THE PRESIDENCY: Prelude to History

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Say the Roosevelt intimates: the U. S. M-Day plan is perfect, so perfect that the actual Nazi program of complete national mobilization for a knockout blow was based on it, after a six-month study in 1934. Say they: he also has a pre-M-Day plan. All that has come out of the White House thus far—$1,182,000,000 for armament, plus "more than a billion dollars" for more armament, a request for additional authority to call out the National Guard and reservists—all that is merely educational, preliminary; a step-by-step, carefully graduated plan to prepare the Nation imperceptibly for whatever may come, economic or political.

Amid these plans there was perhaps one big thing that he overlooked. He apparently thought it superfluous to ask the people to cooperate, to invite them formally to participate in a national effort for preparedness, an effort for which they were obviously eager. In his own immense self-confidence he took the job on his own shoulders and in effect said, "I'll do it."

Denouement. Last week the President told the country: "Planes cost money ... a lot of it." The cost of the effort to change the U. S. over into a military economy was as yet inestimable. Billions no longer shocked the U. S., incalculable budgets had become like fairy tales, with a fairy tale's gossamer insubstantiality.

Seven years of crisis-shouting had blunted the national sensibilities. Over & over again Franklin Roosevelt had cried "Crisis!" Now there was a crisis indeed; the U. S. did not have to be told so. Shocked awake by the crash of events, the U. S. wanted now not merely vast appropriations, advisory councils, coordinators, movement. The U. S. wanted the President to be its leader: it did not want to consider him any longer as the head of the Democratic Party, but as the head of a united nation.

But up to last week the President had not yet made it clear to the nation that preparedness against war was not a New Deal program but a national program. Many a stubborn citizen could honestly ask: Am I offering my support to the President or to the Politico?

The minutes fled, like the hawk-shadows of bombers across June-green farmlands in the Rhone Valley. In the White House the President sat confidently, easily, an air of certainty on his big, tanned, handsome face. The nation, having asked its anxious question, waited for the answer it demanded, the answer only its leader could give.