SIGNED BY FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AS PRESIDENT

ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. The Democratic Book 1936. No place: no publisher, 1936. Large folio (12 by 14-1/2 inches), original full brown morocco gilt, watered silk endpapers, top edge gilt. $6000.

Signed limited first edition, number 799 of an unknown limitation signed by President Roosevelt, with illustrated title and limitation pages, 19 full-page portraits, dozens of in-text half-tones and illustrations, and a facsimile of the Constitution.

Sold to Democratic donors at $250 each to pay off the 1936 re-election debt, The Democratic Book 1936 contains information such as the party's platform, election results, and statements from the President, his cabinet members, the first lady, and other important members of his administration. With dozens of contemporary advertisements, many in color. "Ralph M. Bashore" gilt-stamped on front board (all copies of this book were gilt-stamped for specific Convention delegates). In mid-1935 Bashore, "who had been the Pennsylvania Secretary of Forests and Waters, became Pennsylvania's Secretary of Labor and Industry. A lawyer from Tremont, Schuylkill County, he was also Secretary of the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee," served as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Democratic National Convention, and authored a study on child labor (The Patriot, July 3, 1935). Bashore is named herein as an officer of Pennsylvania's Democratic State Committee (353) and as an alternate Delegate-at-Large (381).

Interior generally fresh with faint dampstaining mainly to preliminaries, original brown morocco with expert joint repairs and restoration.