The third term tradition has no value whatever except as it
applies to a third consecutive term. While it is well to keep it as
a custom, it would be a mark both of weakness and unwisdom for the
American people to embody it into a Constitutional provision which could
not do them good and on some given occasion might work real harm.
There was one cartoon made while I was President, in which I appeared
incidentally, that was always a great favorite of mine. It pictured an
old fellow with chin whiskers, a farmer, in his shirt-sleeves, with his
boots off, sitting before the fire, reading the President's Message. On
his feet were stockings of the kind I have seen hung up by the dozen in
Joe Ferris's store at Medora, in the days when I used to come in to town
and sleep in one of the rooms over the store. The title of the picture
was "His Favorite Author." This was the old fellow whom I always used to
keep in mind. He had probably been in the Civil War in his youth; he had
worked hard ever since he left the army; he had been a good husband and
father; he had brought up his boys and girls to work; he did not wish to
do injustice to any one else, but he wanted justice done to himself and
to others like him; and I was bound to secure that justice for him if it
lay in my power to do so.
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