Fala (dog)
Other name(s) | Murray the Outlaw of Falahill (full name) |
---|---|
Species | Dog |
Breed | Scottish Terrier |
Sex | Male |
Born | Big Boy April 7, 1940 |
Died | April 5, 1952 | (aged 11)
Resting place | Springwood |
Occupation | Presidential pet |
Owner | Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt |
Named after | John Murray of Falahill |
Fala (April 7, 1940 – April 5, 1952), a
A statue of Fala beside Roosevelt is featured in Washington, D.C.'s Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the only presidential pet so honored. Another statue of Fala has been placed at Puerto Rico's "Paseo de los Presidentes" in San Juan.
Early life
Fala was born on April 7, 1940. Roosevelt's distant cousin,
After a few weeks at the White House, Fala was taken to the hospital for
White House years
Fala was relocated into the White House on November 10, 1940, and spent most of his time there
An
Fala often accompanied Roosevelt to important events; he traveled in
During 1943, Fala was the subject of a short series of political cartoons by Alan Foster titled Mr. Fala of the White House. In the 1943 romantic comedy Princess O'Rourke, Fala was played by Whiskers.
Fala speech
On September 23, 1944, Roosevelt began his
These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on 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. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.[7]
The story of being left behind on the Aleutian Islands was false. (Fala did cause some minor trouble once on the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa in the West Indies by licking the feet of sailors relaxing on deck.[8])
The idea of turning the Republican charges into a joke was that of Orson Welles.[9]: 292–293 Campaigning extensively for Roosevelt, Welles occasionally sent him ideas and phrases that were sometimes incorporated into what Welles characterized as "less important speeches".[10]: 374 One of these was the "Fala speech". Welles ad-libbed the Fala joke for the president, who was so delighted that he had a final version written into the speech by his staff. After the broadcast Roosevelt asked Welles, "How did I do? Was my timing right?"[9]: 292–293
"The audience went wild, laughing and cheering and calling for more," wrote historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. "And the laughter carried beyond the banquet hall; it reverberated in living rooms and kitchens throughout the country, where people were listening to the speech on their radios. The Fala bit was so funny, one reporter observed, that 'even the stoniest of Republican faces cracked a smile.'"[2]: 548
After Roosevelt's death
President Roosevelt
Fala attended Roosevelt's funeral[2]: 615 and went to live with the widowed Eleanor Roosevelt at Val-Kill.[2]: 620 She took great pleasure in Fala's company, and the two became inseparable companions.[2]: 620 She often mentioned Fala in her newspaper column, "My Day", and wrote of him in her autobiography:
It was Fala, my husband's little dog, who never really readjusted. Once, in 1945, when General Eisenhower came to lay a wreath on Franklin's grave, the gates of the regular driveway were opened and his automobile approached the house accompanied by the wailing of the sirens of a police escort. When Fala heard the sirens, his legs straightened out, his ears pricked up and I knew that he expected to see his master coming down the drive as he had come so many times. Later, when we were living in the cottage, Fala always lay near the dining-room door where he could watch both entrances just as he did when his master was there. Franklin would often decide suddenly to go somewhere and Fala had to watch both entrances in order to be ready to spring up and join the party on short notice. Fala accepted me after my husband's death, but I was just someone to put up with until the master should return.[12]: 287–288
During November 1945 Fala was hospitalized for a week after being attacked at the family's Hyde Park estate by
Suffering from deafness and failing health, Fala was euthanized on April 5, 1952, two days before his twelfth birthday.[15] Fala is buried in a marked grave about ten yards (9.1 m) behind the Roosevelt tombstone in the Rose Garden at Springwood,[3] beside Chief (1918–1933), the Roosevelts' German Shepherd.[16]
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Eleanor Roosevelt walking Fala (1947)
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Fala and Eleanor Roosevelt (1951)
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Chief and Fala's graves
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Grave near that of the Roosevelts' at Springwood
Memorials
A statue of Fala beside Roosevelt is featured in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. Fala is the only presidential pet so honored. Another statue of him has been placed at Puerto Rico's "Paseo de los Presidentes" in San Juan. A third statue is in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. Fala's collar, dog dish, White House dog tags and other artifacts also are on display.[17] [18]
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
(sculpture by Neil Estern) -
FDR Memorial detail
See also
References
- ISBN 0801487374.
- ^ ISBN 9780684804484.
- ^ a b c "Biography of Fala D. Roosevelt". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. Archived from the original on December 10, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2012.
- ^ Video: Allies Win Sea, Air Battle In Fight For Africa (1944). Universal Newsreel. 1944. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
- ISBN 0688151574.
- ^ "FDR Preparing Radio Address". The Miami News (United Press), September 21, 1944. Retrieved June 3, 2014.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "1944 Radio News, 1944-09-23 FDR Teamsters Union Address – Fala (27:45–30:08)". Internet Archive. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
- ^ "Fala Biography". FDR Library.
- ^ ISBN 0-670-52895-1.
- ISBN 0-385-26759-2.
- ISBN 9780688002763.
- ^ Roosevelt, Eleanor, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. New York: Da Capo Press, 1992
- ^ "Fala In Hospital After Run In With Bulldog". The Daily Mail. Associated Press. November 29, 1945.
- ^ "Elliott's Blaze Destroyed for Attack on Fala". The Daily Register. United Press. November 30, 1945.
- ^ "Fala Buried in Hyde Park Garden At Feet of Friend and Champion". The New York Times. April 7, 1952. p. 27. Retrieved May 9, 2015.
Fala received a 'mercy death' two days before his thirteenth [sic] birthday. He had been in failing health for some time. His hair had turned gray and he suffered from deafness.
- ^ "Roosevelt Facts and Figures". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
- ^ "FDR's Room - Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)".
- ^ "Dog Leash, Collar, Blanket, and Navy Coat".
External links
- "Fala, the dog who helped win a presidential election". National Constitution Center. September 23, 2017. Archived from the original on October 12, 2018. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- Audio recording of 'Fala Speech': "Address at a Union Dinner. Washington, D.C." www.presidency.ucsb.edu. Archived from the original (Quicktime) on April 2, 2016. Retrieved September 27, 2007.
- Transcript: "FDR - The "Fala" Speech". www.wyzant.com. Wyzant. September 19, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- Artists for FDR, blog post presenting selections from the 1944 pamphlet, The President's Speech, with illustrations by Crockett Johnson, Syd Hoff, Hugo Gellert and 16 others from the Independent Voters' Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt.
- IMDb profile of Whiskers, Fala's movie stand-in in Princess O'Rourke (1943).