POLITICS : Town Seal Plan Sparks Smoldering Debate : Hyde Park, N.Y., wants to honor F.D.R. But the image it chose shows him smoking--and some want it doctored.

As almost any current political handler could tell you, smoking in public is a bad idea for candidates. Tobacco conveys a sense of irresponsibility and sloppiness, as well as a whiff of decadence.

No one thought to inform the nation’s 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, of this fact.

Residents of this bucolic Hudson River Valley town are engaged in a smoldering argument over the rights and wrongs of historical revisionism, sparked by a city councilman’s plan to change the town seal to honor the memory of F.D.R., its most famous native son.

Instead of the current official town seal containing the family crests of the locally prominent Roosevelt and Stoutenburgh families, Councilman Kevin Bergin suggested substituting the silhouette of Roosevelt that already adorns the town’s highway department trucks, its stationery and road signs. The picture, however, depicts F.D.R. indulging in one of his favorite activities, smoking.

Opposition mounted, and letters of protest poured into City Hall, including one from the local high school principal as well as from various New York state officials. “If Hyde Park wants to choose an image, it should choose a reflection of the values of today, not just a historical image from the past,” asserted Duchess County Health Commissioner Michael Caldwell.

The illustration in question features Roosevelt with his chin jutting outward and a cigarette holder clenched tightly between his teeth. It is, arguably, the most famous picture of the man in existence. And to many members of the generation who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, it is F.D.R., conveying his optimism, good spirits and indomitable will.

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“The reality is, this was Roosevelt. This is how he was depicted,” Bergin observed. “These intellectuals think we’re too stupid to know the difference between Roosevelt smoking and picking up a cigarette ourselves.”

Tobacco habits were fairly common in the 1930s and 1940s, and many political leaders of the time inhaled publicly and regularly. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was often photographed enjoying a cigar, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was frequently portrayed smoking a pipe.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that the dangers of tobacco smoking became widely known to the American public. Since then, the habit has slowly but steadily fallen into disfavor.

And, as it turns out, removing cigarettes from illustrations of historic figures is not unheard of in recent years. When the U.S. Postal Service honored Robert Johnson with a stamp in 1994, the artist worked from a photo of the famed Delta blues guitarist smoking--but the cigarette never made it onto the stamp.

Nor is this the first time this year that F.D.R.’s image has fallen into the contentious hands of historical revisionists. Advocates for the disabled are arguing that the planned Roosevelt Memorial in Washington should portray the polio-stricken President in a wheelchair. The project’s governing commission contends that showing Roosevelt’s disability would be historically inaccurate since he successfully hid his inability to walk unaided from the public during his lifetime.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, says that pulling the long-dead President into modern arguments demonstrates how vital his memory still is to Americans. “It’s a tribute in a sense. It’s almost like he’s still alive in people’s minds.”

Back in Hyde Park, the City Council, faced with a continuing outcry--and fall elections-- indefinitely tabled plans to vote on changing the town seal.

Bergin is now handing out ballots on the issue to residents, asking them to vote on the controversy in an unofficial election. So far, the cigarette silhouette is winning, with the runner-up depicting a portrait of Franklin and Eleanor. The clear loser is the famed silhouette shorn of its smoking paraphernalia. It has only garnered one vote to date.