ROOSEVELT NOT A DICTATOR

Southland Times, Issue 23376, 7 December 1937, Page 3

ROOSEVELT NOT A DICTATOR

IMPRESSIONS OF GERMAN AUTHOR Emil Ludwig, German-born author, is going to tell Europe in his forthcoming biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt that the President is not a dictator. Herr Ludwig sailed from New York to his home in Switzerland recently after three interviews with the President and long conversations with his friends and associates. To a Europe “more interested in President Roosevelt than in any American President since Woodrow Wilson,” he will take word that the present Chief Executive is not a dictator: first, because “he laughs, and dictators must always be gloomy”; second, because “he likes people, whereas a dictator mistrusts everyone”; and third, because he “likes life and will go to a baseball game; dictators must stay at home and act like this.” Here Herr Ludwig assumed a Napoleonic pose. Asked if Europeans looked upon Mr Roosevelt as a dictator, Herr Ludwig explained: “The dictators write in their papers he is; the democratic Governments say he is a democrat; and the Russians call him a Bolshevik.”

By revealing that the Roosevelt character is “a guarantee against dictatorship,” Herr Ludwig said he hopes to encourage the few remaining democracies in Europe. “You will not have a dictatorship during the next four years,” he assured his American interrogators. The thing that impressed Herr Ludwig the most during his visit to the United States was the informality of the Fourth of July picnic at Hyde Park at which the President and his wife entertained the Press. “There were no soldiers, no policemen, no uniforms,” he said. “In Europe it would be impossible for the head of any State to celebrate a national holiday without great formality and a mass display of military force.” President Roosevelt is the first living figure whose biography Herr Ludwig has tackled. He will have no memoirs or letters to draw upon, but for the first time one of his subjects had given him a luncheon party, the writer commented.

Mrs Roosevelt he found “too modest” to admit she had any influence on the President’s character.