratic Party stems from his introduction to politics as a young member of the Pendergast machine in Kansas City more than 20 years ago.
Probably his closest friend within the party is Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, who engineered his nomination to the vice presidency at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last July.
Although the presidency carries with it leadership of the party, Mr. Truman can be expected to leave the purely political matters in the hands of men like Bob Hannegan and Sam Wear, Democratic State Chairman of Missouri.
Within the party, his closest friends include New Dealers and old-line conservatives alike. The conservatives are in a majority.
GUAM (UP) – The officers and men of the U.S. Pacific Fleet will pay a wartime tribute to their late Commander-in-Chief.
Memorial services will be held on all ships and stations, where war conditions permit, on the day of the President’s funeral. Colors will fly at half-mast for 30 days. But mourning badges will not be worn nor salutes fired because of the war.
By Fred Othman
WASHINGTON – As word of President Roosevelt’s death spread through Washington, hundreds of people gathered bareheaded on Pennsylvania Avenue to stare silently through the dusk at the tulip-bordered White House across the street.
Seven big limousines were parked helter-skelter under the portico, where the paint was scabrous, because the President had ruled no redecorating would be done during the war.
Sad-faced Secret Service agents and uniformed police patrolled the grounds, whio;le a constant stream of disbelieving newspapers reports, photographers, and newsreel men besieged the executive offices.
The cameramen gathered on the freshly-green lawns waiting to photograph Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, who hurried to the White House to sweat in Vice President Harry S. Truman as the Chief Executive.
Inside the office, a drawn-faced Steve Early – close friend and longtime presidential secretary – told the press of Mr. Truman’s immediate plans. With deep circles under his eyes, and his loud-splashed tie askew. Early told how Mr. Truman hoped “to carry on.”
Press room a madhouse
Mr. Early was so distraught that he talked as though he were dictating to his secretary, saying “period” and “comma” as he went along.
The White House press room, meantime, was a madhouse. A dozen phones rang at once, while others were busy as reporters dictated descriptions of the White House and its occupants.
Startled stenographers in the White House executive wing did not, themselves, learn of the President’s death until many minutes after it had been flashed by the news services to newspapers and radio stations.
Slowly it sank in. The hints of tears began to show in the eyes of men and women alike.
A United Press reporter, the fist to reach the White House as the news was being telephoned to press offices, asked the women in Press Secretary Jonathan Daniels’ office for details.
“We don’t know what has happened,” one of them sobbed. “We just don’t know what has happened.”
A dozen telephones rang steadily as the inquiries poured in.
Policeman gives press a jolt
Movie cameramen climbed up on the shining surface of the great, round mahogany table in the main lobby, lit their portable klieg lights, and photographed the only thing to photograph – the hoard of perspiring reporters jammed around the door to the cabinet room.
The radio networks set up their microphones. The moviemen strewed their machinery through the public rooms.
“Gentlemen, please,” cried a White House usher as a maze of cable and storage batteries were strewn across the black-and-white checked marble floors.
The secretary called out representatives of the three press associations to witness the swearing in of the new President. The other reporters, by now numbering perhaps 200, jammed chest-to-back in the corridors, straining to see. But they couldn’t see anything.
The cabinet members paced out slowly into the halls, perspiring in the intense heat.
The uniformed policeman on the door gave the press something of a mental jolt when he said: “The President has gone to the Main House with Mrs. Truman.”
Damn… even the communists are expressing sympathy.
No statements from Tojo?
Success attributed to staunch loyalty
KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Fate has slipped strange quirks into the political career of Harry S. Truman but it played the climactic card last night when he was sworn in as President of the United States.
Mr. Truman’s success and his rapid rise in the world of politics is attributed to his loyalty to superiors. First it was faithful support of Tom Pendergast, long-time political boss of Missouri and that loyalty, continued when Pendergast’s machine was broken and the leader sent to prison.
In Washington, Mr. Truman was one of President Roosevelt’s strongest supporters. He was staunchly behind Roosevelt policies throughout his stay in the Senate.
Now he is thrust into the job of supplying the leadership to make those plans a reality. Instead of a loyal follower, he now is the leader.
Remains ‘Harry’
An affable little man who didn’t even want to be Vice President and who demands that he remain “Harry” to folks who know him – that’s the 32nd President of the United States.
When Harry S. Truman left his seat in the Senate to become Vice President, he made it plain to newspapermen that he didn’t want his new job to “make any difference.” And those who know him say that still goes, even though he is now President of the United States.
The story of Harry Truman is one that could have taken place only in this country. His path from a Missouri farm to the White House led him through various commonplace jobs and then into politics.
Boss said, ‘No’
Ten years ago last spring, Mr. Truman, just finishing a term as a judge of the Jackson County Court, went to Pendergast, whose political star then was at its zenith, and asked to be put on the Democratic ticket as a candidate for county collector.
“No,” Pendergast answered quickly and definitely. “No.”
The loyal Truman was puzzled. It wasn’t the reply he had expected and he knew not what to say. But the “boss” made it easy. “You’re going to run for United States Senator,” he said, just as he might then have told a lesser adherent he might run for road overseer.
