REPUBLICANS CLAIM FDR SENT A NAVY DESTROYER TO PICK UP HIS SCOTTISH TERRIER
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On September 23, 1944, under increasing attacks from Republicans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded in a speech to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters here in the Nation's Capital.
FDR said..."These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog Fala*. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them."
The President went on to say that his opponents were trying to distract voters from the real issues facing the country in 1944. Republicans circulated a story that FDR had unintentionally left Fala, a Scottish Terrier, in the Aleutian Islands while on a visit there and sent a Navy destroyer to retrieve him at a cost to taxpayers of several million dollars.
FDR said...
"You know, Fala is Scotch**, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that Republican fiction writers in Congress...had concocted (this) story...his Scottish soul was furious."
With their presidential candidates having been defeated in landslides by FDR in 1932, 1936 and 1940, perhaps the only hope the Republicans had for the Election of 1944 was to go after Fala. If that was their plan, it didn't work.
*Fala (1940-1952), the only presidential pet to be honored by statues, one in Washington, D.C. and the other in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was a gift to FDR from his cousin, Daisy Suckley, who taught the Scottish Terrier how to sit, roll over and jump. After FDR's death in 1945, Eleanor took over custody of Fala who survived until a few days before his 12th birthday.
FALA
FDR Memorial
Washington, D.C.
Photo by John White
July 14, 2003
FDR Memorial
Washington, D.C.
Photo by John White
L
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On September 23, 1944, under increasing attacks from Republicans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded in a speech to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters here in the Nation's Capital.
FDR said..."These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog Fala*. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them."
The President went on to say that his opponents were trying to distract voters from the real issues facing the country in 1944. Republicans circulated a story that FDR had unintentionally left Fala, a Scottish Terrier, in the Aleutian Islands while on a visit there and sent a Navy destroyer to retrieve him at a cost to taxpayers of several million dollars.
FDR said...
"You know, Fala is Scotch**, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that Republican fiction writers in Congress...had concocted (this) story...his Scottish soul was furious."
With their presidential candidates having been defeated in landslides by FDR in 1932, 1936 and 1940, perhaps the only hope the Republicans had for the Election of 1944 was to go after Fala. If that was their plan, it didn't work.
*Fala (1940-1952), the only presidential pet to be honored by statues, one in Washington, D.C. and the other in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was a gift to FDR from his cousin, Daisy Suckley, who taught the Scottish Terrier how to sit, roll over and jump. After FDR's death in 1945, Eleanor took over custody of Fala who survived until a few days before his 12th birthday.
FALA
FDR Memorial
Washington, D.C.
Photo by John White
July 14, 2003
FDR Memorial
Washington, D.C.
Photo by John White
L
