Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

Third Term?

Then we went on towards the election of 1940 where the third term was the great disturbance. I suspected that Roosevelt might be headed towards a third term on the day that he was elected to the second one. I always thought that. I just thought it was inevitable. I think he thought it was inevitable. As a matter of fact, no head rose high enough and big enough at the time to offer any alternative. You say Henry Wallace, but Henry Wallace didn't rise big enough to be President. I definitely wanted Wallace to be Vice President and did all that I could to help. Whatever political influence I had in the convention and before the convention I threw to Wallace. I thought Wallace was the fellow. He was growing all the time in my esteem, although I recognized this lack of straight political experience. He had political thought rather than experience. Jim Farley liked Wallace and had grown to like him more and more and to have confidence in him.

But no head stuck itself up to be President. As you say, people talked about Cordell Hull, but it was ridiculous then. It was talked about in Senatorial circles. The reason Cordell Hull was talked about was that people were casting around for an alternative.





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help