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By Root 1889 0

“cash and carry.” On October 5, Henry L. Stimson put the fox among the chickens when he departed from White House strategy and bluntly warned the country that “Britain and France are now fighting a battle which, in the event of their losing, will become our battle.” Hull had tried to get Stimson to delete the reference to Britain and France, but Stimson, characteristically, refused. To the administration’s surprise, Stimson’s speech was well received—so well that tens of thousands of copies were printed for national distribution.17 Bishop Bernard Sheil of Chicago delivered a powerful radio address supporting repeal, as did Al Smith, both designed to overcome Irish Catholic opposition. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, back in the fold, told his colleagues, “Civilization demands that we give all the aid we can to a nation attacked, and not run like cowards until our turn comes.”18

Roosevelt kept a low profile. These were tense times for the president. “I am almost literally walking on eggs” he wrote Canada’s Lord Tweedsmuir.19 For relaxation the president turned to poker, usually on Saturday evenings. Ickes, Robert Jackson, Pa Watson, Admiral Ross McIntire, FDR’s doctor, and Steve Early usually filled the places at the table. “We played until half past twelve,” Ickes reported after one such session. “We broke up because the President was tired, having had his sleep interrupted for two or three nights by flash news from Europe.” Roosevelt enjoyed wild-card games, especially “Woolworth’s,” a seven-card hand with fives and tens wild. “We were playing dollar limit,” said Ickes. “I won $53.50. The President was the heaviest loser. The game cost him about $35. One thing about playing with the President, we do not have to curry favor by letting him win.”20

At least once a month, more often if possible, Roosevelt took a cruise to nowhere on the presidential yacht Potomac. Downriver, sometimes as far as Point Lookout, the president lolled about and slept late. Missy, Pa Watson, Doc McIntire, and, when he was up to it, Harry Hopkins usually accompanied him. At the White House, FDR averaged fifteen appointments a day, dictated two dozen or so letters to Missy and Grace Tully, and continued to meet the press twice a week. Briefings from the State Department and the military consumed more and more time, cables and state papers streamed across his desk, and there was always the weekly cabinet meeting. He swam less often now, perhaps three times a week, and his blood pressure had climbed to 179/102, which Dr. McIntire dismissed as normal for a man of fifty-eight.21

Lindbergh spoke again on October 13, but the wind was gone from his sails. His overtly racist remarks fell flat. “Our bond with Europe is a bond of race and not political ideology.… Racial strength is vital—politics a luxury. If the white race is ever seriously threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part for its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans. But not with one against the other for our mutual destruction.”22*

On the eve of the Senate vote, Roosevelt broke his self-imposed public silence to dispel whatever popular fears remained. Speaking to the Herald Tribune Forum on October 26, FDR lambasted those “orators and commentators beating their breasts and proclaiming against sending the boys of American mothers to fight on battlefields of Europe.” That was “one of the worst fakes in current history,” said Roosevelt. “The simple truth is that no person in any responsible place … has ever suggested the remotest possibility of sending the boys of American mothers to fight on the battlefields of Europe. That is why I label that argument a shameless and dishonest fake.”23

Roosevelt worked both sides of the street. He held out repeal of the arms embargo as a step toward peace, while the purpose of the repeal was to aid the Allies. The implicit logic was that by helping Britain and France defeat Hitler, the United States would not have to fight.

The following day, after four weeks of debate, the Senate voted to repeal the arms