Beschreibung:

ROOSEVELT, Franklin Delano, President . Typed letter signed ("Franklin D Roosevelt") as President, to Hamilton Holt, President of Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; Washington, D.C., 20 November 1944. 2 pages, 4to, on page 1 and 4 of a 4-page sheet of pale green "The White House" stationery, marked "Personal" in ink at top of first page , enclosed in half tan morocco folding protective case. ROOSEVELT JUSTIFIES THE NECESSITY OF A FOURTH TERM: "I HATE THE FOURTH TERM..." LETTERS OF FDR DISCUSSING HIS FOURTH TERM ARE EXCEPTIONALLY RARE. An important personal letter to an intimate friend ("Hammy"), written a few weeks after the 1944 Presidential election (which gave Roosevelt the slimmest margin of victory of his four Presidential races). FDR provides a very frank explanation of his decision to seek an unprecedented fourth term as President. He thanks Holt for a letter, which he couldn't answer sooner, for, "as you know, I have been over the hills and far away for most of the time." Now that the Allied victory over the Axis powers seems assured, he looks forward to the challenges of peace-time: "I really feel that if we can continue our foreign policy we may arrive at an era and a method of peace that will last as long as you and I live. I will, as you know, avoid the political angle that cropped up in 1919, if it is possible..." "I hate the fourth term as much as you do -- and the third term as well -- but I do not worry about so much as a matter of principle. It would be a mistake, of course, to establish it as a tradition but I think I can well plead extenuating circumstances! The real meat of the question is not the length of term, but the continued opportunity of the voters of the country freely to express themselves every four years." In a very interesting passage, Roosevelt apparently is mindful of criticism that he has become addicted to the power of the office: "And there is the further question of the personality of the individual. You and I know plenty of people who love power of a certain type and who, with perfectly good intentionism would hate to give it up. I am not one of this type, as you know. For as far as individual preference goes I would, quite honestly, have retired to Hyde Park with infinite pleasure in 1941." "Then there is the other question of the alternative. [Wendell] Willkie [his opponent in the 1941 election] was an anomaly who improved greatly in his general thinking after 1940. But, although I liked him personally, I did not feel that he had much knowledge of the world and that he would have had to have learned about the world in the school of hard experience. This would have been a rather dangerous experiment in 1940. As to the last gentleman who was the alternative [Thomas E. Dewey], I say nothing...."