Half Way

The Cabinet took to the radio. Rev. Charles Edward Coughlin took to the radio. Mrs. Roosevelt took to pencil and paper. The President said he was "too busy" for any observance, except to attend evensong at Washington Cathedral. Thus last week Franklin Delano Roosevelt completed his second year as President of the U. S.

Mrs. Roosevelt and the pastor of Detroit's Shrine of the Little Flower drew different conclusions as to the worth of the Roosevelt Administration at the halfway mark. "The big achievement of the last two years is the great change in the thinking of the country,'' declared Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt. ''I also think that in spite of criticism the administration of relief has been a great achievement." Included in the list of what she considered her husband's accomplishments: the Banking Bill, Tennessee Valley Authority ("a decided accomplishment"), CCC ("a grand thing"), subsistence homesteads. ("I do not agree with those who think it is a menace.")

Radiorator Coughlin. who has been disappointed with the President ever since he failed to Inflate, gave his estimate of the last two years: ''You cannot have a New Deal without a new deck. Somehow or other the cards dealt by the New Deal contained the same joker, the same hidden cards which were found in the old deal. This time, however, not only the aces of high finance were wild, the kings of big industry were also wild. . . . The first two years of the New Deal shall be remembered as two years of compromise . . . two years of endeavoring to mix bad with good, two years of surrender, two years of matching the puerile, puny brains of idealists against the virile viciousness of business and finance--two years of economic failure!"

P:As his Administration entered its third year, President Roosevelt was directing most of his efforts toward recovering his grip on the 74th Congress, which was entering its third month without having accomplished for the President any of the major tasks he had set it (see col. 3).

P:The President signed an executive order reviving the Federal Tender Board, "hot oil" regulatory body, whose authority was washed out two months ago by the Supreme Court (TIME, Jan. 14). and vetoed a bill appropriating $500.000 to eradicate Marine pests in waters off the Atlantic and Gulf States.

P:To Congress the President sent a vigorous message urging an end to the "subterfuge" of ocean mail contracts, the "failure'' of Federal loans for shipbuilding. In their stead he proposed a forthright system of direct subsidies to shippers. P:At his first press conference after his return to the White House from Hyde Park the President paternally suggested to the assembled newshawks that they buy the Government's new baby bonds (see p. 63). From the back of the room pert Doris Fleeson (New York Daily News), piped: "What with?"

P:Personally responsible for the lives of U. S. Presidents for the past 20 years, silvery-haired Richard Jervis, chief of the Secret Service White House detail, was relieved last week at his own request and transferred to a field station. Succeeding him is his assistant since 1913, Col. Edward W. Starling.

P:Before the Army & Navy reception, which wound up the White House social season, President & Mrs. Roosevelt had as their dinner guests Dr. & Mrs. Walter N. Thayer. Good friend of the Roosevelts, Dr. Thayer is New York State Commissioner of Correction. Another guest was Geoffrey O'Hara, who owns a copyright to "The Star-Spangled Banner" by virtue of having transposed it to a lower key and who wrote the War song "K-K-K-Katy." After dinner the President listened appreciatively while Singer McGregor McKnight rendered a number with music by Composer O'Hara, lyrics by Dr. Thayer and dedicated to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The title: "I Have a Rendezvous with Life." Sample:

I have a rendezvous with life. Far down the beckoning years Are times of peace and times of strife, Of laughter and of tears, Times of sorrow, times of joy, Times when shadows fall. Life seems all gold without alloy Or shrouded with a pall. While you, you're farther down the years. Can you now guide me through the strife? You've known life's pleasures, known its fears, But I've a rendezvous with life. . . .

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