Home Stretch

Since Jan. 3 the 74th Congress has run a long lazy race for Jockey Franklin Roosevelt. Partly the fault was his, for not letting Congress know exactly what he wanted, for sending up sloppily drafted measures such as the Social Security Bill which had to be entirely rewritten in the House, for not making up his mind until June that he wanted the Wagner Labor Disputes Bill, the Guffey Coal Bill passed as part of his program. Last week Congress was growing tired, yearning for the finish line, when the President, at last knowing his own mind, began to ride harder, to put the whip to Congressional flanks.

To the White House he called Speaker Byrns, House Rules Chairman O'Connor, acting Floor Leader Taylor, Ways & Means Chairman Doughton, laid down the political law to them. They told him what he could not expect the House to do. He told them, with considerable desk pounding, what the House was going to do. The Democratic Congress, he assured them knowingly, would not say anything could not be done, if the Democratic President said it had to be done.

In the home stretch a jockey has nothing to lose by whipping a tired horse. But the horse in this case was rather flabbergasted at how much ground its jockey expected it to cover in how little time. As the House delegation emerged with their instructions, newshawks crowded around to ask what was now on the President's "must" list. Said a member of the delegation: "You sit down and write out a list and I'll tell you if there's anything you have left out."

P: For the first time since he took office Franklin Roosevelt had to use his Presidential power to fire a member of his sub-Cabinet. The officer who refused to honor the customary request for a resignation was Assistant Secretary of Commerce Ewing Young Mitchell, attorney and anti-machine Democrat from Missouri. Secretary Roper issued a soapy explanation that an engineer rather than a lawyer was required for the .job. got the President to appoint Engineer John Monroe Johnson from Mr. Roper's own South Carolina as Assistant Secretary. Two days after the ouster Attorney Mitchell charged that. "improper favoritism and graft abound" in the Commerce Department, that "serious derelictions" and "scandalous abuses" in the Steamboat Inspection Service led to such disasters as the burning of the Morro Castle. To prove his pure intentions President Roosevelt had to tell his Attorney General to investigate these charges against his Secretary of Commerce.

P: After a long week-end at Hyde Park the President attended graduation exercises at West Point, told a new class of second lieutenants that they must think of their responsibilities to the U. S. in peace as well as in war. Then, in a practical-joking mood, he returned to Washington to review the final parade of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Sitting in a covered stand before the White House while the Shriners marched past him in a pouring rain, he was in high spirits, because by his telephoned request two of his best Roman Catholic advisers, Postmaster General Farley and SEChairman Kennedy, had hurried over to join him in honoring the Protestant "Nobles" plodding by with the red and blue dyes of their sateen regalia running into Pennsylvania Avenue. P: "If anybody asks you to discriminate because of politics you can tell them that the President of the United States gave direct orders that there is not to be any such discrimination," said the President of the United States to 48 state work-relief directors meeting in Washington this week.

P: On its society page the Washington

Star last week displayed the headline-of-the-week which informed the Capital that:

MRS. ROOSEVELT SPENDS

NIGHT AT WHITE HOUSE

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