The Roosevelt Week

Sara Delano Roosevelt of the first generation, Franklin Delano Roosevelt & wife of the second generation, James Roosevelt & wife, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Roosevelt of the third generation, and Sara Delano Roosevelt of the fourth generation, all gathered last week under one roof for Christmas. Since Sistie and Buzzie Dall were absent because one had a cold, Sara, 3-year-old daughter of James, had the White House spotlight to herself.

At dusk on the night before Christmas Sara, in her grandfather's lap, rode across to La Fayette Square in the big Presidential limousine full of Roosevelts. From her place of honor she stared back at the holiday crowd while Grandfather Frank-lin lighted Washington's National Community Christmas Tree, but she paid more attention to the flashlights of photographers than she did to grandpaternal words of holiday cheer.

Next morning, privileged again, she rushed down the hall, wakened the President of the U. S. from sleep so that she might have her stocking from his mantlepiece.

In the midst of holiday festivities, the President felt his head grow thick as an-other troublesome cold caught up with him. Abandoning labor on his message to Congress he went to bed, and Mrs. Roosevelt sent him up milk & toast for supper. C On Thanksgiving, 1925, Roy Olmstead, Seattle policeman, was caught redhanded docking a load of liquor from British Columbia. During Prohibition he had served practically all of Seattle's rum-running "mother boats" with speed boats which brought their cargo to shore on schedule. His fast launches were said to have got their cues from his wife who, as "Aunt Vivian," broadcast bedtime stories over a private radio station. Convicted, Olmstead was sentenced to four years in prison, fined $8,000, assessed court costs. The sentence long since served, he has turned religious, become a Christian Scientist. Last week with a pardon as a Christmas present, President Roosevelt excused Roy Olmstead from the unpaid fine and costs, restored his civil rights. At a press conference last February, the President called forward to his desk James Parks Hornaday, Washington correspondent of the Indianapolis News, and declared: "The nicest and truest thing I can say about you is that you are a gentleman of the Press." The occasion was the 50th anniversary of Hornaday's work as a newspaperman, a tribute to him as dean of Washington newshawks since he went to Washington at the time Roosevelt I was inaugurated. Last week Roosevelt II said: "There was--there is--among Washington newspapermen no gentler, truer soul than Jim Hornaday." The occasion was the news that Correspondent Hornaday, 72, had just dropped dead of heart failure (see p. 56).

Of President Roosevelt last week Professor Howard Lee McBain of Columbia University said: "In the midst of a national crisis giving him opportunities for reform never before possessed by a President, he has chosen for personal and party inte/ests to play the usual game of putrid party politics."

To Washington late this month goes Alfred E. Smith to address the American Liberty League in a speech that will presumably belabor the New Deal. To Mr. Smith last week went an invitation from Mrs. Roosevelt to spend the night at the White House when he is in town. Mr. Smith, a good tactician, politely excused himself. When the Press noted this byplay, a spokesman for the President announced: "This is not the first time that Mr. Smith had been invited to be an overnight guest at the White House. At least once a year, Mr. Smith has been invited to pass either a night or a week-end there. But he never saw fit to accept even one of these invitations."

Mr. Smith rapped back: "This statement is false. Since the inauguration of President Roosevelt I received one invitation. . . . That invitation was to tea . . . and that invitation I accepted. It is the only one I ever received up to the one that came last week from Mrs. Roosevelt which was promptly acknowledged. We might just as well have the record straight."

The President squiggled his signature on an executive order and NRA at last folded its moulting blue wings and sank to ashes. Of its remaining 2,000 employes, 600 were ordered fired, about 30 were transferred to the Department of Labor, the rest to the Department of Commerce where they will finish their work by April 1 and quit.

Governor Earle of Pennsylvania hired Robert Livingston Johnson, advertising vice president of TIME Inc., to be State Relief Administrator for 1935. His year up, Mr. Johnson, on Governor Earle's recommendation, was last week appointed by President Roosevelt to investigate relief administrations in England, France, Scandinavia at his own expense.

Wrote Mr. Johnson to the President: "With the great prestige that I would enjoy as your personal representative, I believe I can get this material very quickly."

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