Work After Fun

"And so I come back, sunburned and hearty, ready to tackle a great many things," boomed President Roosevelt last week to 15,000 whooping South Carolinians gathered on the bare grounds of The Citadel, State military college at Charleston. "I am glad to find on the South Atlantic Coast evidences of what I saw on my trip across the country. . . . Yes. we are on the way back--not by mere chance, not by a turn of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we planned it that way, and don't let anybody tell you differently."

With three weeks of seagoing fun aboard the Houston behind him, the President went to Charleston's grimy old railroad station, boarded his Atlantic Coast Line special for Washington. Shus-sh! hissed the engine. Then shushushushushushs and the train rolled out of the shed in a whirl of smoke. Suddenly there was a great grinding of brakes. The train stopped. A detail of Secret Servants dropped off the cars, ran back through the agitated crowd. Rushing toward the detectives was a squad of sailors, carrying between them a large box. Quickly and mysteriously it was thrown aboard the train, and this time the Special pulled out for good. The President settled back in his seat knowing that his 134-lb. sailfish, which would soon adorn the Smithsonian Institution, had not missed the train.

P: Of the "many things" which the President began to tackle next morning at his White House desk, the first was a detailed report on European affairs from Secretary Hull. Last thing Franklin Roosevelt said before sailing away from San Diego last month was that he was going to avoid foreign entanglements. One of the first things he said upon landing at Charleston was that his "great and earnest effort" would be to "keep this country free and unentangled from any great war that may occur in the countries across the sea." The President ran over this melody again, while Secretary Hull played harmony.

P: Another early visitor was Admiral William H. Standley, Chief of Naval Operations. According to Admiral Standley, he and his Commander-in-Chief "talked fishing and the Navy." Still talking Navy two days later, the President made Navy Day (Roosevelt I's birthday) the occasion to write Secretary of the Navy Swanson that in the light of world conditions it was "imperative" to "increase-the strength of the American Navy to a degree commensurate with America's needs, interests and responsibilities."

P: Director Frank C. Walker of the National Emergency Council also dropped in

to welcome the President back home, see

about getting relief employment for at

least 3,000,000 people by the end of

November.

P: Secretary of Agriculture Wallace and

AAAdministrator Chester Davis were early callers, "bringing the President up to date on our activities." To bolster their corn-hog vote campaign (see col. 3), they later got a statement out of the President in which he declared AAA was on the books to stav. "It was never the idea of the men who framed the Act," said President Roosevelt, ". . . that the AAA should be either a mere emergency operation or a static agency. It was their intention, as it is mine, to pass from the purely emergency phases necessitated by a grave national crisis to a longtime, more permanent plan for American agriculture."

P: Like many another householder who was still immersed in autumn renovating, the President found that only three rooms of the White House were ready for occupancy. So he spent the weekend on the Sequoia dedicating a bridge near Cambridge, Md. and cruising the Chesapeake, planned to go this week to his mother's place at Hyde Park. There he hoped table discipline would help him take off a few extra pounds acquired on the Houston.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.