“Fala does resent them”

“Fala does resent them” is the punchline of a campaign joke by Franklin D. Roosevelt, turning attacks on his family into a moment of affectionate comedy. Its force lies in the sudden shift from presidential grievance to the imagined indignation of his little dog, Fala; the story, his speechwriter later observed, supplied excitement the campaign needed.

The Joke and Its Setting

In a speech before the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington, Roosevelt said that Republican leaders had attacked him, his wife, and his sons, and now had included Fala. He then made the contrast explicit: “Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but [pause] Fala does resent them….” The phrase is the line’s comic hinge. The pause holds back its turn, while the repeated denial of resentment sets up the dog as the unlikely exception.

The joke drew on a real sensitivity. Roosevelt could take much of what was said about him, but attacks touching his family made him angry; he had particular contempt for Clare Boothe Luce after what he took to be a slight against them. In the speech, however, that grievance became a deliberately light performance. He delivered the prepared material with feigned gravity and added the Fala line spontaneously, letting the dog carry the indignation that the President and his family supposedly disclaimed.

Campaign Function and Afterlife

The Fala story gave Roosevelt a way to answer political attacks without answering them in kind. Rather than rebutting each accusation, the joke recast the dispute as an absurd escalation: even the President’s dog had become a target. Its humor depended on the contrast between the seriousness of the accusations and the small, familiar figure invoked in response.

Robert Sherwood later observed that the story put needed excitement into the campaign, adding that “The champ” was back. The account places the joke amid a period when Roosevelt appeared revitalized by campaigning: he spoke to a packed Soldier Field in Chicago and rode for hours in an open car through cold rain in New York. The phrase thus became more than a comic aside in the book’s account; it marked the return of a confident campaign performer, using a brief joke to turn attack into spectacle.