The Roosevelt Week

THE PRESIDENCY

On the question of economy Franklin Roosevelt has a record full of more anomalies than any other man in public life. Having been elected on a platform of balancing the Budget, he proceeded within a year to undertake a program of further unbalancing. Having started his Administration with a drastic economy bill, he quickly followed it by still more drastic spending measures.

When newshawks asked him what economies he hoped to make he furnished them first with a list of economies that were not to be. No savings could be made in interest on the public debt, none by reducing Federal salaries. None could be made by furloughing employes nor by discharges. None in Relief. Few or none in the regular departments of the Government. He expected that half of fiscal 1938's approximate $8,000,000,000 would be spent. On the other half he hoped that 10% or $400,000,000 would be saved. How? By delaying in hiring people to replace those who dropped out of the Government service, by slowing down and delaying some programs, by doing less telephoning and much less printing of Government papers.

P: Most of the President's oldtime friends and political advisers he has long since drafted into the Government service. One whom he had never drafted was his counsel as Governor. Samuel I. Rosenman whom he named to the New York Supreme Court. Justice Rosenman. a roly-poly who stands about 5 ft. 8 in. in his silk socks and weighs 205 lb., goes on many a Roosevelt fishing trip, frequently visits the White House, attended the Du Pont-Roosevelt nuptials, accompanied the President on two of his three major campaign trips last year, a swing to Denver, another through West Virginia to Pittsburgh. Credited with having assembled the Brain Trust in 1932, Judge Rosenman, unlike the Brain Trusters, kept out of the limelight. Last week Judge Rosenman was drafted, but again for a spot far from the limelight. After a conference with his friend Franklin Roosevelt, he packed himself off for a ten-week stay near Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. His baggage was loaded with work. The President had given him the assignment of preparing the Roosevelt state papers, one volume telescoping four years as Governor, one volume for each of the first four years in the White House, the set to be published by Random House at $3 the volume so that hereafter when people write to the White House for copies of speeches that are out of print. there will be a standard work to which they can be referred. After the set is published, one volume a year through 1940 will continue to be issued to provide for Franklin Roosevelt's continuing output.

P: Asked at a session of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home Town Club in Hyde Park whether the President would run for a third term, Mrs. Roosevelt replied, "I hope not."

P: Having vetoed as too generous a $5,000,000 appropriation to aid the New York World's Fair of 1939 (TIME. May 31), the President last week signed two bills, one providing $3,000,000 for New York City's Fair, another providing $1,500,000 for San Francisco's Golden Gate Exposition.

P: Reluctant as he has been to discuss his stand on labor issues, the President was specific in answering a question by newshawks about his attitude toward the formation of unions of Federal employes: May they unionize? Certainly. May they strike? No. May they bargain collectively with the Government? No.

P: The President vetoed a bill which would have extended for one year the emergency 3 1/2% interest on Federal land bank loans (supposed to increase to 4% July 1) and reduced the interest on the Government's farm mortgage loans from 5% to 4%. Reasons: improved farm income; economy.

P: Continuing his shuffle of diplomats (TIME, July 12), the President appointed Grenville T. Emmet, Minister to The Netherlands to succeed George S. Messersmith, as Minister to Austria. To succeed Minister Emmet, the President picked George A. Gordon, ceremonious, high-collar career diplomat, and now Minister to Haiti. In Washington last week Minister Gordon packed up to go back to Haiti for one last luscious dinner with his dusky friend President Stenio Vincent of Haiti before sailing off to the prosaic Netherlands.

P: Out to the air came Representative Hamilton Fish's "you too" tax revelations about the Roosevelts. They added up to not much. To the Joint Committee on Tax Evasion & Avoidance he gave a copy of Mrs. Roosevelt's radio contract with Selby Shoe Co. showing that she received a nominal $1, her radio agent Myles Lasker $10,000 (of which $4,000 went to Mrs. Roosevelt's friend, Nancy Cook). The $30,000 bulk of the pay went directly to the American Friends Service Committee without anybody paying income tax on it. This only confirmed the point made earlier by Columnist David Lawrence (TIME, June 14). About other Roosevelts, Ham Fish had merely hints to give. The Committee would not hear him on the President, but Mr. Fish told the press his story: The President told a press conference, in discussing tax loopholes, that he had had an 18th Century barn on his Hyde Park farm on which he had ducked taxes by claiming depreciation every year till 1928 when it burned down.

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