Almost History

AH 05 Roosevelt's third term and the voice from the sewers

April 21, 2017 Ian Chapman-Curry
Almost History
AH 05 Roosevelt's third term and the voice from the sewers
Show Notes
In the first half of 1940 only one question mattered in American politics. Would Franklin D. Roosevelt break with tradition and run for a third term as President of the United States? The New York Times proclaimed it as 'the all-absorbing political riddle'.

Roosevelt kept the country guessing right up until the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in July 1940. On the second day of the convention, a message from FDR was read out.

It announced that the President had no desire to continue in office or to be nominated for election. It produced a stunned and shocked silence.

Suddenly, the quiet was shattered by a voice thundering over the loudspeakers.

'We want Roosevelt!

We want Roosevelt!'

But did the President want a third term?

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Music credits

The theme music is Newsroom by Riot.

The other music featured in this episode was Run, Chance and Denouement, all by Kai Engel and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kai_Engel/