Winning With Words. Chapter Three: The Real Campaign Begins at its Very End
Sam Rosenman and Bob Sherwood wrote Roosevelt's speeches. Harry Hopkins helped. Sherwood, a Pulitzer winner, raised the bar high. They had seven of them in thirteen days with everything on the line.
This Chapter: On October 23, Roosevelt began his ten-day push to the end of the third term election. After two months of “talking philosophy” of democracy over fascism, he would begin taking the Willkie Republicans to the woodshed over “deliberate falsifications of facts.” Roosevelt did just that in Philadelphia and everybody was thrilled with the speech, except for the men who wrote it. Sherwood and Hopkins said it “didn’t soar.” Rosenman said it was boilerplate, which is too heavy to soar. They blamed writing it as a committee. There were six speeches left, so they each took two, giving Harry the two easiest and Sherwood the two hardest. Sherwood was new to the game but alive with purpose. He promised big things for the final speech in Cleveland.
Contents: These are the chapters with their dates of release on Substack.
Playing Professional Politics. Saturday, May 17
Radio and Rail Rolling. Sunday, May 18
The Real Campaign Begins at its Very End. Monday, May 19
Handling John L. Lewis and Joe Kennedy. Tuesday, May 20
Countdown: Election Day Minus Eight; New York. Wednesday, May 21
Countdown: Election Day Minus Seven: Selective Service in Washington. Thursday, May 22
A Cold Look at the National Map. Friday, May 23
Countdown: Election Day Minus Six: Boston. Saturday, May 24
Countdown: Election Day Minus Four: Brooklyn. Sunday, May 25
Countdown: Election Day Minus Three: Cleveland. Monday, May 26
Monday Night: Tallulah Produces a Big Show. Tuesday, May 27
Tuesday, Election Night, Hyde Park. Wednesday, May 28
Chapter Three: The Real Campaign Begins at its Very End
Reading time: thirteen minutes
They were two hours late leaving the day of the trip to Philadelphia because Roosevelt had given the bulk of the time of his visit to the doctors over to Harry’s condition, including a medication upgrade. Roosevelt suffered from a mild form of hypochondria, half-real and half-political. He understood his actual limitations, but insisted on regular examinations that resulted in professional announcements of clean bills of health that Steve Early fed to the newshounds. Routinely, he took Harry along when he saw his doctors, lying to him that he had things to discuss, when the truth was he was more concerned about Harry’s health than his own. Harry wasn’t fooled by the boss’s mendacity and he wasn’t a hypochondriac. He was dying by slow but certain degrees, and he knew it.
It took another three hours for the train to cover the hundred miles to Wilmington, where the president unlimbered his vocal chords with a brief speech from the back porch. He reminded the gathering, “Last July, I stated a plain and obvious fact, when I told the national convention of my party that the pressure of national defense work and the conduct of national affairs would not allow me to conduct any campaign in the accepted definition of that term. With every passing day has come some urgent problem in connection with our swift production for defense, and our mustering of the resources of the nation.
“Therefore, I have found it essential to adhere to the rule never to be more than twelve hours distant from our National Capital. But last July I also said this: ‘I shall never be loath to call the attention of the nation to deliberate or unwitting falsifications of fact, which are sometimes made by political candidates.’
“And the time has come for me to do just that. Tonight, in Philadelphia, and on the radio nationally, I shall open the phase of this election that will do for the people of our country what they have been asking of me in letters and telegrams. The people know all these misstatements cannot possibly be unwitting falsifications of fact and they have asked me to call them out for what they are:
“Deliberate falsifications of fact!”
With that priming of his oratorical pump, he came out swinging that night before 25,000 in Philadelphia’s Convention hall and thirty million others listening on the radio. He said it was perfectly acceptable in a democratic election for the parties to discuss real issues. “Truthful campaign discussion of public issues is essential to the American form of government, but willful misrepresentation of fact has no place either during election time or at any other time.
“It is unacceptable for any party or any candidate to state that the President of the United States telephoned to Mussolini and Hitler to sell Czechoslovakia down the river, or to state that the unfortunate unemployed of the nation are going to be driven into concentration camps, or that the Social Security funds of the Government of the United States will not be in existence when the workers of today become old enough to apply for them, or that the election of the present Government means the end of American democracy within four years. I think they know, and I know we know that all those statements are false.”
The crowd erupted in interruptions of applause and cheers as he spoke. This was the man they had been waiting for.
