Fine Americana Travel & Exploration With Ephemera & Manuscript ...

HEARST’S DERISIVE OPINIONS OF FDR AND CLERGYMEN139. Hearst, William Randolph. Original manuscript by William Randolph Hearst, written on a pageof the New York American newspaper, commenting on two of the stories. Approx. 28 lines of manuscript,of varying length up to 50.5 cm. (20”), written in the margins and on the printed portion of p.5 of theNov. 30, 1935 issue of the New York American. Newspaper is 55x42.5 cm. (21½x16¾”), archivallyframed under plexiglass.[New York?]: c. Nov. 30, 1935William Randolph Hearst, newspaper magnate with enormous political influence, commentson two short articles in his newspaper the New York American, one about Bruno Hauptmann,alleged kidnapper of Charles Lindbergh’s baby son, the other about the opinion a group ofclergymen had of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first article begins “Bruno Hauptman isinnocent in the opinion of his new spiritual advisor, the Rev. John Matthieson, pastor ofthe Trinity LutheranChurch…” The secondarticle is headlined“Clerics Hail Rooseveltas Toilers’ Friend. 47Pastors and ReligiousEducators, However, UrgeHim To Go Further in‘Move Left,’” and laudsthe president for “doingmore for the workingpeople than any previousAdministration…”The 72-year-old Hearstsees a commonality oftheme in the stories,and is decidedlyuncomplimentary to theDemocratic president:“Dear Mr. Delucaras (?),Many clergymen are goodsouls and mean well butare painfully innocent andunpractical and ignorantof the ways of the world.One such yesterdaydiscovered that murdererHauptman is a gentlemanand a child of Godconsequently a gentlemanLot 139and a child of God doesnot lie and consequentlyHauptman is innocent…Several other worthy clergymen assembled and decided that President Roosevelt was also toall intents and purposes a child of God and couldn’t lie although on frequent occasions he has???? something vaguely resembling a contract ???? desperately near it. These good clergymenconcluded that Roosevelt is the toilers’ friend and that he ought to go still further to the left thanhe has gone - even to the jumping off place and that the profit system ought to be abolishedand that the government ought to take over the basic industries and so on and so forth… Thereare to be sure a few people in the country more radically unbalanced than this but they for themost part are in asylums. Exactly how the toiler is benefited by the government bureaucracy tothe breaking point the industry which must in the last analysis provide him with employmentand exactly how industry is to be benefited by taking it out of the hands of competent andexperienced business men and putting it in the hands of incompetent and very largely dishonestpoliticians the reverent clerics do not say… In the first steamer that sails with deportedcommunists a few berths should be reserved for reverend but red eyed radical children of GodPage 42