National Affairs: Man of the Year, 1934

(See front cover)

In Chapter 1934 of the great visitors book which men call History many a potent human being scrawled his name the twelvemonth past. But no man, however long his arm, could write his name so big as the name written by the longer arm of mankind. Neither micrometer nor yardstick was necessary to determine that the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was written bigger, blacker, bolder than all the rest.

While other men in other lands were making 1934 history, the voters of the U. S. took pencil & paper on Nov. 6 and wrote their own ticket for Man of the Year. It was not a new ticket because they had picked Franklin Roosevelt as their Man of 1932 by electing him to the Presidency, but it was a different one. Two years ago a hundred million people looked to this cheerful, charming gentleman to do something in the greatest industrial crisis on record. This year they used their ballots again, not as a desperate hope but as a grateful reward for services rendered. President Roosevelt might not have done all the things he promised to do and all the things he did do might not be for the country's good in the long run —but what he did do seemed so much better than the deeds of any other single citizen in the land that only the narrowest partisan could cavil at his popular selection as The Man of 1934.

In last November's election there was but one national issue— the New Deal. The voters' verdict was not a mere stamp of approval. It was a paean of acclamation. With unqualified popular enthusiasm New Dealers were swept head over heels into office. For the first time since the Civil War a President in office had his mandate from the people not only renewed but enormously enlarged in an off-year election. The landslide of 1932 was almost submerged and forgotten in the landslide of 1934. What made the name of Franklin Roosevelt so big, so black, so bold, was the fact that the wealthiest single nation of the modern world had committed itself as never before to one man in a do-or-die attempt to pull itself out of a deep, dark economic hole.

Lesser Lights. In the blinding light cast by a Man of the Year chosen by acclamation, other lights may seem faint by comparison, but calculated by their own candlepower, they are not to be ignored.

Dictator of the Year was Adolf who by force, intrenched himself in Germany as surely as Franklin Roosevelt did in the U. S.

Athlete of the Year was Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals, whose pitching was responsible more than any other single factor for bringing his team the National League pennant and a World's championship.

Doctor of the Year was Allan Roy Dafoe whose skill and commonsense as a family physician the Dionne quintuplets could last week thank for the fact that they were seven months old and weighed an aggregate of 60 Ib.

Also-Ran of the Year was California's Upton Sinclair who for a time threatened to steal the spotlight of U. S. politics from Franklin Roosevelt and ended by being a thorn in the great Roosevelt's political side.

Musician of the Year was Arturo Toscanini. In three of the world's great musical capitals— Manhattan, Pans and Salzburg—Conductor Toscanini was the sensation of the season, establishing beyond all dispute his title as music's greatest box-office attraction.