Third Term?

Franklin Roosevelt did not exactly reverse himself on his Tax Program last week (see col. 3). He simply surrendered the ball to his opposed advisers on the fourth down to let them see what they could do with it. By his speech to the Retailers week before he was still committed personally to more spending and the cart-before-the-horse theory that the New Deal would work economically when an 80-billion dollar income is achieved, a defense notably limned by Cartoonist Burt K. Thomas in the Detroit News (see cut).

All of which convinced many an observer, expert at noting recent trends & trivia of politics, that if the Democratic Party was still sponsoring the New Deal in 1940, Franklin Roosevelt was their man. Who but he had the personality to be elected on a spending-lending platform? Harry Hopkins? Harold Ickes? Bob Jackson? Henry Wallace? Nobody else but Franklin Roosevelt, reasoned the observers.

Regardless of Franklin Roosevelt's understandable silence on his successor, many a visitor upon leaving the White House looked searchingly down the road for the bandwagon. Said New York's playwriting Representative Sirovich: "He did not say that he would not be a candidate but from my talks with his most intimate advisers, I am convinced . . . renomination . . . re-election." Chicago's Mayor Kelly also double-negatived: ". . . did not say he would not. . . ." Twenty-four hours before Iowa's ex-Governor Kraschel left the White House avowing that his State's people "would never be satisfied with a Presidential candidate except Mr. Roosevelt or someone in harmony with his views," Colorado's ex-Governor Sweet declared his conviction that Mr. Roosevelt could be renominated, despite opposition by conservatives like his State's Senator Alva Adams.

An added fillip was tossed in by a Republican, New York's liberal National Committeeman Kenneth Simpson: "The Republicans will have to face . . . Franklin Delano Roosevelt," who "will be no cinch."*

> Administration leaders on Capitol Hill let it be known that they would like Congress to adjourn by July 15, a date chosen because by then Mr. Roosevelt will have entertained the King & Queen in Washington and in Hyde Park and returned from his annual cross-country survey "to see what the nation is thinking." Until July 15 (at least) Congress will simmer in Washington over: 1) Neutrality legislation, which had seemed moribund until Secretary Hull pleaded last week for amendments to allow sale of arms to (good) nations at war, 2) a tax bill, 3) Social Security. Mr. Roosevelt could feel relieved that Congressional items like further WPA investigation and revision of the Wagner Act seemed likely to die of overweight.

> Neighbor Nicaragua got $2,000,000 in credits from Mr. Roosevelt (arranged by the Bank of the Manhattan Company and guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank) as a consequence of President Anastasio Somoza's visit (TIME, May 15). Next good neighbor (Brazil was first: $50,000,000 in March) expecting a handout: Paraguay.

* Michigan's Republican Senator Vandenberg tossed his hat into the Presidential ring this week with characteristic aplomb, assenting to "whatever responsibilities lie ahead." So doing he suggested all aspirants pledge themselves not to seek more than one term.

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