The Laundry Is Free

Economy-minded old Benjamin Franklin had argued at the Constitutional Convention against paying U.S. Presidents anything but their expenses. Combine power and profit in the presidency, warned Franklin, and the nation would get not the best men for the job, but the most avaricious, "the bold and the violent." Franklin was overruled: George Washington got $25,000 and a rent-free mansion.

Despite Franklin's fears, few Presidents had grown richer on the job. One who did was William Howard Taft. To incoming President Woodrow Wilson, Taft wrote helpfully: "You will find that Congress is very generous with the President. You have all your transportation paid for, and all servants in the White House except such valet and maid as you and Mrs. Wilson choose to employ . . . Your laundry is looked after in the White House. Altogether ... I have been able to save from my four years about $100,000."

Into the Red. Coolidge, too, had saved money in the White House. But in the final year of the Hoover Administration, Congress made all governmental salaries, including the President's, taxable. By 1944 taxes took more than half of the President's salary. In his twelve years in the White House, Franklin Roosevelt never got out of the red, but he had his own and his mother's fortune to fall back on.

Harry Truman, with no such backlog, was having a hard time breaking even. The Government pays the White House staff and servants, but does not feed them. Bess Truman tried cutting the staff (which runs between 25 and 30), gave up because the housework didn't get done. Feeding the help, plus the family and friends, meant that Truman must pay for about 2,000 meals a month. In the Roosevelt era the monthly food bill sometimes soared to $7,000; Bess Truman has cut it to about $2,000. On quiet nights with the family, Harry Truman often gets leftovers.

Pay Raise. Herbert Hoover, one of the hardest pluggers for a raise for Harry Truman, declared that the President was lucky if he had enough left out of his salary for cigarette money (Truman doesn't smoke). Actually, Truman told friends, after he pays his $30,000 income tax, he averages about $80 a week take-home pay.

This week Congress raised the President's salary from $75,000 to $100,000. To his old $40,000 traveling expense account, Congress added $50,000, taxfree, to spend as he chooses, no questions asked.

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