THE PRESIDENCY: The Roosevelt Week: Dec. 11, 1933

If Gus Menafee ever has a son he will probably name him Franklin Roosevelt Menafee. During the War, Gus was a seaman on the destroyer Fanning. When a petty officer was said to have attacked him with a monkey-wrench in the Fanning's engine room, Gus whipped a service automatic out of his dungarees and shot him dead. A Navy court martial sentenced Seaman Menafee to be executed by a firing squad, but Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt, to whom capital punishment was abhorrent, acting in the absence of Secretary Daniels, commuted...

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