High Jinks

In any list of Franklin Roosevelt's noteworthy qualifications for his difficult job, one that should not be overlooked is his amazing capacity for sustaining the antics which Washington's otherwise highly judicious newspapermen consider to be comic. Rated according to ordinary standards, many a quarter-hour of the semiannual Gridiron Club shows displays a lack of grace, pertinence and dexterity sufficient to horrify the least critical beholder. Gridiron Club high jinks are by no means the only such doings by which the President's endurance is regularly tested. Last week, his principal social relaxation after five working days in which 1) the directors of TVA carried their family squabble into his White House office (see p. 14), 2) the nation's deepening Recession was abetted by the shocking business failure of an old Grottie, and 3) Adolf Hitler threw Europe into a panic for the second time in a month, was the annual White House Correspondents' dinner.

Fun at the Correspondents' dinner consisted of a burlesque news reel, showing the President as a "Doctor of Doctrines" singing a song to monopolistic big business interests, cracking a whip over Congress, and greeting small businessmen. The high point was a tableau exhibiting the discovery of the tooth which the President had extracted last autumn strung on the watch chain of a visiting Elk. The entertainment also included a glimpse of Vice President Garner shooting a cow instead of a deer.

If Franklin Roosevelt, whose failings do not include lack of aptitude for satire, found all this strikingly inept, he did not say so. Instead, with a superb show of good manners, he thanked his hosts and went home. After the National Press Club's dinner last November, Franklin Roosevelt retired to bed with acute indigestion. Last week's frivolities left his health unimpaired.

P:To the Senate, Franklin Roosevelt sent the nomination of Ernest G. Draper, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to replace Joseph A. Broderick who resigned last October.

P:As a basis for future legislation, the President sent Congress the National Resources Committee's 120,000-word report on a long-range plan recommending Federal, State and municipal expenditure of $2,100,000,000 over the next six years for flood control, irrigation and navigation improvement all over the U. S. Four days later, the President followed up the committee's report with a message of his own, calling for a comprehensive study of developing and preserving U. S. forests.

P:In Amarillo, Tex., Mrs. Roosevelt received the "world's biggest bouquet"--a 2,500-pound bunch of roses, bound with chicken wire and swung on a derrick-- at a celebration of Mother-in-Law Day which involved a parade with a float carrying 591 mothers-in-law, and 50,000 spectators. Said Mrs. Roosevelt: "I feel I shall think more about mothers-in-law after this."

P:Presidential plans revealed last week: 10-day trip to Warm Springs, Ga. starting March 22.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.