"Mr. Roosevelt at His Best"

Noonday sun sifted mustily down through the Capitol's frosted-glass skylights. Up rose two clerks--one in the House, one in the Senate. For 40 minutes they droned away in clear, colorless voices, reading Franklin Roosevelt's message to the reconvened 78th Congress. The two Congressional audiences were small. But Congressmen who pondered the text found that the President had sent them a confident, meaty almost Churchillian review of the progress of the war.

In some 5,500 clear and unvarnished words he hinted at future strategy, stoutly defended his foreign policy, pointed proudly to U.S. production, nodded briefly at a postwar world.

"For Mr. Roosevelt, it is an unusual message," wrote Columnist Raymond Clapper, who has a sharp reporter's eye in a common-sense head. "Not only is it one of the longest he ever sent to Congress, but it proposes no controversial legislation, is moderate in defense of past actions, and it contains no purple passages. . . ." Mr. Clapper missed only one significant point: not once, but twice. Mr. Roosevelt actually admitted that "mistakes have been made" in Washington, admissions that from him have the rarity of pearls in restaurant oysters.

For the Record. Without dramatics, the President looked at the fighting in Sicily, concluded that the welcome given Allied troops by the Italians boded no good for the Nazis in other occupied territories. Said he: the landing on Italy is not the end; at Quebec, U.S. and British military leaders made specific plans for other, heavier blows at both Germany and Japan. Definite dates have been set for landings on the continent "and elsewhere." The heartening news:

--By opening up the Donets Basin and the Ukraine, the Soviet Army is doing a magnificent job against the common enemy. But U.S.-British blows are doing more than merely "helping" the Russians.

--Campaigns in the Solomons and New Guinea have made a sizable dent in Jap equipment, have furnished the Allies with valuable new bases. The threat to Australia and New Zealand has practically passed.

--The President specifically predicted: 1) steady, relentless bombing of Hitler's ''roofless fortress," 2) more help and military supplies to China, 3) an offensive in Burma, 4) internal unrest in the Axis' satellite countries.

He carefully balanced sober warnings against the good news: ^ "Nothing we can do will be more costly in lives than to adopt the attitude that the war has been won. . . . We are still a long, long way from ultimate victory in any major theater of war. . . "

--"German power can still do us great injury. . . ."

--"We face in the Orient a long and difficult fight. . . . We must be prepared for heavy losses in winning that fight. . . ."

For the Critics. In his public utterances the President has often poured scorn on some willful little minority of dissidents. This time it was "a few newspapers and columnists and radio commentators." But he prepared thoughtful answers for several types of Administration critics. He took pains to reassure those who have feared that the U.S. is making, or might some day make "expedient" deals with Fascists. Said he: "The basic traditions and ideals of this Republic are being closely followed in U.S. foreign policy. "We shall not be able to claim that we have gained total victory in this war if any vestige of Fascism in any of its malignant forms is permitted to survive in the world. . . ."

To critics of basic U.S.-British mili tary strategy, the President reiterated his long time conviction that this is not several wars, but one war.

To critics of the home front: ". . . I have always maintained that there is no such separate entity known as the 'home front.' . . . There have been complaints, from some sources about the way . . . production and other domestic activities have been carried on. Some of these complaints, of course, are justified." But the U.S. could not have produced and shipped as many goods as it has, could not now be in the favorable military position it enjoys "if conditions in Washington. . . were as confused and chaotic as some people try to paint them."

The President frankly boasted: "The American people and their Government are doing an amazingly good job. . . ." His figures on U.S. war production bore him out:

(Percent Increase since September 1939)

Petroleum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66%

Bituminous coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40%

Chemicals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300%

Iron Ore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125%

Hydroelectric power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79%

Steel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106%

(Actual Output since May 1940)

Airplanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123,000

Tanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53,000

Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,233,000

Small arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,500,000

Small-arms ammunition (rounds). . . 25,942,000,000

For the Future. A few Republican Senators (Ohio's Taft, Vermont's Aiken, New Hampshire's Bridges) saw fourth-term spadework in the President's hope that returning men & women in the armed services would have: 1) greater economic protection, 2) greater educational opportunities, 3) greater social security.

A few found fault with the vagueness of his reference to a worldwide Good Neighbor policy ("a national cooperation with other nations").

But no U.S. citizen could quarrel with the hope that Franklin Roosevelt and the Congress might get along better for the duration: "In this critical period in the history of our country and of the world, we seek cooperation between the executive and legislative branches. . . ."

The arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune well summed up: "Mr. Roosevelt at his best. . . . He gave the legislature a real background for action--a sober, well-balanced and comprehensive survey of the progress of the war. . . . The President's excellent report is a challenge to himself."

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