The Detroit Tribune

PRECEDENT OR PRESIDENT: HANCOCK FAVORS ROOSEVELT AGAIN

It is tiresome to hear this talk about the "third term president." These political savants hark back to Washington who "did not choose to run" for a third term. Washington had a perfect right to decline a third term had it been offered. Since Washington's day others have faithfully followed his example and these had perfect right to follow Washington's precedent if they so desired.

I revere the name of Washington as one of the founders of this nation. I respect his political sagacity and his political and military achievements but I cannot arrogate unto Washington the wisdom and power of determining the political course of this nation in the year of our Lord 1939. This is an age of electricity and not tallow candles, of flying planes and not of the horse and buggy, of telephone and telegraph and radio and not of the slow post of a government century. We are living in the 20th Century and not the 18th and the sooner some of our old line politicians realize this the better for this country.

To let George Washington run our nation today would be not only the height of folly but a downright desecration of the principles Washington gave to this country in its youth. China today is dying before Japan because China worships its ancestors. We sometimes forget that the best way to honor our ancestors is by taking what they left and improving on it. The sky line of Manhattan where rise the skyscrapers in storied grandeur is not desecrated to the genius of those who lived in huts along the Hudson in the good old knickerbocker days. Those skyscrapers are compliment and honors to the Father of the Empire state. The Rolls-Royce is a compliment to the T model Ford, etc. The trailers swung to a thousand automobiles and swarm from one end of the country to the other are not dishonoring but compliments to the covered wagon of frontier days.

Why, in the name of reason, should we hark back to the precedent set by our forefathers to get our political bearings in this new day? What we need in this country today is a president, not a precedent. The man who thinks in terms of precedent rather than in terms of president is one of the greatest disservice to Washington. Washington can no longer be expected to pilot this country a generation of men who could think on their own account rather than look to his grave for guidance. When this country was a child it thought as a child and spoke as a child, but now that it has become grown up it must put away childish things and rely upon its own judgment and not that of Washington who lived in another era.

We do not have his personal views today. The entangling alliances which he dreaded and warned against form the burden of our international policies might have been desirable in Washington's day but that does not say that they are undesirable in this our new day. In spite of Washington doctrine we have entangling alliances with the world. What about the Philippines! What about our hand in Cuba: What about our battleships in the Pacific and our marines in China? We have plenty of entangling alliances in spite of Washington's exhortation. What some of us want to do is entangle when it comes to making money and to "disentangle" when it comes time to fight. We are trying to blow hot and cold it cannot be done.

Some weeks ago, I wrote on the evils of labeling and this talk about the third term precedent is labelism under another guise. What this country needs more than century old precedents is a president to handle the affairs of this nation in a courageous manner. A rubber stamp president through precedent would be a calamity for this nation.

Under Roosevelt the lot of the forgotten man has been mended. The hungry have been fed and the jobless given chance to earn an honest living. It is true that millions have been unemployed but this cannot be attributed to Roosevelt but rather to our economic system. Roosevelt had the courage to say that the beneficiaries of the economic system that produces unemployment must support through higher taxes, these unemployed. Roosevelt has been a savior of the fellow who has been down and only the fellow highest up is worrying over the precedent set by George Washington.

It is more necessary that this country have a strong man for president for the next term than for the country to follow Washington's precedent. We want a President not a precedent: A third term by all means.