Smile in AAAdversity

Last Monday Franklin Roosevelt welcomed Secretary of War Bern at a pre-luncheon appointment in the Executive Office of the White House. As they were in the midst of an amiable discussion, a Presidential secretary entered, put a slip of paper in the President's hands. It was a newsflash: the U. S. Supreme Court had just declared AAA unconstitutional, lock, stock & barrel (see p. 12). How President Roosevelt received this staggering piece of information was afterwards described by Secretary Dern:

"He just held the sheet of paper in front of him on his desk and smiled."

Three hours later unsmiling Secretary of Agriculture Wallace and Attorney General Cummings were sitting opposite an unsmiling President in the first conference on what to do next.

At the precise moment that the President held the fateful slip of paper in his hands, his annual budget message was being droned aloud by Reading Clerks in Congress (see p. 11). No longer, however, did the figures of that budget total up as they had totaled when he gave it a last pat of approval and dispatched it to the Capitol. The Supreme Court's 6-to-3 decision had rendered the $547,000,000 worth of processing taxes, on which the President had counted, nothing more than a row of nine ciphers. Because no one yet knew how many of the round billion dollars already collected as processing taxes might have to be refunded, the President's $49,000,000 budgeted for tax refunds was a meaningless figure.

Two days beiore, the President had had 100 newshawks into his Executive Office for a two-hour explanatory session on the Budget. Budget Director Bell sat beside him as prompter while Secretary Morgenthau lolled silently on a couch. Looking for "jokers" the correspondents asked searching questions to which the President would sometimes answer "Yes," the Budget Director "No."' After consultation Director Bell's answer was generally chosen as the correct interpretation for the Press.

Chief Presidential point was an imaginary graph on which, until 1953, the line of Federal revenues was falling further and further below the line of Federal expenditures, with a widening deficit between them. Then, said Franklin Roosevelt, he decided to do something courageous, to turn the line of Federal expenditures upward in hope that Federal revenues would also rise. They did and the Budget for fiscal 1937 was his crowning achievement, showing the line of revenues rising closer & closer to expenditures.

This Budget triumph was small, however, beside the pleasure Franklin Roosevelt felt in surprising Republicans with his message on the State of the Union to Congress. Quietly he had arranged with the broadcasting systems the day and hour when his speech should be delivered. From the radio men who rushed to the Capitol for permission to install microphones,

Democratic leaders first learned of their chief's decision. What turned out to be the first Democratic rally of the campaign was arranged at the most expensive radio hour without a cent of cost to the Democratic National Committee, which is still $400,000 in the red.

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