End's Beginning

On the lighted platform of Hyde Park's dinky station, the President of the U. S. was moving to board a special train back to Washington when from a small crowd standing in the cover of darkness, a deep Negro voice bellowed:

"Boss man, when's you-all gonna get those fellows away?''

Franklin Roosevelt turned his head, raised his voice: "I think we can finish this week."

If the Negro at the Hyde Park Station had been more perspicacious, he need not have asked his question. U. S. Presidents do not break off a week-end on Saturday night for nothing. Sunday morning Franklin Roosevelt was back at the White House. That evening at the White House he held a formal council of war with the general officers of his legislative army, revealed to them his strategy for ending a Congressional session that after seven months had outlived not only its normal span but its political usefulness.

Emerging at 11:15 p. m. under the twinkling lamp of the north portico, Senator Robinson furnished a summary for public consumption: "It is expected a conference agreement will be reached on the Wheeler-Rayburn Bill and also on the TVAmendments. It is also expected conference agreements will be reached on the Alcohol Control Bill, the Gold Suits Bill and, of course, the Tax Bill. I think there is a fair chance of reaching an agreement on the Utility Bill. If the Guffey Coal Bill passes the House it will be taken up in the Senate.*

"It is believed the work of the session can be finished this week. . . . No measures were jettisoned. We intend to complete the program."

Only a foolish strategist would reveal where he intends to yield ground if pressed. In his shiplined study Franklin Roosevelt, alone in all Washington, knew exactly what legislation he was ready to let go by the board as the price for starting Congress homeward by the end of this week.

P:Franklin Roosevelt's two-day vacation at Hyde Park enabled him to: 1)) speak to his youngest son, John, who had just jumped a $10 bail after having been arrested for driving 54 m. p. h. in Irvington, N. Y.; 2) congratulate his next youngest son. Franklin Jr., on his 21st birthday; 3) see his wife who motored down for the birthday celebration from Campobello Island, N. B. where she had spent three weeks in profound silence.

P:At a press conference one morning the President announced that he wanted his newshawks to give maximum publicity to his signature to the Social Security Bill. That afternoon, seated in the Cabinet room, he signed--but correspondents were not admitted to see the ceremony. That privilege was reserved for cameramen, newsreelmen and some 30 honored guests. With the bill's true authors, Senator Wagner and Representative David Lewis, at his right and left, with Madame Secretary Perkins behind him and with the Bill's foster father, Representative Doughton, in a position of proximate importance, the President read off a statement concluding: "If the Senate and the House . . . had done nothing more than pass this Bill, the session would be regarded as historic for all time."

P:Another important measure which the President made law was a bill establishing a 40-hour week in the U. S. Post Office after Oct. 1. Its effect: to increase the number of Postmaster General Farley's 265,000 employes by 10,000.

P:To protect the President's nerves, new signs appeared on West Executive Avenue, bordering the White House office: "Quiet Zone; No Noise."

P:As Presidential Secretary Marvin Mclntyre made a faux pas by going to dinner with the wrong people (see p. 14), so the President's bodyguards also slipped in their duty. Before the President started on his trip to Hyde Park the Secret Service men searched his special train as usual, found no concealed assassins. As the train started pulling into Baltimore it was flagged to a halt. A watchful railroad-man had spied a figure riding under the observation platform of the President's train. The Secret Service men looked, were ashamed to find Lloyd Whiteleather of Ripon, Calif., riding along, unknown to them. Whiteleather's explanation: He did not realize that he had chosen the Presidential special for his travels.

P:Up to the Executive Office rolled a big shiny limousine from which stepped dapper Governor Martin Luther Davey of Ohio and military aides. Five days before Ohio's Representative-at-large Charles Vilas Truax had died of a heart attack. If Governor Davey should call a special election, the New Deal would run the risk of an electoral rebuff in Ohio more telling than that in Rhode Island. Last March Governor Davey all but broke with the New Deal and was deprived of control of Ohio's relief administration, but last week, as he entered the White House office, Secretary Mclntyre handed him a letter approving his request for $20,000,000 of PWA funds, signed "Franklin D. Roosevelt." Mr. Davey marched in and warmly shook the letter-writer's hand. After 30 minutes he emerged beaming to announce that he would call no election in Ohio because it would cost $500,000. "Everything is harmony," he cried. "We are cooperating 100%." Next day the Governor heard that a taxpayer had gone to law, got a court order directing Mr. Davey to set an election date. Unflurried, he prepared to name a day in 1936, expected to coincide with Ohio's Presidential preference primaries.

*Next day the Guffey Coal Bill passed the House.

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