FDR - Jean Edward Smith [277]
With Europe at war all eyes turned to Roosevelt. Was a third term in the offing? The president kept his own counsel. He did nothing to indicate that he was a candidate, but, more significantly, he did nothing to suggest he was not. Garner, who worked closely with the White House to secure passage of the “cash and carry” bill, believed Roosevelt would run. “He didn’t talk like a man who was coming to the end of his term. He didn’t say that war was inevitable, but he gave the impression that if there was one he intended to run it.”24
The idea of a third term was a political bugbear. No presidential incumbent had ever sought one. Roosevelt sometimes joked about the possibility, but never in such a way that would tip his hand. “The country is sick and tired of Roosevelts,” he told Ed Flynn, recalling what “Uncle Ted” had said when third-term speculation arose: “They are sick of looking at my grin, and they are sick of hearing what Alice had for breakfast.”25
As speculation increased, FDR encouraged and exploited it. He relished the backdrop at the annual Gridiron Dinner of Washington journalists in December 1939—a giant sphinx with Roosevelt’s face complete with pince-nez and the cigarette holder at a jaunty angle. The chances are that FDR had not made up his mind. The fieldstone library at Hyde Park he had designed to house his papers and memorabilia—the nation’s first presidential library—was nearing completion, as was his hilltop dreamhouse above Val-Kill. The three-bedroom cottage was built to FDR’s specifications, with extra-wide doors and no thresholds so that his wheelchair could roll easily, and he and Missy had gradually furnished it to his liking. “It’s perfect, just perfect,” he would often say.26
There was also the question of his health. Roosevelt was fifty-eight, but twelve years in Albany and Washington had taken their toll. “No, Dan, I just can’t do it,” he told Teamster president Daniel Tobin just after Christmas. “I am tired. I really am. I can’t be president again. I have to get over this sinus. I have to have a rest. I want to go home to Hyde Park. I want to take care of my trees. I want to make the farm pay. I want to write history. No, I just can’t do it.”27
In January 1940 Roosevelt signed a contract with Collier’s magazine to become a contributing editor at $75,000, a year commencing after he left office in 1941. Collier’s had offered substantially more, but FDR considered it inappropriate to earn a greater salary as editor than he had as president of the United States. The contract ran for three years, several editorial assistants were provided, and Roosevelt would write twenty-six articles annually.28 His mind was apparently made up. “I definitely know what I want to do,” he told Henry Morgenthau. “I do not want to run unless between now and the [Democratic] convention things get very, very much worse in Europe.”29
When the elderly George Norris visited the White House in February to urge FDR to run for a third term, he said much the same thing: “George, I am chained to this chair from morning till night. People come in here day after day, most of them trying to get something from me, most of them things I can’t give them, and wouldn’t if I could. You sit in your chair in your office too, but if something goes wrong or you get irritated or tired, you can get up and walk around, or you can go into another room. But I can’t. I am tied down to this chair day after day, week after week, month after month. And I can’t stand it any longer. I can’t go on with it.”30
William Bullitt, paying a quick visit to Washington from his post in Paris, reports having dinner at the White House with FDR and Missy in late February. Roosevelt collapsed and fell