The Roosevelt Week

Most honored guests at the White House last week were Herr Doktor & Frau Albert Einstein. They dined and spent the night, visited the President's office to see his collection of ship prints. Since the Doctor and the President do not speak each other's language, Frau Doktor Einstein had to translate when her learned husband said, "Boating and sailing are my principal hobbies."

P: President Roosevelt transmitted to Congress "for its information" copies of a report on stock exchange regulation prepared for him by a committee headed by Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Dickinson. The report being a trial balloon, the President announced that he had not read it, recommended no action. Its chief points: 1) A Federal stock exchange authority should be created to license and regulate stock exchanges. 2) The stock exchanges' power to discipline members is far superior to anything the Government could devise and should not be discarded. 3) Pools, specialists, and short selling all have their good points as well as their bad points and rather than abolish them by law the stock exchange authority should try to prevent their misuse. 4) Stricter margin requirements should be imposed to prevent excessive speculation. Said the report : "It must always be recognized that the average man has an inherent instinct for gambling. ... If abolished in one form it seems always to crop out in another. In America the man of average income has, perhaps, turned to the stock exchange because of the prohibition of various forms of gambling. If the speculative tendencies of our people could be turned into other channels, this instinct might be satisfied without far-reaching economic consequences. . . .* The real evil in this situation is that the resulting speculation affects the national economy."

P:Mrs. Roosevelt let lady correspondents scoop male newshawks with the treasured news that after Feb. 15, when Prohibition ends in the District of Columbia, "simple wines" will be served at the White House, "preference being given to American wines. No distilled liquor [presumably no champagne] will at any time be served."

P:The President signed the District of Columbia Liquor Act. He also reappointed all present RFC directors, and named Charles Belknap Henderson, onetime (1918-21) Democratic Senator from Nevada, to a vacancy on the RFC board.

P: Wearing a pea-green uniform, many medals and a laced hat Jonkheer H. M. van Haersma de With, new Minister from the Netherlands, arrived at the White House, formally presented his credentials, left with a beaming smile.

P: Same day the President called all the Latin American diplomats to his office, told them that he thought the Cuban Government of President Mendieta was ripe for recognition, that he intended to recognize Cuba the next day (see p. 23). The diplomats were delighted at such unusual courtesy. After reaching home Ambassador Trucco of Chile and Minister Lozano of Colombia telephoned friendly diplomats to find out what the President had said, inasmuch as they understood no English.

P: The President received Ambassador Luther of Germany to discuss German-U. S. trade relations. Later Mr. Roosevelt let it be known that he did not like the way Germany had discriminated against payments of interest to U. S. bondholders in favor of the Dutch and Swiss.

P:In Elizabeth, N. J., police suspecting the nature of a post office parcel addressed in a scrawl to "Mr. President, Washington, D. C." dunked it in a pail of water, thereby spoiling an electric clock, made of 27 different kinds of wood, which the President was receiving from its maker, young Master M. A. Williams of Chatham, N. J.

P: South Carolina made the President's 52nd birthday a legal holiday. Oscar of Manhattan's Waldorf planned to serve 5,000 dancers in seven Waldorf ballrooms. Howard Chandler Christy painted a special poster. George M. Cohan made up a special song (see p. 29). The President's mother announced: "All my son will receive from me for his birthday this year is my love." At Palm Beach the Everglades Club fixed up its east ballroom as a dance hall of the '90s, and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst invited Grand Duke Dimitri, Princess Anna Ilynski, Lady Allington, the Duchess of Sutherland and Lord Adare to celebrate. Mrs. Emma Bergdoll, mother of Draft-dodger Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, exiled in Germany, asked the President to pardon him so he could come home. Said she: "It is in the tradition of great rulers that they pardon even the worst offenders on their birthdays." Earl Carroll announced that Mickey Braatz, 17-year-old spotted tinsika champion of the world, would do 52 pinwheels or tinsikas on the stage of Murder at the Vanities, one for each of the President's years. Purpose of all these activities: to raise cash for the President's Warm Springs (Ga.) Foundation.

*Last week Congressman Edward A. Kenney of New Jersey introduced in Congress a bill proposing a billion dollar lottery, the proceeds to be used for paying a soldiers' bonus.

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