Washington, March 3, 1934.

THIS is the anniversary on which President Roosevelt will be extoled by his admirers, for he certainly has had an exciting twelve-month and the country feels a lot better than it did a year ago, but among all the articles that will be written probably none will make mention of some of the forgotten men without whose aid maybe Mr. Roosevelt would never have had a chance to go to the White House. So in the interest of fair play, a word must be said for that much attacked group of "political lawyers" who have lately been exiled from favor hereabouts.

In the wee hours of that last morning of balloting at the famous Chicago Convention of July, 1932, Mr. Roosevelt's fate hung in the hands of just a handful of men. A mistake of judgment then and the nomination might have been blocked and a compromise candidate chosen, perhaps Newton Baker or Gover nor Ritchie.

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Some historians will insist that Mr. Roosevelt's nomination, which, it since appears, was equivalent to election, was inevitable anyhow, that he had more than a majority on the first ballot and that he held his ground on the fourth. But the inside story of the Chicago Convention, known to those who participated in it, will not bear out the assertion that no matter how the cards were played the result would have been the same.

The fact is that Arthur Mullen, floor manager for Mr. Roosevelt, took an adjournment at the psychological moment. There were possibilities of desertions on the Roosevelt side and had the balloting continued without interruption there is no telling what might have happened. The Anti-Roosevelt groups were certain that they would make gains on the next ballot. But the recess of several hours permitted a reorganizing of the battle lines. During this interval the New Deal was born in a deal that brought McAdee and Garner into the fold and made the necessary two-thirds.

That transaction, which, of course, was a plain trading of delegates' votes for political reward, may be condemned as hardly an expression of popular will and as a betrayal by delegates of their trust and all that sort of thing, but that's the way presidents are nominated in America and sometimes we get good ones and sometimes we don't. Woodrow Wilson made no trade himself to win the nomination but his lieutenants did.

So Mr. Roosevelt is the product of a political deal insofar as the nomination was concerned. But had it not been for Arthur Mullen's keen management of the Roosevelt strategy there might have been a collapse of the Roosevelt delegations. For the moment they started deserting it would have been like the champ Clark ascendency in 1912, when his followers had achieved a majority but Wilson came from behind and won the nomination