Evening star., 1940-03-20
|RooseveIt's Denial
OF Retirement Story
Stirs Third-Term Talk
Reputation of Newspope,
Column Examined for
Clue to His Intentions
BY JOHN C. HENRY.

Relatively overlooked in his more
dramatic remarks on the religious
issue in politics, President Roose-
velt's sweeping reputation of a
newspaper column in which he was
reported saying he wished to retire
from the presidency and that he
looked upon Secretary of State Hull
as a fit successor was being re-ex-
amined today as perhaps the most
revealing third-term statement yet
Issued from the White House.
For, in asserting somewhat gruffly
and without qualification at a press
conference late yesterday that he
had, never said to anybody that the
placing of Postmaster General Far
ley, a Roman Catholic, on a presi-
Dental ticket would stir up lot
of prejudices and emotions" Mr..
Roosevelt took particular pains to
blast the entire article as equally
false" and made completely out of
whole cloth.
And in the article were the fol-
lowing quotes ascribed to Mr.. Roose-
welt. I'm not going to run again.
I'm getting tired. It's time for some
one else to take over this job"
Of course, in throwing down the
Farley part of the article yesterday
Mr.. Roosevelt might have felt that
the entire column should be treated
In like manner and his denial of
ever having said he wants to quit
the presidency does not necessarily
mean he does not feel that way.
President Ill at Ease.
Obviously somewhat i'll at ease
as he discussed the entire issue, Mr..
Roosevelt was led into the subject
yesterday by a question on his
reaction to Saturday night speech
here by Mr.. Farley in which the
latter declared race. color or creed
must never be permitted to interfere
with the presidential eligibility of a
native-born American.
The President described the
Farley speech as "a perfectly grand
thing and went on to complain
about the reaction to his earlier
failure to comment on the con-
troverted column. AS said before,
he insisted, he had not read the
column when previously questioned.
but had done so since His failure
to comment on the article at the
first conference after its appearance
precipitated a storm of criticism.
most of it from other newspaper
columnists.
Follows Seventeen Rule.
In further defense of this failure.
Mr. Roosevelt explained yesterday
that he had followed a seven-year
rule not to attempt Interpretation
of columns and that any such effort,
even if it applied only to the so
called respectable" ones, would be
an impossible task.
But, of course, he said, the piece
under discussion was made COM
pletely out of whole cloth, he never
said such a thing about Mr.. Farley
the rest of the article was equally
false, and, although the column pur-
ported to me almost direct quote
account of a conversation between
the President and an unnamed
Democratic legislator, he had never
talked along that line to any states
man.
In reply last night, Ernest K.
Lindley, author of the column, de-
scribed his article as "a piece of
straight reporting of information
which came to me from sources
whose reliability I have no reason
to doubt. Within "a hours after
It's publication I received word from
several Democratic politicians con-
firning its substance and express
ing fear that they might be on the
spot at the White House for hav-
ing talked out of school,"