Mr. Truman was elected, then was reelected six years later when the “boss” had fallen, and then last January, against his expressed desire, he became Vice President of the United States.
Worked hard in Senate
Most persons who read the newspapers know the story there is to tell of Sen. Truman and the intervening decade. It begins with his employment in Washington of an acute, alert mind, and intense, painstaking industry – perhaps his outstanding asset to make himself a recognized factor in the Senate and thereby useful to his constituents. Added to that equipment has been his characteristic loyalty to persons or groups with claims on his services.
Returning from World War I as major of an artillery unit he had helped organize and which he took overseas, he allied himself with the Democratic party here. That was in the early 1920s.
Becomes county judge
Leaders saw in Mr. Truman a “bright young man” who knew his way about in the labyrinth of county politics and set store by him. They gave him a place on the county ticket in 1922 and he was elected judge of the county court. He was defeated for reelection, but tried again in 1926 and was elected presiding judge, a place he held until he went to the Senate.
In Missouri, three “judges” conduct the county business. They exercise no judicial functions. In some other states they would be called county commissioners.
Knowing Mr. Truman’s penchant for loyalty, it was not difficult to understand what followed. While he had been serving his first term in Washington the Kansas City machine strong house, which was actually a house of cards, top-heavy with power, toppled. Pendergast and scores of his minions were indicted on charges that Democratic district attorney Maurice M. Milligan made stick.
Some quit, not Truman
Some lesser and some greater beneficiaries of the machine and its boss washed their hands of both or turned their backs, but not Sen. Truman. When told in Washington that Pendergast had been indicted by a federal grand jury, his only comment was: "I’m sorry it happened, but I’m not going to desert a ship that is going down.”
It was his loyalty to President, Roosevelt and the New Dealers that gave him reelection in 1940. The crew that had sent him to the Senate in 1934 with a whopping majority was under a cloud. Vote frauds at its hands, exposed and vigorously prosecuted by the crusading district attorney, had sent ward-heelers and even machine leaders scurrying for cover. Many were in jails. There were suicides, disappearances, and Pendergast, himself, faced a penitentiary term.
Tough opposition
At that unpropitious period Sen. Truman’s term expired.
District Attorney Milligan ran against him im the primary. Gov. Lloyd C. Stark, who had put one of the early time fuses under the Pendergast machine, also entered the race against Truman. Both hard-fighting men traversed the state shouting “bossism” at Sen. Truman and citing the source of his support.
Mr. Truman made no reply, not even to deny continuing loyalty to the machine. He made his campaign as “The right arm of the President,” 100 percent loyalty to him and the New Deal. He never mentioned state affairs. but talked of national and international problems.
With his opposition split two ways, Mr. Truman squeezed through to a nomination, and swamped his Republican opponent in the general election.
Earned respect
Even in his first term, still tethered to the machine, Sen. Truman asserted personal characteristics that won places for him on important Senate committees, and earned the respect of his fellow senators and of the administration. His undeviating loyalty to the New Deal caught White House attention. His tireless energy led less willing Senators to load him with legislative matters that might not have fallen to him otherwise.
Fearless investigator
His fearless conduct as chairman of the Senate War Investigating Committee – long known as the Truman Committee – proved clearly his high sense of responsibility in public office. His committee spared no one, not even high administration figures, if it thought their war leadership deserved public criticism.
Under his leadership the committee made government savings estimated at upwards of a billion dollars.
Its investigators pried into war plants, shipyards, and Army and Navy contracts, and the committee’s activities eventually led indirectly to the concentration of war production authority under one man, Donald M. Nelson.
Was good listener
And behind it all was the former Jackson County judge who promised, when he first went to the Senate, to “do a lot of listening and mighty little talking.” He has kept the promise personally, but his work through the years of preparation and war have spoken loudly for him.
He never has posed as a statesman. In his own words, expressed years ago, he “just works at whatever he has to do.”
Sen. Truman will be 61 years old May 8. He is a scion of two pioneer western Missouri families who came to Jackson County in 1842.
His mother, Mrs. Martha Truman, 92 years old, speaks glowingly even now of Harry’s willingness to work when he was a farm boy and of his ability to plow the straightest row to be found on any farm in Jackson County. There 1s another son, J. V. Truman, who farmed the Truman acres for many years and now is with the FHA, of whom the mother speaks with pride.
Mother preferred Senate
Before he was nominated for the vice presidency, Mr. Truman’s mother said she hoped her son would remain in the Senate.
After the nomination, Mother Truman said: “I liked him just as well before he got the nomination.”
High school, at Independence, was the limit of the Senator’s formal education but he went right on educating himself.
He once said:
I read everything in the Independence Library, including the encyclopedia, before I quit school. I’ve always been sorry I did not get a university education in the regular way. But I got it in the Army the hard way and it stuck.
In 1919, Truman married Miss Bessie Wallace of Independence. They have a daughter, Margaret, who has attended school in Washington while the family has lived in the capital.
Incidentally, the middle initial “S” in the nominee’s name stands for Shippe, which was the middle name of his grandfather.