The Roosevelt Week

Down beside President Roosevelt's desk last week sat Arthur Ernest Morgan, teacherish head of Tennessee Valley Authority, to arrange an exchange of personal favors. Dr. Morgan just wanted to be sure that the President would not stand for the constrictive changes which the House Military Affairs Committee made in his TV Amendments. Mr. Roosevelt just wanted to ask whether Dr. Morgan would take care of 18-year-old Son John Roosevelt for the summer, give him an unpaid job doing TVA "field surveys." They had no disagreement about obliging each other.

P: Having celebrated the conclusion of Congress' sixth month in session by asking it to forbid suits against the Government on gold clause bonds and changing signals on his tax plans the President finally gave Congress unofficial assurance that he would have no more legislative proposals to send to the Capitol this session.

P: All in the day's work, President Roosevelt squiggled his signature to the Naval Appropriation Bill providing $460,000,-ooo, of which $20,690,000 will go into new fighting ships.

P: To the Press Franklin Roosevelt announced that he would sign a bill passed by Congress repealing a law which forbids any bar in the District of Columbia to be erected where its patrons can see the mixing of their drinks. It would, thought the President, be a good idea to let customers see the bottles so that they can be sure Federal tax labels are attached.

P: The President nominated Governor General Frank Murphy of the Philippines to the post of High Commissioner of the Philippine Commonwealth when that job comes into existence about Nov. 15. In Manila, Filipinos announced that when they take Malacanan Palace away from Governor Murphy for the use of their new President they will give the U. S. a site on which to build its High Commissioner a home.

P: Scrawling his signature on a stack of bills, Franklin Roosevelt came to one, signed, passed on without ceremony to the next and the next. The bill in question appropriated $10,000 for the preparation of a site and authorized the erection at private expense of a monument to Grover Cleveland, a Democratic President who, in an earlier depression, vetoed every bill he thought was unconstitutional, fought bitterly with Congress to maintain the gold dollar, and declared that "though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people." P: The Treasury presented the President with figures on New Deal operations for fiscal 1935, concluded last week:

Income--$3,785,000,000

Outgo--$7,257,000,000

Deficit--$3,472,000,000

The deficit was $409,000,000 smaller than in 1934 because revenues increased $697,000,000 and the New Deal had been unable to spend money as fast as it thought it could.

P: On Saturday noon with the Labor Disputes Bill on his desk awaiting signature, the President was comfortably sure that he had the U. S. Labor situation well in hand, when in rushed Secretary Marvin McIntyre. The Press, declared Mr. McIntyre, was clamoring for a Presidential statement on the strike to begin Monday morning. What strike? asked the President. Why, the soft coal strike, said the Secretary. Oh, was there going to be a coal strike? The President had not heard of it. It had been postponed to July 1 when he had promised to press for passage of the Guffey Coal Bill and he had assumed it would be postponed again. Hastily the President asked McIntyre to get Madam Secretary of Labor Perkins on the telephone. After some difficulty "Mac" located her lunching with Mrs. Roosevelt. Miss Perkins had not known there was to be a coal strike. Besides, she was all involved that day in moving to her new quarters from the late Mary Harriman Rumsey's Georgetown house. Nevertheless, she agreed to get her efficient Assistant Secretary Edward F. McGrady to look into the matter. Mr. McGrady found the conference between coal operators and miners had broken up and the operators had gone home. John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, and his assistants were busy preparing telegrams calling the strike. Mr. McGrady asked to have the strike-call canceled because the President did not want a strike. Miner Lewis grew huffy. If so, he demanded, why had not the Department of Labor told him that the President did not want a strike? Why wait till he was sending out the call? Telegrams cost money.

Mr. McGrady was diplomatic. After a time he got Mr. Lewis to go over and see Secretary Perkins. Periodically all afternoon the President was on the wire to the Department of Labor. Towards evening Miss Perkins had news for him: Mr. Lewis would not call the strike if the President really did not want it.

P: To quiet the hopefully palpitating hearts of a multitude of U. S. Negroes, the President last week named a Minister to Liberia, which his State Department recently recognized (TIME, June 24). His choice: Lester A. Walton, 54, newshawk of his father-in-law's New York Age, formerly writer for the defunct New York World. He visited Monrovia two years ago, was presented with a leopard skin by Liberia's President Barclay, attended sessions of the International Liberian Com-mission at Geneva. Clean shaven, bald, a modest family man, he will now return to Liberia taking his wife and two debutante daughters, 20 & 21. Said the Baltimore Afro-American of Minister-designate Walton: "His indorsements for the position come from a cross-section of American life . . . Senator Robert F. Wagner, white . . . Claude A. Barnett, editor-in-chief, Associated Negro Press . . . Bishop Reverdy C. Ransom of the African Methodist Episcopal Church . . . Dr. R. R. Moton, retired principal, Tuskeegee . . . George Foster Peabody, banker . . . Dr. Mary F. Waring, president, National Association of Colored Women's Clubs."

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