The Roosevelt Week

When young Franklin Delano Roosevelt married his fifth cousin Eleanor, on St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he was somewhat perturbed to find that her Uncle Theodore, who gave the bride away, got much more attention than the bridegroom. Year in and out, life among the Roosevelts is much the same. Last week, on the 33rd anniversary of his wedding. Franklin Roosevelt had outstripped almost everyone else in the world in the endless race for public attention, but his own family was still very much in the running.

In Los Angeles, absent from the White House for the second wedding anniversary in a row, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt broke the monotony of a lecture tour to call on Shirley Temple, who announced, without revealing her reason, that she was soon going to Washington to see the President. Wrote Mrs. Roosevelt in My Day: "I hope she will not delay her visit too long." In Washington, a delegation of Massachusetts Democrats led by State Committeeman Charles Maliotis, who operates three restaurants and owns some real estate in Boston, called on James Roosevelt to ask him to run for Lieutenant Governor next autumn. James Roosevelt said he would think it over. In New York, a committee headed by onetime Ambassador to Germany James Gerard announced that at an elaborate reception on April 3 it would present an Albert Einstein medal to the President's 83-year-old mother Mrs. James Roosevelt for "a lifetime of devoted service to every communal cause in the country."

Meanwhile, at the White House last week, the President dealt with the gravest European crisis since 1917 through the Department of State. To Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria, the President's only public reference was an indirect one at a press conference. Asked whether he had signed the Czechoslovakian Trade Treaty, in which Austria is mentioned on the list of most favored nations, the President said he had signed it, and that legally--if there was such a thing as international law--he had not at the time been officially informed by Austria that it had ceased to exist. No further comment, said the President, was necessary.

¶ Most noteworthy White House caller of the week was handsome Philippine High Commissioner Paul McNutt. Colonel McNutt had just made a radio speech strongly recommending that the current plan to give the Philippines independence in 1946 be reconsidered. The proposal had been applauded by Philippine President Manuel Quezon, who, in his public utterances at least, has heretofore been advocating independence not in 1946, but earlier. At the White House Colonel McNutt enlarged on his thesis that "if the Filipinos want it, an indefinite extension of American sovereignty" would be advantageous. The President, said Colonel McNutt, was favorably impressed.

¶ The week's time extension he gave them last fortnight having expired, the President once more received in his office TVA Chairman Arthur Ernest Morgan and his fellow directors, David Eli Lilienthal and Harcourt Morgan, once more asked Chairman Morgan to substantiate the sensational charges upon which he was demanding a Congressional investigation of his colleagues (TIME, March 21). When Chairman Morgan, apparently counting on the fact that a Congressional investigation of TVA is now certain, once more refused to answer Presidential questions, Franklin Roosevelt with a great show of forbearance extended the hearing another three days. When three days later Mr. Morgan reaffirmed his determination not to let the President rush in where Congress was anxious to tread, Franklin Roosevelt, who can be as bull-headed as anyone else, laid down his ultimatum, announced that if the Chairman would not agree to cooperate with his inquiry with-in 24 hours he must either resign or face suspension.

¶ In New York, police arrested one Lester David O'Dell for writing a series of threatening letters to the President so persuasively phrased as to get past the secretariat which usually weeds such items out of the Presidential mail bag. In court, Magistrate Irving Ben Cooper recognized Correspondent O'Dell as a crank who had written similar letters to Mayor LaGuardia two years ago.

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