This is a

This is CBS I in the World with David Patricia, the author of the new book

Roosevelt Sweeps Nation.

I'm John Bachelor and we're about to look at two of the most important figures of the 1936 election who were

not elected but made very important contributions to how the president

Franklin Roosevelt saw his campaign ahead.

The first is Francis Everett Townsend, born 1867, a senior figure who is a physician and he comes forward with the

Townsend plan. This is in the time of great want and doubt for the people who are elderly in America. At that time that was

considered 60 years plus was elderly. David Francis Townsend looks to be an amateur and the fact that he enters into politics at all is so unlikely.

What do we need to know about how Roosevelt thought of Townsend?

Well, Townsend was this old geyser doctor who writes a letter to the local paper saying,

we've got to have this plan which is going to give $200 a month to everyone over 60 and they will have to do two things for it.

One, not work anywhere and to spend it all in 30 days he thinks this is going to be

create a velocity of money with sort of like priming the pump getting the economy up and running. He's a pretty dull fellow otherwise, but millions and millions of people join these towns and clubs in around the country and they start electing

congressmen. Now Franklin Roosevelt, well first off one thing about Franklin Roosevelt

is for all his big spending hates the

Dole. He hates the idea of people just sitting around and giving a government, getting a government check.

This is one reason why we have so many remnants, relics,

artifices of the new deal still around today.

He built all those post offices and dams. He wanted people to do things for them.

And the Townsend plan is just a giveaway and it's a giveaway based on a use tax which is you know 2% on every every transaction in

creating a product or service so you have a pencil and it may be 2% on the wood and 2% on the lead and 2%

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