FDR - Jean Edward Smith [233]
“In those days we feared fear. That is why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.”
Roosevelt reminded the audience that political tyranny had been wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. But new tyrannies had arisen to threaten American liberty.
Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor—other people’s lives.
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution.
Roosevelt’s voice rose and fell as he lifted the audience through the rhythmic cadences:
Governments can err. Presidents do make mistakes. But the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
The vast audience gave Roosevelt another tumultuous ovation. When quiet settled over the stadium, the president lowered his voice and continued, reciting the sermon’s lesson, as it were:
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is asked. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
Another thundering ovation. FDR looked up, acknowledged the response, smiled, and threw his head back. He had reached his conclusion. “I accept the commission you …”36 But the cheers and applause that cascaded through the stadium drowned his last words. For ten minutes the shouting continued. FDR raised his hands over his head like a boxer. Then he raised Garner’s. They were joined on the podium by Sara and the president’s family. The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra played “Auld Lang Syne.” Roosevelt requested another chorus, began singing himself, and soon the whole stadium joined in. Soon the president returned to his car. With the top down, FDR took two victory laps around the track to an intense ovation. Even after he left the stadium the crowd remained, mesmerized by the evening’s events.37
As he had done after winning the nomination in 1932, Roosevelt left after the convention for a two-week sailing vacation, this time on the Sewanna, a fifty-six-foot schooner owned by New York lawyer Harrison Tweed. Once again James, John, and Franklin, Jr., crewed for the president, joined by two professional seamen provided by Mr. Tweed. “I haven’t the faintest idea where I’m going except to work to the east’ard,” FDR told reporters on July 14 as he set sail from Maine’s Pulpit Harbor.38 Instead of heading immediately to Campobello, Roosevelt sailed across the Gulf of Maine and the mouth of the Bay of Fundy to the southern tip of Nova Scotia. He made the 108-mile crossing in thirty hours and, when the weather turned heavy, personally took the 9 P.M. and 3 A.M. watches.39 For twelve days FDR sailed in and out of the small coves on Nova Scotia’s south shore before recrossing the Bay of Fundy for Campobello. “His seamanship was tested by the sail in rough, white-capped seas,” reported The New York Times. “The decks were awash in a run before a stiff southeast wind. The president, at the wheel, clad in oilskin, brought the Sewanna through the treacherous Grand passage between Digby Neck and Brier Island, where