ROOSEVELT, Franklin D.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

White House portfolio. A superbly evocative memento of the wartime FDR White House, a handsome commercial leather portfolio personalized for Roosevelt's use and containing some 20 leaves of various White House stationery and printed appointment documents all signed by Roosevelt in preparation for use. Such personal artefacts relating to FDR rarely appear on the open market. Roosevelt has made autograph notes on three of the folders: "Robert Ford to come Wed or Thurs" (on cover of "To Sign"); "John F(?) - How handle insurance on production?" (on front of "The President / For Reading"); and "support of me - / tie in inflation - / Cash surrender - 4% compound int. from date armistice / $1,200,000,000" (inside "Miscellaneous Correspondence"). Other documents and stationery are retained within one of the five manila folders, each of which is titled holographically in pencil by a number of unidentifiable hands. Several other previous titles in ink and pencil are present inside the folders. The note "Cash surrender... from date Armistice" probably refers to a law passed by Congress in 1924 that would provide "several million veterans" of the First World War with "insurance policies to be paid off for their cash surrender value in 1945" (Lawson, p. 15). The content of the notes indicate that they were written after the United States had entered the war, in particular the first memo regarding Robert Ford. Ford was very likely the captain of the Pacific Clipper, a Boeing 314, one of Pa

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