"Dear Frank"

Identify yourself early and firmly with a national issue -- Rule No. 4 of "How To Become President."

Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York is seeking the Presidency in accordance with all the rules of the game.

The issue he has singled out for his political identification is hydroelectric power. If nominated by the Democrats, he knows that his Republican adversary next year will be Herbert Clark Hoover.

Last fortnight Governor Roosevelt sought to bring his national issue into sharper focus by taking an early poke at President Hoover. Though he failed to draw the President out into a pre-campaign controversy on water power, he did succeed in winning a small tactical advantage in New York State, thanks to White House bungling of the correspondence.

For ten years the U. S. and Canada have been inconclusively dickering about developing the St. Lawrence as a seaway.

Last spring the New York Legislature authorized a $171,000,000 public power development on this international river in concert with Canada (TIME, April 20).

Governor Roosevelt appointed a State Power Authority to execute the project.

He wrote President Hoover early in June, asking that a citizen of New York be included on any Federal commission treating with Canada about the river's development. He received a noncommittal acknowledgment of his request from a White House secretary.

Shortly thereafter the new Canadian minister. Major William Duncan Herridge, arrived in Washington and the Press began to report resumption of diplomatic negotiations on the St. Lawrence project. This the State Department feebly denied. Later, however, the New York Power Authority chairman informed his Governor that he had heard from Canadian sources that Washington and Ottawa were secretly at work on a treaty.

Was New York being snubbed by the Republican Administration in Washington? President Hoover favored private development of water power; Governor Roosevelt, public development. Was Washington, for that reason, going to exclude New York from negotiations with Canada? Governor Roosevelt wrote to the President: "I would greatly appreciate it if you would be good enough to advise me of the status of negotiations between the U. S. and Canada."

The letter went straight to President Hoover. But when a week later newsmen asked at the White House if it had been received, the secretariat stoutly denied that it had. "Roosevelt?" said they, "No, we've had nothing from anyone by that name."

Did the State Department get the letter? Again loud denials.

Governor Roosevelt exhibited annoyance over the mixup. He threatened to make his letter public to prove its existence. Alarmed, the White House suddenly found the letter, admitted that it had been given to Governor Roosevelt's old friend, Acting Secretary of State William Richards Castle, to answer. Mr. Castle had written: "Dear Frank:

"The President referred to me your letter. ... All that it is possible to say now is that no negotiations of any kind are going on now. When the time comes the interest of New York will not be neglected."

But "Dear Frank" in Albany would not be satisfied with such an informal reply, even from his good friend "Bill" Castle. He said that the President owed him at least the courtesy of a formal answer. He made public his original letter.

Net result of this political give-and-take was not favorable to President Hoover and his office staff. New York newspaper editors advised the White House to put its letter system into better order. Perhaps the President had managed to steer clear of an open dispute on the power issue but his staff's feinting raised doubts even about the authenticity of Mr. Castle's denial of negotiations with Canada. In an effort to clear up another "misunderstanding," so frequent in the Hoover regime, Mr. Castle issued an elaborate explanation. Excerpts: "The President in referring the Governor's letter to me thought that since the letter was based on a false premise it would be better that I should informally communicate to the Governor the fact that he had been misinformed since it was on this misinformation that he had based his letter. . . . All foreign relations rest in the Federal Government. ... It has always been the custom to consult local interests in the course of the negotiations."

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