Breathing Spell

Last week Franklin Roosevelt arrived at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. for his 32nd vacation in seven years, his second breathing spell in 1940. The President devoted all his time to getting well, for he arrived with a slight temperature, a holdover from his bout of intestinal influenza.

Wild plum was in spectral blossom, dogwood lurked in the woods, the purple-flowered Judas trees ranged the red-clay roads, already deep with dust. But for two days snub-faced Dr. Ross Mclntire, White House physician, kept the boss indoors, made him rest in the lounge chair by the fireplace in the pine-paneled living room. Midweek came before Dr. Mclntire permitted the President to disport his 6 ft. 2 in. in the buoyant, tepid waters of the glass-roofed pool. Canada's plumpish Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King lay in swimming trunks on a cot while Mr. Roosevelt splashed about.

One young polio* got the fright of his life as he crept up on the dozing Prime Minister (believing him to be tweakable Doc Mclntire) prepared to tweak his stomach, caught himself just in time.

Always quick to recover, the President tanned rapidly, began to rib reporters at their golf games, heckled and huzzaed in a voice that rang through the little valley. Surest sign of his returning health and high spirits: he made no squawks about their handling of news.

His chief recreation, as usual, was to drive his hand-control open Ford (license plates, GEORGIA FDR) over the bumpy roads in a smoke screen of dust. His evenings he spent reading (presumably detective stories). Quickly he shushed reporters looking for significance in Prime Minister Mackenzie King's visit--said the talks involved no policy matters. By the weekend the nervous shakiness was out of his hands, and his relaxed fingers no longer tapped on the chair arm. He rose at 10 a.m., worked little, got his rest--but in Europe was the war; in Washington were the cables.

So this week, after his shortest Georgia visit (nine days), he entrained for Washington, waving cheery farewell to his Georgia friends: "I'll be back in November--I hope!" Last year, in an equally anxious April, he had called out, "I'll be back in the fall--if we don't have a war."

*Warm Springs slang for anyone afflicted with poliomyelitis.

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