First Check

With most of the country's banks again open and off his mind for the moment, President Roosevelt drove the rest of his legislative program ahead at top speed last week. While eating a tray luncheon in his office he signed his $500,000,000 Economy Bill. His pen & ink thereby marked an historic transfer of fiscal power from the Congress to the Presidency. Heretofore Congress has appropriated specific sums to be spent as ordered on veterans and Federal employes. Under the new law Congress authorizes a lump sum expenditure, leaves it for the President to spend within certain broad bounds.

By repealing the pension patchwork of years, the Economy Act permitted the President to divide the wartime sheep from the peacetime goats and pension those with real claims on the U. S. Likewise he was free to hack all civil and military salaries 15%. Next step: issuance of executive orders establishing new pension groups and putting cuts into effect.

It took no Presidential prodding to get the beer bill passed by House and Senate. Fifteen days after the President's signature, legal sale begins.

On Farm Relief, President Roosevelt met the first check to the galloping advance of his program through Congress. The measure he sent to the Capitol started hemming & hawing by many a Senator and Representative who refused to consider it emergency legislation to be passed in a race with Spring's approach. Though its ultimate passage seemed assured, Congress was apparently determined to do plenty of amending before returning it to the White House. The real test of Roosevelt leadership would largely depend on whether the amendments could be held down to resounding trivialities.

Next item on the administration's program was unemployment relief. To Congress, the President sent another terse message. He proposed three types of legislation: 1) immediate enrollment of workers by the Federal Government in a "civilian conservation corps to be used in . . . forestry, prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects;" 2) grants to states for relief work; 3) a broad public works labor-creating program. The President estimated that given power to proceed with his first recommendation, 250,000 men would be put to work by early summer.

P: President Roosevelt got only 45 minutes outside the White House last week-- a short motor ride with Secretary McIntyre into Virginia. As swimming is his only exercise and as the Independent Offices appropriation bill carrying funds for a White House pool was vetoed by President Hoover, President Roosevelt was able to take no exercise. The New York Daily News (tabloid) started to collect a Roosevelt Swimming Pool Fund which last week, by dimes and dollars from "forgotten men" and school children, had risen to $7,236.35.

P: President Roosevelt opened disarmament talks with Secretary of State Hull, Ambassador-at-Large Norman H. Davis and the British, French and German Ambassadors. Mr. Davis planned to hasten back to Europe this week.

Untouched yet are War Debts which again come to crisis June 15, next pay day.

Fresh home from Soviet Russia, for Ambassador to which he has been much mentioned in case the U. S. officially admits that nation's existence, Wisconsin's sharp-eyed young Philip La Follette talked with the President for one hour.

P:On their 28th wedding anniversary President & Mrs. Roosevelt dined two dozen, mostly relatives. Sara Delano Roosevelt, the President's mother, went down from Hyde Park for the party. As it was also St. Patrick's Day, the President wore a green silk handkerchief embroidered with "Happy Days," a green carnation in his lapel. He told friends his green tie was worn out.

P:Secretary of the Treasury Woodin was proud to report to his President that $1,831,815,600 had been subscribed for the Treasury's $800,000,000 offering of short-term securities for March 15 refinancing. Thus did the Administration handily weather its first test of financial confidence.

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