THE PRESIDENCY: The President Speaks

The little oval room was hot. The score of frail, wobbly, gilt chairs were jammed close together on the deep scarlet carpet, to the left of the plain, dark wooden desk.

Perspiring gently, the audience sat still, in some nervousness. In the front row, not grinning, was big, jug-eared Cinemactor Clark Gable, in a chalk-stripe grey suit; his wife, Carole Lombard, in a funnel-like black hat with a veil, a simple black afternoon dress; Secretary of State Cordell Hull, white-faced, as sombre as his dark suit; and the President's mother, Sara Roosevelt, in a grey-blue evening gown.

Behind sat Cabinet members and wives, Kentucky's Senator Barkley.

On the desk, its top drilled for microphone wires, were seven microphones, two glasses of water, two new sharp pencils, a notepad, an open package of Camels.

The President came in five minutes before the broadcast, on his small rubber-tired wheel chair, pushed by George Fields, assistant to Prettyman, the President's valet. Mr. Roosevelt, in a dark blue serge suit, a black bow tie, was in high good humor. In the room's warmth he mopped his big, tanned face from time to time with a large white handkerchief.

At 9:30 p.m. more than 500 radio stations in the U. S. were tuned to his desk.

Short-wave stations stood by, set to throw his words over the world. Attendance at movies dropped sharply. In barrooms, farmhouses, trains, planes and ships, people waited, listening. His words might mark a turning point in history.

The President spoke in simple terms, clearly, gravely. He addressed himself to the task of stating the U. S. position in the present crisis, the aims of his Administration, the duties of citizens now. He was deliberately trying to lead the nation as he had led it in 1933.

He began his 15th fireside chat by describing the audience he had spoken to on his first: "the great mass of American people." That description was evidently much on his mind, for more than once he talked down to his audience as he answered the questions men had been asking.

How great is the danger? Mr. Roosevelt said: "Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now." Who is the enemy? The President pointed to the tripartite agreement of the Axis powers—Germany, Italy & Japan—in "the threat that if the United States interfered with or blocked ... a program aimed at world control—they would unite in ultimate action against the United States." What is the Nazi program? He said: ". . . To dominate all life and thought in their own country ... to enslave the whole of Europe ... to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world." The President had begun by declaring that his aim was to keep the U. S. out of war, to the third generation. Now he reminded his countrymen that "the Axis not merely admits but proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and our philosophy. ..." And in all the speech Mr. Roosevelt was careful to lay down no guarantee that the U. S. can stay out of the war; instead, he said that the course of aid to Britain offered only the "least risk," the "greatest hope" of staying out.