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Show ' Merry-Go-Round By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT 8. ALLEN ' WASHINGTON For more than two years the Washington newspaper corps, supposed to possess some of the most resourceful brains in the nation, has been trying to get an answer to the big political question-mark of the nation: "Will Roosevelt run for a third term?" All sorts of questions have been fired at the president, and he has given all sorts of dodges in return. It has become a game. Newsmen now get together in advance of press conferences confer-ences to devise new end more artful ways of getting an answer, or at least trying to get an answer from the president. First newspaperman to put the blunt query to Roosevelt was Robert Post of the New York Times in June, 1937. Post minced no words. "Mr. President," he said, "would you accept nomination for a third term?" It was one of the few questions ever to get under Roosevelt's skin. "Go off in the corner and put on the dunce-cap," he shot back, hardly hard-ly batting an eye. The Dunce Club The next few third-term queries brought 'exactly the same answer, with the result that a group of Washington correspondents got to-. to-. gether to, form the "Dunce Club." Discouraged, they did not try to draw the president out again until December 6, 1938, when one of them reminded Roosevelt of a pro-third pro-third term statement by Senator Guffey of Pennsylvania and asked the president whether he would accede to Guffey's wishes. This brought a good laugh from Roosevelt, but nothing noth-ing more. . Six months later, the boys made another effort. This was in June, 1939, by which time Jack Garner had made it quite evident that he was (oing to run fos president. "That sounds as if it should be answered by Question No. 57," shot back the president. Nobody No-body knew what that was unless he was referring re-ferring to pickles. Next question was fired at Roosevelt on June 13. just after Harold Ickes had written an article in Look magazine proposing a third term. Cross-examined regarding this in a White House conference, the president maintained a stonv silence. He said he had only read the headlines. Some commentators, for want of better clues, seized on this particular answer as being milder than the dunce-cap reply, and proceeded pro-ceeded to write "think pieces" representing Roosevelt as virtually back in the White House again. This brought a stern warning from the president presi-dent at the next press conference. Undue significance sig-nificance had been attached to his failure to rebuke the newspaperman who asked that question, he said, so now he would ask the man to "go stand in the corner." ( . . . rittsburgher Asked It Best The best third term question asked of Roosevelt Roose-velt came from Fred Perkina of the Pittsburgh Press, who on August 1 uttered this pretentious statement: "Mr. President, would you care to say a few fitting words regarding the important occasion occa-sion which will have its 12th anniversary tomorrow?" to-morrow?" Here Newsman Perkins paused dramatically, then continued. "I refer to the occasion when Calvin Coolidge made his statement, 'I do not choose to run.' " The entire crowd laughed, including the president who could think of nothing better at the moment than to ask if this meant he Was being invited to spend his summer at the Black Hills. Most recent effort to smoke out Roosevelt on the third term came from Jim Wright of the Buffalo News, who recited this parody: "He's riding high and he's riding straight. He's riding for the White House gate." To which Wright added: "In which diree-. tion, Mr. President?" Even this, however, did not get a rise out of Roosevelt. Democratic Candidates Now, with congress out of the way, some real heat is being put on and this time it comes not from the Republicans or the press, but from the Democrats. It's being done very quietly, but the pressure is plenty severe. Chief needlers are Vice President Gamer and Senator Burt Wheeler, who have ambitious campaign plans and have been pulling every possible wire to get Roosevelt to talk. Wheeler, who was opposed to lifting the embargo, was said by administrationites to have intimated he might go along with them in their neutrality fight if the president would agree to declare himself after congress quit. Jim Farley and Paul McNutt. also harboring 1940 hopes, likewise would like to see Roosevelt speak up. but they are letting Garner and Wheeler take the lead in prodding him. Distributed by United feature Syndicate |