The Big Deal

The newspapermen assigned to the President were curious. At the last stop on his "nonpolitical" trip to Tennessee they had trailed him all morning on a tour of an armor-plate mill in South Charleston, W. Va. As they climbed into their car on the Presidential Special they were surprised by word that the President would hold a special press conference after they got under way. The train pulled out of Charleston, rocked along the bank of the torrential Kanawha.

At 11:30, the reporters got up, filed through the swaying train to the President's car in the rear. In a sitting room just inside the observation platform he awaited them, barrel-chested, massive, smiling over his secret. His big head, white at the temples, cocked back & forth as he greeted correspondents, directed them to their places in the little room. It comfortably accommodates seven, but 20-odd jammed in, jostling each other as the train rolled along.

He did not have much news, the President said half apologetically. The sun slanted through the half-shaded windows, fell across the shoulders of his blue tropic-weight suit. It was quiet in the stifling room. What he was going to tell them about, the President continued, was the most important event in the defense of the U. S. since Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase; 'it would be announced within 22 minutes to the House of Representatives in Washington; from there it would be flashed to all their newspapers. Mr. Roosevelt grinned at his audience's chagrin--a story and no chance to send it. Flourishing his ivory cigaret holder, professorial, relishing the historicity of the scene, he explained.

The U. S., said he, had acquired from the British Government the right to lease naval and air bases in Newfoundland. Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Antigua, British Guiana. The Newfoundland and Bermuda bases were gifts, "gratefully received." In return for the other bases, the U. S. had given England 50 overage U. S destroyers. He called it "epochal."

The deal itself had been foreshadowed. In a speech at the dedication of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park day before, the President said: "New bases must be established--and I think they will be established--to enable our fleet to defend our shores." Three weeks before, correspondents had already questioned him about the possibility of trading destroyers for bases, and Franklin Roosevelt had flatly denied any connection--but reporters know better than to believe him implicitly. What electrified the crowded roomful of correspondents was the audacity with which the deal was consummated: it would not be presented to Congress for approval. A Congressional veto was out of the question. Congress was being told about it as a fait accompli.

Casually he compared himself to Thomas Jefferson, and the circumstances of the trade to that which had faced Jefferson when, without Congressional authorization, he bought for $27,267,622 the whole vast territory from the Gulf to Canada, west of the Mississippi to the Rockies. That was Mr. Roosevelt's historical precedent for the Big Deal of the New Deal.

To the question, how soon the destroyers would be sent, he started to say they were already on the way, stopped himself and answered that he did not know. And with evident satisfaction he announced that England had restated an earlier announcement by Winston Churchill that the British Fleet would not be surrendered or sunk, but would be sent to wherever it was needed for the defense of other ports in the empire. He smiled at what he called the "coincidence" of Mr. Churchill's reassurances, coming on top of the deal.

By the time the conference in the hot and rocking room was over, the House of Representatives in Washington had heard the message the President had prepared; and in London, the British Government had released the story. The reporters worked their way out of the room, filed back to their own car. The train chugged through the West Virginia mountains. One stop was made to take on ice and water. A crowd began to cheer, waved placards which read: "We want a Blue Stone Dam." The drawn shade of a window shot up, revealing Franklin Roosevelt, massive-grey-headed, smiling. The train moved on.

Past Precedent. When Napoleon took the first step in his intended occupation of New Orleans, President Jefferson wrote in alarm to the U.S. Minister in Paris, Robert Livingston: "From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." The marriage was postponed. Livingston, pertinacious, deaf, scholarly, distant relative of Franklin Roosevelt's wife, and James Monroe, whom Jefferson sent to France with instruction to do what he could to discourage Napoleon's ambitions in the New World, returned with news of an amazing bargain they had made. It ended for all time the danger of a foreign neighbor settling on the west bank of the Mississippi. They had in their pockets a contract for the Louisiana Purchase.

Congress was not in session. To delay might mean losing the chance. Napoleon might change his mind. It was of vital importance in the future security of the young nation. Jefferson made the deal. President Roosevelt suggested that Jefferson's situation was a parallel to his.

The parallel was not perfect. Franklin Roosevelt's Congress was in session. A unique opportunity had not been presented to him by surprise. He had prepared the deal in secrecy without taking Congress or public into his confidence.

Moreover, to Jefferson, who helped write the Constitution, unauthorized rise of power, no matter how justified, was cause for anxiety and doubt. Jefferson wrote: "The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, has done an act beyond the Constitution." He said he would go to Congress as a guardian who has invested the money of a ward might go to him when he came of age and say: "I did this for your good; I pretend no right to bind you; you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can; I thought it my duty to risk myself for you."

Jefferson, a tall, thin, freckled, worried man, even proposed to his Cabinet a Constitutional amendment to cover the case. His Cabinet voted the idea down. In October the Senate convened. Jefferson presented the treaties covering the transaction for ratification, and the Senate gave consent. Though rival Federalists were glum, in Washington, "every pig, goose and duck, far and near," was rounded up for two days of feasting and cheers.

Future Consequences. Whether or not 50 destroyers will save Britain from defeat, Franklin Roosevelt's deal was destined to be historic. The advantage to the U. S. of the new bases (see p. 18) may alter the course of history by preventing enemies from attacking the U. S., making possible their defeat if they attempt it. Also historic may be: 1) the repercussions of the deal in the campaign of 1940, and 2) the precedent set for executive action without approval of Congress. Snorted William Allen White, chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies: "The only objection seems to be that Roosevelt didn't cross Niagara Falls on a tight rope, leading a brass band. When you're negotiating a horse trade you can't take all the neighbors into your confidence."

Out of Congress, Representatives and Senators spoke according to their isolationist, interventionist, ethical views. But on the floor they were baffled and silent.

John T. Flynn, chairman of the Keep America Out of War Congress, who saw the U. S. walking "the last mile in the fatal descent into war," proclaimed that the President would be impeached if it were not for Congress' "long record of servile submission to the executive."

It would be politically difficult to impeach the President for the reason that the Democrats could not attack the head of their ticket in a campaign year. Besides, Mr. Roosevelt, more forehanded than Jefferson, had thought to arm himself. Attorney General Jackson in an opinion had found that the President, as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, was not only authorized to provide bases to defend the U. S., he was forbidden to "risk any delay." He also argued that the President had authority to dispose of naval vessels. And since no money was involved in the deal Congress did not have to be asked for an appropriation. Legal or not, the deal was done.

Last week the President also:

> Received Edward J. Flynn (no relative of John T.), manager of his campaign. The conference was private, but Mr. Flynn told reporters beforehand that Mr. Roosevelt would win in a walk.

> Heard himself praised as a "humanist" by Chase S. Osborn, former Republican Governor of Michigan, who denounced Wendell Willkie as a "rapacious capitalist."

> Denied, through Steve Early, Argentine reports that he had told Dr. Leopoldo Melo, chairman of the Argentine delegation to the Pan-American conference in Havana, that the U. S. would lift the ban on Argentine meats after the election.

> Appointed Charles Fahy, general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, to be Assistant Solicitor General.

> Participated silently in the day he had proclaimed to pray for peace, by attending the ivy-covered St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park. With him were Mrs. Roosevelt and their refugee guests, Crown Princess Martha and the Countess Ostgaard of Norway, who heard the Rev. Frank R. Wilson declare: ". . . We are on the brink of the greatest catastrophe of all times."

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