PITY THE GOOD people of Hyde Park, N.Y., where the serenity of life on the Hudson River has been disrupted by an intense debate over whether the town's official seal should depict a debonair Franklin D. Roosevelt with a cigarette and holder clenched in his teeth.

Aghast local health officials and tobacco opponents oppose the silhouette seal, fearing it would glamorize smoking. We agree that smoking is a nasty and dangerous habit, but it would be a mistake to try to tidy up FDR's image in his own hometown.

Even during the darkest days of the Great Depression and World War II, Roosevelt was the very picture of optimism. The cigarette holder, held at a jaunty 45-degree angle, was a symbol of the president's absolute confidence in the nation's future.

Verne W. Newton, director of the Roosevelt Museum in Hyde Park, accurately described the symbolic impact of the cigarette and holder. "People then did not see the president trying to extol the virtue of cigarettes. What they saw was an image of great optimism and energy."

Hyde Park should adopt the silhouette, cigarette and all. It's part of history.