According to Roosevelt's successor as managing editor, FDR had a special talent for persuading the printers to open their forms at the last minute when some late news came in. In his term as managing editor, the biggest news stories that he had to dummy, were the plan to build the Stadium on soldiers Field, the selection of Dean Briggs as president of Radcliffe, and the establishment of the Godkin lectures. Not much can be said about his writing of news for the paper; articles were not signed.

More is known about FDR's term as president of the CRIMSON, as it was then the president's job to write all the editorials. In this period, before the editorial board was founded, the president still could not have found the job too difficult; most editorials were just a few sentences long. The managing editor may have written a few editorials, but other than that, they were all Roosevelt's. There is no question about the authorship of the best of the pieces, since they were identified as FDR's in outside newspaper stories at the time or later.

Criticized Listless Athletes

After the football team had only narrowly defeated the Carlisle Indians, FDR wrote, "They (the undergraduates) have grown somewhat weary of the slow, listless play of certain men in the line, who seem to think that their weight is a sufficient certificate of admission to membership on a University team."

FDR described the paths in the Yard, on which the University had failed to place board walks in snowy weather, as "licensed highways to the Stillman Infirmary." Another one of his editorials had a prophetic ending: "There must be many among us who, whether or not of voting age, would be more than glad to gain knowledge by actual experience of the intricacies of federal, state, and municipal politics."

Roosevelt always had an issue for which to crusade: "It is undoubtedly disagreeable for ladies under the present seating system (at football games) to be surrounded with smoke and flying ashes from tobacco which is not always of the best quality . . . it is not unreasonable to ask that a separate section be provided which ladies may enter without fear of being asphyxiated."

Yard Dormitories Not Fire-proof

FDR's most famous editorial campaign was directed at the condition of the Yard dormitories, not one of which "can make the least pretense of being fire-proof . . . What then are the facilities offered for escape? . . . The flimsy wooden staircases can certainly not be relied on for egress, and the single rope in each suite of rooms is of such character that more than one person would find great difficulty in reaching the ground without a broken neck."

The University did make some improvements in the fire-fighting equipment in the Yard dormitories and did try to decrease the danger of inadequate exits; this was one of the first campaigns that FDR won. The reforms came near the end of FDR's time as CRIMSON president, and were a climax to his career on the paper.

In later years Roosevelt always used to tell the White House correspondents that he felt on a par with them because of his CRIMSON days. Jonathan Daniels, who was his press secretary for a year, said, "Franklin Roosevelt never quite got over having been an editor of the Harvard CRIMSON." On cruises, when newspaper men got sick, he frequently offered to write their dispatches for them.

Remained Interested in Later Years

Through the years FDR kept his interest in the paper. Gardner Cowles '25, head of Look Magazine and another former president of the CRIMSON, was summoned once from Des Moines to the White House when Roosevelt wanted to size him up. With FDR leading the conversation, they spent three hours discussing only the CRIMSON.

Roosevelt's fellow editor's opinion of him is mixed; except for a die-hard or two, most of them agree that he was a "very good companion . . . with a ready laugh and a keen sense of humor." A number feel that "other men on the board at the time showed greater promise."

A final verdict of his fellow editors is that Roosevelt was no democrat during the time he was on the paper; for example, he refused to stop running the list of men who made the various clubs. The next year other editors stopped "that concession to snobbery."

Comments on FDR from his contemporaries on the paper are quite informative. Robert W. Ruhl '03, now a country editor in Oregon, reports, "I saw little of him and that little I did not like much. Before I graduated, I talked with the other editors who had executive positions and they said Franklin had a lot on the ball and the nerve of a brass baboon. And I must admit, although I never lost my original skepticism entirely, I was pleased (on a meeting later in life) by the President's cordiality and informality. The man could, if he wished, charm the birdies right out of the trees."