“Certain techniques of propaganda, created and developed in dictator countries, have been imported into this campaign. It is the very simple technique of repeating and repeating and repeating falsehoods, with the idea that by constant repetition and reiteration, with no contradiction, the misstatements will finally come to be believed. I make the charge now that those falsifications are being spread for the purpose of filling the minds and the hearts of the American people with fear. They are used to create fear by instilling in the minds of our people doubt of each other, doubt of their Government, and doubt of the purposes of their democracy.
“The American people will not be stampeded into panic. The overwhelming majority of Americans will not be scared by this blitzkrieg of verbal incendiary bombs. They are now calmly aware that, once more, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ ”
With those words the man who had saved them eight years ago was mounted again and leading the charge.
“The worst bombshell of fear which the Republican leaders have let loose on this people is the accusation that this Government of ours, a Government of Republicans and Democrats alike, without the knowledge of the Congress or of the people, has secretly entered into agreements with foreign nations. They even intimate that such commitments have pledged in some way the participation of the United States in some foreign war. It seems almost unnecessary to deny such a charge. But so long as the fantastic misstatement has been made, I must brand it for what it is.
“I give to you and to the people of this country this most solemn assurance: There is no secret treaty, no secret obligation, no secret commitment, no secret understanding in any shape or form, direct or indirect, with any other Government, or any other nation in any part of the world, to involve this nation in any war or for any other purpose.”
He reminded them of where they had been before he came along and where they were this day.
“The American people have not forgotten the condition of the United States in 1932. We all remember the failures of the banks, the bread lines of starving men and women, the youth of the country riding around in freight cars, the farm foreclosures, the home foreclosures, the bankruptcy and the panic.
“Back in 1932, those leaders were willing to let the workers starve if they could not get a job. Back in 1932, they were not willing to guarantee collective bargaining. Back in 1932, they met the demands of unemployed veterans with troops and tanks. Back in 1932, they raised their hands in horror at the thought of fixing a minimum wage or maximum hours for labor. They never gave one thought to such things as pensions for old age or insurance for the unemployed.
“What are the plain facts about employment today?
“There are nine million more men and women employed in private industry now than were employed in March of 1933. In the month of August of this year over four hundred thousand were added to the payrolls. And last month, September, another five hundred thousand workers went to work in our industries. The millions that have gone to work, and the other hundreds of thousands now going to work each month in private industry, are the unequivocal answer to the brazen statement made by the Republicans in this campaign, that this Administration has not added one private job since 1933. That statement of theirs can only be branded as a deliberate misstatement of fact. And I now so brand it.
“Let us call the roll of some of the specific improvements in the lot of the working men and women that have come about during the past eight years.
“More than forty-two million American employees are now members of the old-age pension system. An additional two million men and women over sixty-five years of age, are now receiving cash grants each month.
“Twenty-nine million American employees have been brought under the protection of unemployment insurance.
“Collective bargaining has been guaranteed. A minimum wage has been established. A maximum work week of forty hours has been fixed, with provision for time-and-a-half for overtime. Child labor has been outlawed.
“The average hourly earnings of factory workers are today twenty percent higher than in 1929, and twenty-five percent higher than in 1932. And the cost of living today is twenty-two per cent lower than it was in 1929. Our national income has nearly doubled since 1932, from thirty-nine billions up to the rate of seventy-four billions in 1940.
“In the ten years before the crash of 1929, the years of the so-called prosperity boom, bank failures averaged over six hundred a year. The number of bank failures last year was only forty-two, and of those forty-two, thirty-two were not under federal deposit insurance. Ten were. Those ten were under federal deposit insurance set up by this Administration. In those ten banks, ninety-nine per cent of the depositors did not lose one dollar. During this Administration the total number of bank failures for the entire seven years was less than the number of bank failures in any single year of the preceding ten years.
“You know, there are some banks now using money to advertise, or to send letters to their depositors, hinting that unless this Administration is defeated, the deposits of their banks will be in danger. That is sheer intimidation to return the financial control of the Government to the very forces that had nearly wrecked the nation.
“Now as to corporation profits. They were a minus quantity in 1932. Corporations as a whole showed losses of almost four billion dollars that year. By now, eight years later, that deficit has been not only wiped out, but corporations are reporting profits of four billion dollars a year. The output of our factories and mines is now almost thirteen per cent greater than at the peak of 1929 — 1929, mind you, not 1932. It is at the highest level ever recorded. And yet they say this Administration prevents profits and stifles business!
“We have passed the time when the prosperity of the nation is measured in terms of the stock ticker. We know that the well-being of a people is measured by the manner in which they live, by the security which they feel in their future.
