The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-04-17
The Worlds Man
BY ANNE O'HARE MCCORMICK

compound of many qualities, including the
qualities of smaller men-and also because he
did not make point OF it. No one was more
aware that among the leaders of his time he
occupied a great position as President of the
United States, a role SO fused with his own
personality after twelve years that people in
other countries spoke of him simply as The
President as if he were President of h e
world. But he did not pose as great man.
If he posed at all, it was not as somebody
eminence, but as one who lived comfort
ably on all levels, human being to whom
nothing human was alien. He did not stoop
and he did not climb he was one of those
completely poised persons who felt no need
to play up or down to anybody.
In his death this is the element of his great
ness that comes out most clearly In the streets
of New York yesterday, in the streets of every
American town, strangers stopped to commits
crate one another. Over and over again one
heard the same lament: eve have lost our
friend" The old man at the newsstand cried
as he handed out the papers with the unbe-
ievable headlines. The sad eyed taxi driver
sighed: Il suppose we couldn't escape sacri-
ficing the best we had in this war" The
mother who wore black for "a boy killed on
the Rhine expressed the same thought The
soldiers that went before would be sorry they
couldn't save the greatest soldier of all, she
said.
President. They felt they knew him intimately.
He had the rare faculty of communicating
himself to masses of people, so that millions
who had never approached him knew he was
approa enable, and his relationship to those un-
known friends was as personal as his ties
with the friends he knew.
This is true of critics as well as friends
Everybody felt personal about Roosevelt. 1t
is true abroad as well as at home. There is
a great loneliness in many parts of the world
because he is gone Perhaps other nations
expected too much of lhim; in missing the
victory he did so much to win. he may have
saved himself from disappointing exaggerat-
ed hopes But while he lived these hopes
lived too. Poles, Greeks. Italians, Serbs, Bel
gians, Syrians, Zonists, the hungry, the dis
possessed and the oppressed of Europe looked
weighed on him a little. II am working to
keep the doors OPEN. he said after Yalta
Tt takes time and patience, for I am only
one of three"
The President sometimes spoke of himself
as "a man of the world He did not Use
this term in the conventionalsense What he
meant was that he was at home in the
world, that he did not feel strange W h
strange people or in strange circumstances. To
the end he cling to his fixed belief that peo-
pie are alike if you 'get through" to
them. No disappointment or misunderstood
ing shook his faith that with patience and
goodwill any difficulty could be settled
around a table. - - -.
He was at ease with Stain though the
background and experience of the two leaders
were as far apart as if they lived on differ
ent planets. He was on the most familiar
terms with Churchill. Neither of these lead
ers-indeed, few people in the whirling world
he has left-was as much at ease everywhere
as President Roosevelt. He translates into
every language said Frenchman in Paris
last December. What he does and says mat
tiers so much to us over here, because he
is the worlds man. and we have to follow
the people that he leads
Roosevelt was a very great man in the
eyes of Europeans. The liberated peoples felt
closer to him than to many of their own
statesmen. Yet his genius and his tempera-
ment were so American that he could not
have grown in any other soil. At the front,
the American observer was always moved
to the depths by the casual, grinning courage
of our soldiers The wounded of most armies
don't cry; but wounded Americans laugh.
Franklin Roosevelt possessed this serene cour-
age in high degree. If he felt in recent
months that his strength was falling that he
might not be able to carry out the gigantic
task he set himself, he would not admit it
to anyone, even to himself. Because his iron
will triumphed over infirmity in his earlier
years, probably the danger signals meant less
to him than to ordinary men. In his last days
this will was bent on making a success of
the San Francisco Conference. The military
victory he did not live to so sure
in his mind. that most of his thoughts were
fixed on what came after. Before he went to
Warm Springs he was bordering the speech
he meant to make to set the United Nations
off on the course on which he believed the
future of the world depends.
The Presidents great tragedy was not that
he died on the eve of victory but that he
did not live to make the peace. The role he
dreamed of, that he accepted the fourth term
to play, was not that of war leader, though
according to military men he was a bold
and successful strategist, but of peacemaker.
He was the prime mover in the coalition and
in the great projects of world reorganization
This is why despariring people in every coun-
try placed their last hopes in his leadership
and why they will feel lost and bereaved
because he is gone. And this is why Ameri-
cans in this hour are called upon to prove
that the will and purpose he embodied are
the will and purpose of the United States.
If the Presidents death unites in COM
mon sorrow, it should unite us more firmly
in carrying on the work he started.-New
York Times.
so THEY SAY