The Roosevelt Week

Last week President Roosevelt found himself neck-deep in labor troubles, which engrossed him to the exclusion of most other troubles (see p. 12). Returning from addressing the American Legion at Chicago, he stopped off in Manhattan to open the charity drive season with an address before the Conference of Catholic Charities (see p. 13). At his town house he received General Hugh Samuel Johnson, just out of the hospital where he had been nursing a painful boil. For him President Roosevelt signed 17 NRA codes, most important of which were those for banks, boot & shoe manufacturers, retail lumber dealers, retail automobile dealers.

Back at the White House, which 2-year-old Sara Delano Roosevelt had held down all by herself while her grandparents were in Chicago, the President put in two days arranging a conference between captive mineowners and striking miners (see p. 12). He left to General Johnson the task of opening the NRA "Buy Now" campaign, while Mrs. Roosevelt and daughter started a little recovery campaign of their own by promising to accept from a Manhattan manufacturer the first two ladies' coats with NRA tags sewn in them, to prove they were stitched under the coat & suit code.

President Roosevelt went out to Griffith Stadium to see the Washington Senators win their only game of the World Series from the New York Giants (see p. 40). Two other spectators at the game were moose-tall Sir Ronald Lindsay, British Ambassador to the U. S., and scowling, bald-browed Sir Frederick William Leith-Ross, economic adviser to His Majesty's Government, in the U. S. to talk about settling Britain's $4,500,000,000 War Debt (TIME, Oct. 9). Sir Frederick did not meet the President that afternoon, but on his third day in Washington he paid a brief courtesy call at the White House.

Meanwhile, Sir Frederick had presented himself at the State Department and at the Treasury, where he met his opposite number, young Undersecretary Dean Acheson. Each side made friendly little announcements. From a Treasury spokesman: "There is no use disguising the fact that the British cannot pay the entire sum due. To proceed on any other basis would be foolish." From Sir Ronald Lindsay: "Cancellation might come into the discussion, but it will go out again just as quickly, if I understand the feeling in the U. S."

Result of the Acheson-Leith-Ross conversations were to be transmitted play-by-play to the President. He was expected to ask no less than a lump payment of 50% of the debt. The British talked of offering 10%. Equally important were to be the discussions as to what kind of dollars and pounds any settlement was to be made in. Both sides were hopeful that the (See col. 3) two great off-gold nations, sitting head-to-head by themselves, might come nearer to an understanding on international currency stabilization than was possible at the many-tongued London Conference fiasco. What the temper of incoming Congress would be with regard to debt settlement, neither the President nor anyone else could predict.

P:All summer long President Roosevelt asked for the resignation of goat-bearded Federal Trade Commissioner William E. Humphrey of Seattle (TIME, Sept. 25). Commissioner Humphrey clung doggedly to his $10,000 job. Last week the wearied President ordered him summarily removed, filled his post with another Republican, as required by law, but one more to his liking--George C. Matthews of Wisconsin. Fighting to the last ditch, Commissioner Humphrey stuck to his desk until he was notified that the rest of the Commission "declined" to recognize him any longer. Then he stomped off threatening he would take his grievance to the Supreme Court on the grounds that while a President might remove a postmaster appointed by a predecessor, he could only remove a Trade Commissioner for incompetence or malfeasance.

Also appointed to the Commission was Professor James M. Landis of Harvard Law School, 34-year-old Democrat who helped draft the Securities Act.

P: White House guests: Baseballers George Herman ("Babe") Ruth, Walter Johnson; Cinemactress Marie Dressier.

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