The hook on the rotunda wall In the statehouse ground floor rotunda, a hook is located near the ceiling on the southeast wall. It is small, non-descript, and paint encrusted. That hook is the only remaining artifact from the visit by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 3, 1936. President Roosevelt and his election opponent, Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, jointly appeared at the Midwest Drought Conference regarding the ongoing drought, held at the statehouse. The motorcade proceeded to the west steps on the statehouse. The President, stricken years before with polio, was confined to a wheelchair; he entered the building through the west ground floor door. The President would not allow himself to be seen in a wheelchair, so canvas sheets were hung in the west corridor on the ground floor leading to the rotunda elevators, blocking the view of any onlookers. This surviving hook was one of many used to hold the guy-wires which secured the canvas. “They [Roosevelt and Landon] came together with a hearty hand clasp in the offices of Governor Clyde Herring in the Iowa State House. . . . A grand day was the way Mr. Roosevelt summed up his impressions of the day’s events.” A newsreel of the event shows Roosevelt standing, his left hand surreptitiously holding onto an aide. On leaving the building, a photographer at the west door took a photograph of the President in his wheelchair. Secret service agents took the camera, exposed the film, and returned the camera. This story combines the reminisces of Wayne Faupel, the deputy code editor and Des Moines Register Reporter George Mills, both worked in the Statehouse in the 1930s. See Newspaper report reproduction below: THE MUSCATINE JOURNAL AND NEWS-TRIBUNE MUSCATINE, IOWA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1936 Closed Doors Hide Drama of Meeting ______ Curtains Block View In Corridors of Statehouse. ______________ Des Moines, Ia. – (AP) – The drama of President Roosevelt’s meeting here today with his re- publican political opponent, Gov. Alf M. Landon, was enacted be- hind the closed doors of Gov. Clyde L. Herring’s office. And even their entrance and exits to that office were curtain- ed off from all eyes. The president, republican pres- identical candidate, governors and others attending the drought’s con- ference entered the state house at west door of the first floor, pass down a long corridor to an elevator that carried them to the main floor and the governor’s office. No one was allowed on the first floor. A canvas curtain extends from the elevator door on the main floor across the rotunda to the door of the governor’s office. Even the main floor rotunda is canvas covered so no one can see the drought conferees as they pass along the corridor below. Gov. Clyde L. Herring said these arrangements were ordered by secret service men to protect the president, Governor Landon and others from being halted on their way to and from the gov- ernor’s office.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:46:04 +0000
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