Why is FDR howling with laughter? He and son James, along with William McAdoo and advisor James Farley, are responding to the quips of Will Rogers as he introduces the new president in 1933.
“Mr. Roosevelt is a plain-spoken man. Remember that speech last night about the banks? Long adjectives and nouns–he didn’t mess with ’em at all. He knows what the country wants is relief and not rhetoric. He is the first Harvard man to know enough to drop three syllables when he has something to say. Why, compared to me, he is almost illiterate.” — May 7, 1933
I Don't Get It 