(Editor’s note: Orson Welles wrote a eulogy for President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the New York Post after FDR’s death on April 12, 1945. David Sloane obtained a copy of this hard-to-find newspaper column and graciously shared it with us.)
By ORSON WELLES
He’s gone. We can’t believe it, but he’s gone. The dark words throw their shadow on the human race; Franklin Roosevelt is dead. His, the mosaic tragedy of looking upon a land to which he’s led a hopeful people — even to the borders of that land — and which he may not enter.
The land is neither Canaan or Utopia. It is called Democracy, Franklin Roosevelt conceived of it as a world principle and served it to America as a wonderful, a very possible tomorrow. We face it without him, but we are not alone.
If Tom Jefferson and Abe Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt ever truly die, it will be on that day when our very hearts have died within us, when democracy is bankrupt and the faith of our fathers is no more.
Only a little while ago, he wrote me this: “April will be a critical month in the history of human freedom.” I’m sure the sense behind those words was not of his own death which now doubles and darkens the truth of the prophecy. He was speaking of many things. having to do with war and peace, the things for which he spent so lavishly of the precious energies of life— the tremendous labors of an American President, of a Commander-in-Chief — of the master architect for an abundant world.
As few have known it, he had the instinct for history as few leaders have been so gifted, he could chart the course of time, could sound the true importance of events. could mark their meaning. With certainty he had this feeling of significance for the month he only lived half through. Six weeks ago he wrote me about it. Here are a few more words from that letter:
“April will be a critical month in the history of human freedom. It will see the meeting in San Francisco of a great conference of the United Nations — the nations united in this war against tyranny and militarism.”
“At that conference, the peoples of the world will decide, through their representatives, and in response to their will, whether the best hope for peace the world has ever had will be realized.”
Desperately we need his courage and his skill and wisdom and his great heart. He moved ahead of us showing a way into the future. If we lose that way, or fall beside it, we have lost him indeed. Our tears would mock him who never wept except when he could do no more than weep. If we despair. because he’s gone — he who stood against despair — he had as well never have lived, he who lived so greatly.
We cannot do him reverence today. There will be time for ears only when his work is done.
“I call upon our people,” said Franklin Roosevelt, “with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.”
He calls again. We hear him speaking out of our American, conscience: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . . We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people at the United States have not failed.”
We will not fail him now.
— ORSON WELLES
Copyright, 1945, New York Post
_______
Post your comments on the Wellesnet Message Board.