“We do not advertise a chicken in every pot or even two cars in every garage. We know that it is more important that the American people this year are building more homes, are buying more pairs of shoes, more washing machines, more electric refrigerators, more electric current, more textile products than in the boom year of 1929. This year there is being placed on the tables of America more butter, more cheese, more meat, more canned goods — more food in general than in that luxurious year of 1929.
“Tonight there is one more false charge — one outrageously false charge — that has been made to strike terror into the hearts of our citizens. It is a charge that offends every political and religious conviction that I hold dear. It is the charge that this Administration wishes to lead this country into war. That charge is contrary to every fact, every purpose of the past eight years. Throughout these years my every act and thought have been directed to the end of preserving the peace of the world, and more particularly, the peace of the United States — the peace of the Western Hemisphere.
“As I saw the war coming to Europe, I called upon the Congress, and I called upon the nation, to build the strong defenses that would be our best guarantee of peace and security in the American Hemisphere.
“To Republicans and Democrats, to every man, woman and child in the nation I say this: Your President and your Secretary of State are following the road to peace. We are arming ourselves not for any foreign war. We are arming ourselves not for any purpose of conquest or intervention in foreign disputes. I repeat again that we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas except in case of attack.
“It is for peace that I have labored; and it is for peace that I shall labor all the days of my life.”
The crowd in Philadelphia got all they had hoped for, cheered and clapped and stomped their feet. But not Hopkins, Rosenman, and Sherwood who watched from the gallery.
Rosenman said, “Well received.”
Hopkins said, “And well delivered.”
Sherwood said, “Well typed, too, I thought.”
Hopkins: “Yes. One of Grace’s better efforts.”
Sherwood: “Didn’t soar.”
Hopkins: “It sounded more assembled than written.”
Rosenman: “And for the very good reason that it was assembled. Still, I think we had to erect the boilerplate tonight and it did that. We can build on it.”
Hopkins: “You know the part I disliked the most? The end. That line ‘except in case of attack’ sounds weaselly to me. Sly. Like he knows something they don’t. Who wrote that?”
Sherwood: “You.”
Rosenman: “That’s the official position. Of the party and of the president.”
Sherwood: “Boilerplate doesn’t soar. It’s too heavy.”
Hopkins: “It sounds like an official position, like committee bullshit. It’s the kind of talk that can get you beat. It creates suspicion, or at least disbelief. The kind that festers unexpressed.”
Sherwood: “It doesn’t make sense to say we’re building a massive army just to have them sit on their asses.”
Hopkins: “Exactly! We should say we’re doing it to make damn sure nobody would ever dream of fucking with Uncle Sam! Growl at those fascist bastards!”
Rosenman: “That’s what we’re doing wrong. Writing as a committee. We’ve got to assign each speech to one person.”
Sherwood: “We need an overriding theme, too. So we can use one speech at a time to rise to the crescendo of the final curtain.”
Hopkins: “Final curtain? God, Bob, I hate that more than ‘except in case of attack’.”
Sherwood: “It’s a theatrical expression. Like the grand finale.”
Hopkins: “Okay. I like grand finale a lot better. We need a chant, too. Something for the crowd to pick up and shout out.”
Sherwood: “I don’t know what you mean.”
Hopkins: “I don’t either, but it’ll come. It will arrive!”
Rosenman: “Do you think there’s any chance we aren’t up to this? Not good enough?”
Hopkins: “Well, I’m good enough and both of you are better than me.”
Sherwood: “I want him to keep going higher and higher, night after night for a week. I want them to think, ‘Where will he go next? How much better can he get?’ Until the last one. What’s that? Cleveland? Saturday? Until that one, when he just takes their skin off.”
Harry and Sam went quiet with that. Bob said, “Am I overdoing it? Too dramatic?”
Harry said, “No. You sound like you think there’s a Pulitzer Prize for speechwriting and we ought to try to win it as a team.”
Sam said, “Well, there is, and the trophy is Adolf Hitler’s hide nailed to the barn door.”
Bob said, “And that’s why I’m in with you. I want the win now and the big win later.”
Harry said, “Or what the hell’s a heaven for? I like Sam’s idea. I’ll take the Selective Service speech and the one from Hyde Park. They’re the two easiest.”
Sam said, “I’ll take Manhattan and Brooklyn. Bob gets Boston and Cleveland. He’ll bat cleanup. You okay with that, Bob?”
Bob said, “Yeah. I like it. I’ll take their skin off in Cleveland.”
Harry said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t have anything better to do for the next ten days.”
The campaign for the election to the presidency of the only man to ask for three terms had begun. In thirteen days the people would vote.