Franklin Roosevelt, President of the U. S., sat at his desk pondering U. S. history. In his mind was a winter day in 1815, when a tall, gaunt man with small, hot eyes, heading a motley horde of volunteers, whipped the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
Mr. Roosevelt, who has won two elections at the head of as motley a horde of irregulars as Andrew Jackson ever led, pondered more recent history: the popular votes cast for Presidential candidates since 1920. One column showed Republican votes, good years and bad—an irreducible minimum of about 16,000,000 ballots. In the second...