Statement by E. O. Bacmeister

E. O. BACMEISTER 356 WEST 3OTH STREET New YORK CITY - LONGACRE 5-9677 Won't someone please get into print or on the air with this crucial message ? THE SO*CALLED THIRD TERM ISSUE IS A PHONY AND A FRAUD. What that venerable precent, now so fervidly invoked by the embattled dent conservatives, actually provided was, that a president, who had served eight years to the nation's satisfaction should voluntarily withdraw IN FAVOR OF A TRIED AND TRUSTED LIEUTENANT WHO WOULD CARHY ON HIS POLICIES. Gertainly that is not what the Roosevelt-haters desire. On the contrary it is exactly that they have toiled night and day for years to prevent. There is a certain grim irony in the fact that some of those who are now most apo- plectic with virtuous indignation over this dastardly violation of a sacred trust 11 are the very ones who made that violation unaviodable by their indefatiguable and euccesoful efforts to "put the fingeron " every legitinate heir to the Rooseveltian "mantley. Let us look at the record. The majority of the plain people are quite certainly pro-Roosevelt and pro-Biow-Deal. The pillars of society, the great busciness financial, and industr ial interests, the elder statesmen and professional politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties, and the "Loads of the Press" are almost solidly, and quite passionately anti-Roosevelt and anti-New-Deal. The latter are powerful, but they are few. In order to perpetuate their power they must somehow deceive, bewilder, or disenfranchise that dissident majority. For eight years they tried by fair means and foul to undermine the popular faith in the Roosevelt leadershipe with surprizingly little success, considering the means at their disposal. But they could comfort themselves with the thought that in 1941 the Roosevelts must Vacate the White House. So they concentrated their forces on eliminating in advance every able and liberal favorite who might step into his shoes. Every time it was rumored or even suspected that any promising left-winger was beeing groomed as a "crown prince" that man was immediately made the target of a nation-wide publicity cam aign of vilifica tion and ridicule. Cases in point are those of Moley, Berle, Tugwell, Murphy, Black, Ickes, Frankfurter, Corcoran, Jackson, and Thurman Arnold. Significantly enough, as soon as the victims were eliminated as *presidential timber" ( for instance by elevation to the Supreme Bench, or as in the case of Moley and Tugwell, to the still more sacred precincts of Lacrative Private Business) the chorus of vituperation was hushed almost as abruptly as it began. At the same time unlimited high-po er publicity was given to the silly rootless candidacy of Cactus Jack Garner, and, when that proved a complete flop in the first primaries, the bally-hoo was switched to such Democratic weak sisters as Farley, MeNutt, Wheeler, Clark, with never a kind word for those who were faithful to the president and trusted by liberal voters. Th e happy result of this conspiracy was that the Democratic Convention in Chicago faced the dilemma of either nominating a weak candidate who would guarantee Republican victory andthe end of the New Deal, or of defying the time-honored prejudice against a third nomination. The delegates chose the less of the two evils, but in a sullen spirit. Their gloom was hardly relieved by the quiet but firm insistence of the president that,1f he ran, it should be as a straight-out liberal, with no conciliatory gestures toward the treacherous right wing. The mingled exultation and dismay felt by the reactionary press over the success of theu coup could hardly be concealed under a flood of crocodile tears for poor dear wronged Jim Farley.