Through Ears & Eyes

Forty-nine East 65th Street, Manhattan, is not a speakeasy. It is the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yet last week an ignorant observer might easily have mistaken its identity as he watched people flock in to see the next President of the U. S. and then flock out again.

What Mr. Roosevelt told his many and assorted visitors--an "old dodo bird" of the Wilson era and two Pueblo Indians, an R. F. C. director and a Big Navy lobbyist, a Senator from Illinois and a Senator from France, a onetime Governor of Kansas and a onetime Ambassador to Germany-- neither he nor they would reveal. In Washington, Louisiana's Senator Long, radical Roosevelt supporter bucking the conservative Democratic leadership of Arkansas' Senator Robinson (see p. 12), gave this version of interviews with the President-elect: "When I talk to him, he says 'Fine! Fine! Fine!' But Joe Robinson goes to see him the next day and again he says 'Fine! Fine! Fine!' Maybe he says 'Fine!' to everybody."

Mr. Roosevelt explained his activities thus: "I'm going ahead through a careful process of preparing myself for the job. This is a period of intensive study. . . . As Al Smith used to say, I'm getting a lot in through the ears but I'm also getting a great deal in through the eyes as I have time to study."

Asked a pert reporter: "Do you favor a big navy?"

Mr. Roosevelt: "Let me interview myself. You ask me, 'Do you favor adequate national defense?' My answer is, 'Yes, I do favor adequate national defense.' "

Reporter: "What does that mean?"

Mr. Roosevelt (grinning): "You tell me."

Bad Press. Last week President-elect Roosevelt was apparently determined to keep his hands off the 72nd Congress as it sank deeper and deeper into the mire of legislative futility. He had tried to influence its doings by remote control, only to set off fresh squabbles within his own party and draw a round of criticism in the Press. As President-elect, he found he could not enforce his authority on Congress until he knew what he wanted and what he wanted he had not yet made up his mind.

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