"Yond Cassius . . ."

After two weeks of watching the Republicans organize Congress, Harry Truman decided it was time to invite a few to the White House for a little visit.

It was an intimate affair; just the Senate president pro tem, Arthur Vandenberg, Senate Majority Leader Wallace White, Speaker Joe Martin, House Majority Leader Charles Halleck and the two Democratic minority leaders, Alben Barkley and Sam Rayburn.* After 50 minutes' non-controversial conversation about war surpluses, the Maritime Commission and possible future meetings, the guests walked out to disappoint a mob of newsmen. The talk, said Senator Vandenberg, was strictly confined to matters "unpartisan"--a word he is trying to substitute for "bipartisan" in the capital vocabulary.

Dead or Slugging? During the rest of the week, Harry Truman heard a lot of talk about himself. In a letter to 7,500 Republicans, National Chairman Carroll Reece accused the President of "intentional failure" to give Congress a comprehensive legislative program in his State of the Union Message. On Mutual's Meet the Press program, Jim Farley stated that Harry Truman was dead political timber. Oregon's Republican Senator Wayne Morse thought just the opposite. Said he: the President "is slugging right now, and he has the Republicans on the defensive."

The most enthusiastic presidential commentator by far was ex-Heavyweight Champion Gene Tunney. After a short visit to the White House with shaggy-haired Football Coach Jimmy Conzelman, Tunney announced to reporters that the country is in good hands. "I never saw a more solid citizen. His eye is clear and he's just as solid as a wall. His jaw is square and his stomach is as flat as an athlete's."

Pounding his own stomach to stress the point, Tunney rummaged in his Shakespeare pocket for an apt quote. He found one--"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look"--but abandoned it with a nervous laugh in midline. The rest of the quote: ". . . he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous."

Last week, the President also:

P: Announced the long-delayed Army-Navy agreement on integration.

P: Received Amir Saud, heir-apparent to the throne of Saudi Arabia, and gave the Crown Prince an autographed picture in return for a jeweled sword and dagger.

P:Gave a state dinner for the Supreme Court justices; joined them in applauding the after-dinner offerings of nimble-witted Pianist Oscar Levant.

*Ohio's Bob Taft, because he forswore the majority leadership to get the committees he wanted, was not invited.

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