Emil LUDWIG looks at ROOSEVELT

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

Emil LUDWIG looks at ROOSEVELT

Books In Review

TT would be unwise to form any * fixed opinion about President Koosevelt on the basis of Emil Ludwig s "Roosevelt: A Study in Fortune and Power." The book has several merits, but impartiality is not one of them. Mr. Ludwig is interested in Roosevelt as a ruler and. seeing his methods of ruling and Consciously or unconsciously comparing them with the methods'of the dictators, he is overwhelmed by his admiration tor the President. I'.arlv in the book he tells of how, when \\ oodrow Wilson's star was rising, but not risen, and the Democratic nomination seemed likely |o t „ „ lU , ( i u Roosevelt "gathered two hundred followers. all wearing buttons for Clark— who hud been decided nn I>v the State Democratic heads and stole" with them into the big convention hall in Balti-

mure; euaaeiuy iney oegan 10 ciiHrjv in chorus: 'We want Wilson.' It was a lark after his own heart, for what he thoroughly liked then, and. still likes to-day, was to carry out by a mean trick what he earnestly believes to be the right thing." But if Mr. Ludwig had not heen so firm an admirer of Roosevelt his pen might have written something very different about that trick. The turning point in Roosevelt's career came when "in the fortieth year of his life this man, the healthiest in the world, surrounded by happiest circumstances, was suddenly smitten with complete paralysis from the hips down." That was an extreme test of his character, the first real test of his life, and he passed it splendidly. Th# story of his fight will go down in American history, and it will be remembered also that soon after his election he went to Warm Springs, to the spa which he himself had done so much to make famous, and

said to his companions in sickness, "We have shown that we people here have determined to get over the small physical handicaps which, after all, don't amount xo a row of beans." Roosevelt was born an aristocrat and, as Ludwig shows, is essentially a countryman. He is well-to-do rather than wealthy, thoroughly happy, and his character has grown in his years of power. "Charm and dignity," says Ludwig, "two concepts with which Schiller tried to familiarise the Germans because they so seldom possess them, belonp together to this man in a measure which I have not found among ruling figures anywhere else." But even more was Ludwig impressed by the President's tolerance of criticism. He sees 12 newspapers every morning and nine of them are in opposition to him. "I can learn a lot from them," he said. "Even if I could, I would never limit the freedom of the Press. The more they attack me, the better for me. Let them only call me 'dictator' and then nobody will really believe it." Mr. Ludwig tells many characterrevealiiifr anecdotes, gives much information about American political life, and makes a thorough-going defence of the President's policies, without, however, | conveying the impression that he thoroughly understands them. He is most successful in conveying the personality of the man and in making the reader see how great an asset that personality is. both to the President and the Democrat party. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ From the Publishers FICTION. Youth Goes Over, by Robert Brasillach (Chatto and Windus}. And To -morrow'* Doomsday, by Edith Roberts (Harrap). The Joyful Delaneys, by Hugh Walpole (Macmillan). NON-FICTION. The Ten-Point Way to Health, by the Rajah or Aundh (Dent). Public Library Finance, by Duncan Grey (Allen and Unwin). Education for Marriage, by Mrs. Estelle Cole (Duckworth). Indian Administration, by G. N. Joshi (Macmillan).