Mr. Roosevelt's Nomination Speech
President Roosevelt's speech to the Democratic Convention accepting nomination shows that Mr. Dewey and the Republican Party will not have the chance to fight the Presidential election, as they desire to do, exclusively on domestic issues. Mr. Roosevelt appeals to the electors on his record—his record in peace, and his record in war—a record which includes his liberal policy in days of peace and his handling of a world situation calling for the defeat of the enemy and the preparation of plans for world organisation later. Are the people, he asks, tb turn over the 1944 job to men who opposed Lend-Lease and international co-operation, or to entrust it to those who saw the danger ahead, pursued the war with vigour, and have been planning for the future peace? In other words, he stands as the man who has been proved fit for conducting the war and has his hand on the world machinery for making a good peace. It is, indeed, because of the exigencies of a world war that Mr. Roosevelt has decided to stand for a fourth term. That being the raison-d'etre of his candidature, it will be obviously impossible to confine the election issue to domestic problems and old New Deal controversies. Not that the President is in the least disposed to neglect domestic issues. He, like his opponent, promises a policy which will provide employment and a decent standard of living, and special care for the returning Servicemen. But primarily he seeks re-election on the ground of his proved fitness to deal with the interests of the United States in the presence of a world emergency.
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