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"But the contract was canceled and returned to me. I never received a penny from Fokker for myself. I never acted for Fokker in any such sales. The contract, which subsequently was canceled, had provided specifically that I should not be requested by Fokker or any of his representatives to contact any representative of a European government or of the United States government.
"It is obvious that my father never had any part in my dealings with Fokker and I can see no reason why all of this should be brought out at this time, except a desire on the part of some one to besmirch the name of the President of the United States."
That the politics in this bit of Rooseveltian history were not wholly on the Republican side became evident later in the week when none other than Press-agent Charles Michelson of the Democratic National Committee released extracts from the purported contract to confirm Son Elliott's version of its terms.
Meantime Publisher Tichenor's Tale No. 2 was hardly touched by the press which presumably regarded it as too risky to print. This tale related that at the same time the other venture was going on, just prior to and after the cancelation of the airmail contracts, Elliott Roosevelt and Anthony Fokker had a scheme afoot, supposedly encouraged by the President, to form a great U. S. air transport combine, in which Elliott was to have received 5% of the stock for his efforts; that Herbert Reed went to Manhattan to discuss it with Basil O'Connor, the President's onetime law partner; that Elliott Roosevelt flew to Miami to see his father aboard the Nourmahal and thence to Washington where he told Reed at breakfast in the White House:
"Father thinks your plan is the soundest approach to the problem. Mother agrees. I talked the whole thing over with her last night. She remarked that the proper settlement of the air mail problem and full support of the Subsistence Homestead Projects should be the first order of business with the Administration."
Like the scheme to sell planes to Russia, Herbert Reed's project to gobble up, with the aid of Elliott Roosevelt, the air transport business of the U. S. just when it had been laid low by a White House order, eventually came to nothing.
Nevertheless Publisher Tichenor continued to think that he had a good political thing by the tail. To keep his two stories alive last week he released a telegram he had just received from Herbert Reed: "Elliott Roosevelt's denial ... is not surprising to me. He and his father will probably similarly deny having backed my plan for reorganization of the nation's air lines ... for which Elliott and his associates were to receive an interest estimated at $750,000 per year, because at the time we were dealing I was warned to expect such denials if there was any leak concerning our association. ... I paid that $5,000 cash to Elliott Roosevelt . . . and I still hold his receipt for the money."
When Franklin Roosevelt refused to take any public notice of his troublesome son's troubles, Publisher Tichenor commenced to heckle him by telegraph, demand that he break "the unusual silence in which you have taken refuge."