Evening Post. MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1934. TWO BIRTHDAYS

Evening Post, Volume c, Issue 54, 5 March 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1934. TWO BIRTHDAYS

The celebration of President Roosevelt's birthday by nation-wide festivities for the relief of sufferers from the terrible complaint which has crippled him for life was well reported by the Press Association, but the scale was necessarily small in comparison with that on which the enthusiasm of the nation found expression in its Press. The report of the Associated Press rose to the height of a great occasion in an excellent example of American eloquence. The nation was described in its opening sentence as having "danced tonight that crippled children might walk and so honoured Franklin D. Roosevelt who" discovered that the soothing waters of Warm Springs, Ga., would help bring relief for limbs twisted by infantile paralysis." It was at the President's own request that his. birthday present was taking the form of a#ong-hoped-for endowment at his "Georgia home." , *' .: The- high and the humble participated, from a glittering array of society's overlords at Palm Beach, to Negro -waiters and bus boys from the Georgia State Hospital at Hillodgeville. But none realised more what all the fuss was to mean than* the patients at Warm Springs who whirled their wheel chairs about in figures of the old-fash-ioned square dance and cut a huge cako for the man who contributed ■ towards starting them back to health. . Thousands danced at some 6000 balls given in honour of the President arid for Kis afflicted friends. The line of celebration ranged from the brilliant lights of' Broadway to tho camp-fires of the Navajo Indians and from the frozen whiteness of-the Alaskan mountains to the tropical softness of the "Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The nerve-centre of the whole proceedings was, of course, in the White House, where the President was entertaining a party of intimate friends, and gifts and messages were pouring in by the thousand from other friends in all parts of the country. For the little cripples in their bath-chairs at Warm Springs, for the Navajo Indians by their camp-fires, and for the whole nation the climax doubtless came when he left his personal party for a few minutes in order to talk to them all by radio. By a happy inspiration if was not for the nation that Mr. Roosevelt claimed to speak in what might be called the official part of his speech. He spoke as "the representative of the hundreds' of thousands of crippled children in the country." Many of them, he said, were not receiving attention. Let us well remember that evei-y child, and indeed every person, who is restored to useful citizenship, is an asset to the country and is enabled "to. pull his own weight in the boat." In the long run, by % helping this work, we are not contributing to charity, but we are contributing to the building up of a sound'nation. On the personal side the President's speech was at least equally happy. It was limited, if the Associated Press-report is complete, as it probably is, to three sentences. No man, he'said, has ever had a finer birthday remembrance from his friends and fellows than you have given me tonight. It is with a humble and thankful heart that I accept this tribute through .me to the stricken' ones of our great national family. I thank you, but lack the words to tell you how deeply I appreciate what you have done, and I bid you good-night on what is to me the happiest birthday I have ever known. A noteworthy feature of this excellent report of a unique occasion is that what eloquence it has is almost entirely that of the reporter. Perhaps, as "eloquence" is an equivocal term, it would be safer to say that all the rhetoric belongs to the reporter. Mr. Roosevelt's little speech is in the simplest possible language. There is no striking phrase in it, no attempt at ornamentation, no appearance of effort. But if to use words that go straight to the heart is to be eloquent, Mr. Roosevelt was undoubtedly eloquent on this occasion, arfd as the words came straight from the-heart their very simplicity ,may well have helped his purpose instead of; hindering. It was the kind of triumph that Mr. Baldwin occasionally achieves with no help from the ordinary apparatus of the orator, arid with little or nothing in the words themselves to account for it.' But Mr. Roosevelt has the immense advantage, denied, we believe, to Mr. Baldwin, of a soft and persuasive voice, and the atmosphere on January 30 was electric with such an intensity of sympathy and admiration as rarely falls to a speaker's lot. . Our thoughts were turned to the happiest birthday President Roosevelt has ever known By the knowledge that yesterday there was another birthday to be; celebrated, and that he must again be the central figure. It was on March 4, 1933, that Mr. Roosevelt was sworn in as President, and, almost from the opening words of his brief Inaugural Address, it was obvious to the thousands who attended the ceremony and to the millions who listened by radio that the day was the birthday of a new hope. How instantaneous the effect was even upon the President's political opponents was testified by one of the birthday tributes. Mr. Gerald Stanley Lee, who voted for Mr. Hoover on November 9, 1932, said that at that time the last thing he could have seen himself cheerfully joining in was the celebration of Mr. Roosevelt's birthday. I -wouldn't luvn minded celebrating his ninety-third birthday—a ' perfectly '

safe birthday, 1 thought, for this country to lot him have, but certainly not his fifty-third. But on March 4 Mr. Lee listened by radio to President Roosevelt's Inaugural Address, and apparently interrupted some other writing in order to record his impressions.' As I write these linos, around tho vast circle of the sky has just como to me the' first .twonty minutes of Franklin Roosevelt's being President of the United States. ... Twenty minutes of vision. Out of a little brown box the rallying call! . . . We are going to find that Franklin .Delano Roosevelt has put this afternoon four years—tho gist of four whole years of being President of the United States —into his first twenty minutes. I have never stood by before and seen so much happen in twenty minutes! Though Mr, Lee's hyperbolical style does not "inspire confidence, he is a writer and publicist of. good standing in his own country, and it is equally clear that his sincerity is beyond question, and that the 100 per cent, confidence which this former opponent of Mr. Roosevelt now. feels in him is typical of an overwhelming majority of the nation. That the President himself was contemplating the anniversary in no spreadeagle spirit on Saturday is indicated By the almost academical remark that is cabled today: "One of the most salient features of a salient year in our American life," he said, "is the universal increase in the interest which the people of the United States are taking in the whole subject of government." When we are very ill, we all take a keen interest in our health and in the doctor to whom we are looking to pull us through. The interest which the | Americans, are taking in their pbli-l tics and in, their President is of the same kind. ,