Off Port Aransas

When a silvery, 5-ft. tarpon takes his hook, a deep-sea fisherman is in for a job of strength and skill which leaves no time for meditation. But for Franklin Roosevelt, trolling the blue waters of the Gulf off Port Aransas, Tex. last week, tarpon strikes were few & far between. There was plenty of time to think about the Congress he had left gagging listlessly on his Court Plan, about ways & means to break the jam and get the rest of his Reform program moving again. Whether or not he might accept any of the various Court compromises being mulled in Washington--most of which would represent victories for him--remained his secret. It was rumored that he had decided not to wait until Congress had swallowed the Court Plan, that in long, quiet evenings aboard the Potomac he was working on a wage & hour message. Almost all that correspondents waiting at Galveston really knew about what President Roosevelt was doing they learned from the crisp daily dispatches which he dictated, reporting such news as: "Splendid day's sport. . . . Everybody in fine spirits."

Other members of his party, notably Son Elliott, consistently outfished the expert President. Just before dusk the third day out, he landed his first tarpon, a 90-pounder. Next morning, with the sea too choppy for trolling, the Potomac moved off just in time to miss a visit from Jesse Jones, cruised some 175 mi. south to Point Isabel, near the mouth of the Rio Grande. Best catch made there was a nine-inch catfish hooked by Lieut. Colonel Edwin M. Watson. Two days later, back at Port Aransas, the President advanced his military aide to the rank of full colonel. That night, learning of the Hindenburg disaster, Franklin Roosevelt sent to Adolf Hitler and the German people "My deepest sympathy."

When correspondents arrived from Galveston at week's end for the first Presidential press conference in nearly a fortnight, Fisherman Roosevelt had yet to land his second tarpon. But just as the newshawks had settled on the anchored Potomac's, afterdeck, three of the President's aides came alongside, shouted that he had hooked a tarpon out beyond the jetties and was playing it inshore. As his 40-ft. fishing launch drew closer, the audience watched Franklin Roosevelt put on one of his best shows--his great shoulders heaving, light rod bending almost double as the big fish raced, dove, twisted, leaped clear of the water. The fight, snapped by photographers in a speedboat, lasted 82 minutes and three miles. When Guide Barney Farley had gaffed his 5-ft. 2-in., 77-lb. catch and swung it safely over the stern, the grinning, well-tanned President came aboard the Potomac, sat down on the afterdeck with copies of Away From It All and Live Alone And Like It at his elbow, informed the reporters that he was having a grand time, feeling fine, had taken two inches off his midriff. Of his legislative plans he revealed only that when he returned to Washington late this week he planned to confer with Senator Wagner and others on the long-delayed housing program.

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