Doing your duty: Times-Mirror editors call on citizens to vote amid brewing international crisis
That’s led, unsurprisingly, the dominant papers in town leaving that way.
When I went to look at the election of 1940, I expected to find “How dare Roosevelt do what no other president had done and run for a third term?”
That’s not what I found.
What I found were repeated editorial lectures where editors were making their readers eat their vegetables imploring citizens to think deeply about the role of voting, the importance of our institutions and the history of the very right to put that ballot box.
So much of what they wrote carries over to 2024.
So I’m going to make you all eat your vegetables, too.
They start a week before the election with a line like this: “The man who defeats good government is the man who fails to vote.”
Franklin Roosevelt was seeking a third term, challenged by Republican Wendell Wilkie.
“Attention is called to the fact that it is not alone the men and women who go to the polls who decide an election, but those who do not go,” an October 25 editorial theorized. “Repeatedly it has been emphasized in the present election, as it has been in others. The closer an election, the more important is the ‘slacker vote’ factor.”
They then hit on a pretty common complaint.
“With the issues at stake in this election, any lazy or careless voter who stays away from the polls and dismisses the matter by saying ‘my vote wouldn’t change the result anyway,’ or ‘one vote doesn’t count’ is not only foregoing a privilege as a citizen but is failing in a duty to good government, to democracy itself.
“Whatever you do, include in your plans for November 5th, a visit to the polls!”
The 1940 election was held amidst a brewing World War II. The United States wasn’t yet directly involved – Pearl Harbor was still over a year away – but Germany had invaded Poland and the winds of war were picking up.
“A good deal has been said about which European or Asiatic dictator would prefer to see which American candidate is elected to the presidency,” the Times-Mirror editors commented on Oct. 28. “In our judgment this discussion passes by the important point, but misses it entirely.
“There is one thing the dictators would like to see in the American election, and only one. That is the kindling of such fires of passion, such as ill-feeling, such bitterness against either candidate as would tend to create lasting difference between sections of the American people. That is the only election development that could possibly bring any real satisfaction to any totalitarian.
“There is, in the present contest, the seed of just such diversion, and it is an evil thing.”
If that doesn’t apply to 2024, I don’t know what does.
“We are united, then, as we have not been for years, in our devotion to our free institutions, standing as they do mountain-high above any president, any administration, any present concern. We are united in a resolute determination to create defensive power in proportion to our latent strength – power that will enable us to go our way of place without having to step aside for threats or bluster.
We are united in our determination to evolve a better social order, one that will come nearer to fulfilling the American dream of men and women free economically and politically to seek their individual destinies.
Our unities are infinitely more compelling than our divisions. We differ not in our goal, but in our choice of roads to that goal.”
The editors wrote that the election would “choose course and pilot” but “not… change ship or port of destination.
“Let every man resolve to himself that when the day is past he will put aside… bitterness, and join in unity behind the chosen leader.”
Editors commented the next day on a proposal whereby Beaty students would encourage their adult family members to go vote as an “excellent plan for promoting good citizenship.”
The Saturday before election day, editors wrote a “Meditation for the Weekend” about the very role of the citizen.
“One thing to ponder over the weekend is that citizenship in the United States entails some responsibilities, not the least of which is voting,” they claimed. “The right to that privilege did not come by accident. A war was waged in 1776, a four-year bloody war that Americans from that time on might have the right to choose those who filled her public offices.
“Preservation of those rights must be jealously guarded if we hope to escape the fate that has befallen other nations where a people too lazy to take part in governmental affairs, have had dictatorships thrust upon them.
We want none of that. The least we can do to prevent such a change in our lives is to walk or ride to the polling places Tuesday and vote.”
Speaking to undecided voters, the editors concluded that they could “not over the weekend devote your time to a more worthwhile problem than to do a little studying over the issues involved.
“Who you vote for is your own business. Nobody can tell how you vote. It’s your own free expression of your own personal choice, but vote you should that America may forever continue to be a democracy.”
The day before the election, the guidance was simple: Turnout would be high so vote early in the day.
The Wednesday edition reported that Roosevelt would win with nearly 470 electoral votes but that Warren County supported GOP candidates.
“The tide of ballots ran heavily in Mr. Roosevelt’s favor almost from the first – ballots he had asked as a ‘vote of confidence’ in his administration…. Thus the people have spoken! Mr. Roosevelt is to be president of the United States for the next four years,” that day’s editorial said.
“The American people, in riding rough-shot over the tradition against third terms for presidents, have given President Roosevelt a tribute that should at once make him very proud and very humble.
“There is a task before us – a double task involving maximum military preparedness at the fastest possible pace and also the rebuilding of a better economic structure on the firmest possible foundation. These are tasks which require a united people for successful completion.”
And in another homage to 2024, the editors wrapped up their argument by including this line: “It is in the best tradition of democratic government to accept with grace the verdict of the people, and to support whole-heartedly the president who is the choice of the majority.”