From the green-curtained voting booth came a clank of gears as the main control lever jerked irritably back & forth. Then a voice, familiar to all of the U.S. and to most of the world, spoke distinctly from behind the curtains: "The goddamned thing won't work."
A solicitous election official hastened forward with advice. The lever clanked again, caught correctly this time. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 62, self-styled tree grower of New York State, voter No. 251 of Hyde Park village, had exercised his right as a U.S. citizen.
In voting booths throughout the nation, some 40,000,000 other U.S. citizens were exercising the same right. Before midnight, the verdict was clear: Franklin Rooseveltj the first U.S. President to serve three terms in the White House, had rolled up a huge popular vote—and a landslide electoral vote—to give him his fourth term.
"Preserve Our Union." On the very eve of Election Day, Candidate Roosevelt made one more little trip: a five-hour, 80-mile drive through Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties to say a few words of greeting to his "friends and neighbors."
In the open back seat of a Packard touring car, Candidate Roosevelt set out, bundled to his white-stubbled chin in a beaver-collared overcoat, his old brown campaign fedora scrunched on his balding poll. Beside him sat Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, shivering in a lightweight topcoat, his nose and chin blue with cold. The sky was lead-colored, the wind sharp. Franklin Roosevelt coughed occasionally and his eyes watered behind his pince-nez. But at Poughkeepsie, Wappingers Falls, Kingston and Newburgh, he waved his arm, grinned, bobbed his head vigorously, spoke cheerfully to the street crowds.
That night, from Hyde Park, he closed his campaign with a prayer written for him by the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C. "Almighty God ... we commend to Thy overruling Providence the men and women of our forces. ... Be Thou their strength. . . . Guide . . . the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth and establish among them that peace which is the reward of righteousness. . . . Make the whole people of this land equal to our high trust, reverent in the use of freedom, just in the exercise of power, generous in the protection of weakness. . . . Make us ill content with the inequalities of opportunity which still prevail among us. Preserve our Union against all the divisions of race and class which threaten us. ... May the blessing of God Almighty rest upon the whole land. May He give us light to guide us, courage to support us, charity to unite us, now and forever. Amen."
On Election Day, Franklin Roosevelt slept late, set out at noon in the warm sunshine for the oak-beamed town hall at Hyde Park. There, at the polls, where he gave his occupation to Inspector Mildred M. Todd as "tree-grower," he enthusiastically accepted a piece of candy from Miss Todd, entered the booth munching.