The Roosevelt Week

P: Off for the week-end to the Woodmont Rod & Gun Club in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Hancock, Md., the President took his party's sturdiest political wheelhorses--Jack Garner, Joe Robinson, Pat Harrison, Joe Byrns, Jim Farley. After a lunch of venison steak the party retired to the sun-sparkling private lake, where the President reeled in the day's best catch-- ten trout, the legal limit. Followed a dinner of broiled pheasant, after which chairs were drawn about a crackling fire and six professional politicos put heads together to scheme their way out of the Bonus.

P: Franklin Roosevelt once more had forced on him two ticklish and related questions: How to keep business satisfied without yielding to its desires, and how to permit business to let off its critical steam without busting out in open denunciation of the New Deal. Fortnight ago Secretary Roper's Advisory & Planning Council of 50 tycoons came in handy when the President used its call on him as evidence that the critical Chamber of Commerce did not represent the reaction of business to the New Deal, but last week the 50 tycoons had to be placated. Council Chairman Henry Plimpton Kendall called at the White House to explain that his fellow tycoons felt that: 1) their advice did not appear to be very much needed and they feared they were being used as political window-dressing; 2) by contrasting their support with the Chamber of Commerce's criticism, the President had given the impression that they were currying favor at the White House; 3) their opinions on the New Deal had not been properly explained, since, of several reports they had submitted, only one (approving continuation of NRA for two years) had been made public and others critical of the Utilities Holding Company Bill, the 30-hr. Week Bill, the Banking Bill, etc. had not seen the light of day.

Nothing fazed by these plaints, Frank-lin Roosevelt promptly worked out a new arrangement to keep the 50 tycoons content: They should discuss their reports with his New Dealers in order to appreciate the official attitude, should discuss them with him in person, then, having been enlightened, revise their reports and publish them. This seemed to the President an excellent modus vivendi and no one doubted that it would work unless the tycoons, after conference with New Dealers, still insisted on being critical of Administration policies.

P: For dignity's sake the President last fortnight laid a ban on candid camera portraits of himself (TIME, May 13). For time's sake he followed up that order last week with an edict against further portraits in oil. In Washington, Nicolas Richard Brewer, 77-year-oldster who painted the President few months ago, observed: ''The President is a very excellent subject if he behaves himself. The trouble is he jumps around too much."

P: After a week of consultations with his father. Son James Roosevelt disposed of rumors that he might join the Presidential secretariat. The announcement from the White House explained that his New York & Boston jobs (insurance and politics) were too strenuous. Son James would therefore presently retire to the family estate at Hyde Park. There he would install a modern cost accounting system in the President's dairy, prepare a chart showing whether occasional experiments in the President's forest preserves could be made a continuous activity giving steady employment. Son James felt sure his insurance business would continue to prosper under the attentions he could spare from his agricultural duties.

P: Down to Washington's Navy Yard went the President to greet returning Antarctic Explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd. Cannon boomed a 13-gun salute to Admiral Byrd, a big-gun salute to Secretary Swanson, two 21-gun salutes to President Roosevelt--a prodigal display which left Grandchildren ''Sistie" and ''Buzzie'' Dall quailing.

P: Rejecting a Senate request that he proclaim a national celebration of Mother's Day, President Roosevelt declared: "I prefer to think that the tributes which will be paid to mothers will come simply and spontaneously from our hearts."

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