Term V, If Necessary

Said Democratic National Chairman Robert E. Hannegan: I favor the re-election of President Roosevelt in 1948 if a “comparable emergency” exists.

Anti-Fourth Termers gasped, as they had at the first mentions of Terms III and IV. But many other citizens got a little uneasy. Some remembered, even, that in 1940 any suggestion that a third term might lead to a fourth term was flatly and indignantly denied. Said Franklin Roosevelt, campaigning in Cleveland: “There is a great storm raging now. . . . And that storm … is the true reason that I would like to stick by these people of ours until we reach the clear, sure footing ahead. We will make it—make it before the next term is over. . . . When that term is over, there will be another President.”