Back-Seat Driver

At a notably dull press conference, Franklin Roosevelt agreed with newsmen that they were all at the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The news was at the other end, in the Capitol, where Wendell Willkie was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (see p. 16). Like Br'er Rabbit, the President was layin' low.

Off to England he sent a research chemist, Harvard's bespectacled young president, James Bryant Conant, as head of a mission to gather scientific data on England's machinery of war. Back from England came trusted Harry Hopkins. At LaGuardia Field, he told reporters: "I don't think Hitler can lick these people. I think he's up against as tough a crowd as there is, and I think they have the military stuff, with the help we can give them, to win. It won't be a stalemated war." Then he sped to the Hotel Roosevelt for a parley with Ambassador John G. Winant. That evening, pouch-eyed, gaunt, battered, he climbed out of a parlor car at Washington and went directly to the White House.

Until 2 o'clock in 'the morning Harry Hopkins talked to Franklin Roosevelt. Next day he was up and at conference again with his chief at 9. Later in the day he sat down with the Secretaries of War, Navy, Treasury, Agriculture and the Director of the Budget, behind firmly closed doors. To inquisitive reporters White House Secretary Early said briefly: "They are taking time by the forelock. . . . When the Lend-Lease Bill passes, many of the Administrative requirements will be set and ready." On the floor of the Senate, Lend-Lease was being debated. The President waited, still lay low.

Last week the President: >Asked $4,700,000 for fleet-operating facilities and bombproof shelters at Guam. When newly arrived Ambassador-Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura went to the White House for his official call, the President, with Secretary Hull at his elbow, agreed with the anxious Admiral that Japanese-American relations were something to "cause considerable concern" (see p. 29). Emerging after a 20-minute chat, the Admiral remarked: "He was very nize to me. I very much honored." > Asked Congress for a $40,917,300 appropriation to improve strategic harbors in the U. S., Alaska, Hawaii and Panama, asked for another $10,000,000 for TVA, to meet defense needs for more power.> Eased into a Federal Judgeship Jerome Nathan Frank, one of the last of the intellectual Mohicans who whooped around the White House in the early days of the New Deal. Argumentative, a bold theorizer, pounce-minded Mr. Frank has long been bored with his chairmanship of the SEC, now a matter of routine. His new job: Judge of the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the 2nd Circuit (New York, Connecticut, Vermont). >Accepted Assistant Secretary of the Navy Compton's resignation. To able Lewis Compton, at a recent banquet, three admirals offered the toast: "The best Assistant Secretary of the Navy ever to hold the post--both President Roosevelt and Charles Edison not excepted." The reason Roosevelt let him resign, according to Washington: Thomas ("The Cork") Corcoran wanted the job. But Corcoran did not get it. Deferring to last-minute protests of Navy Secretary Knox and Navy men, the President appointed 56-year-old Ralph Bard, Chicago broker, director of American Shipbuilding Co. and Aro Equipment Corp. Compton's solace: a job as State Finance Commissioner of New Jersey, presented him by his old friend and predecessor in the Navy Department, Governor Charles Edison. > With Mrs. Roosevelt, twice entertained at dinner for their house guests, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, her prince consort and son.

>Chided Admiral Emory Scott Land (retired) for wearing civilian clothes to the annual gilt-&-braid-splashed Army, Navy & Marine Corps reception at the White House. The Admiral, head of the Maritime Commission, had had an argument with his wife over what he should wear. The Admiral won, wore white tie & tails. Said the Admiral later: "I was coming down the reception line when the President spotted me and said, 'Where's your uniform?' And did my wife laugh!" > Left the reception to greet Wendell Willkie, newly arrived from England, and confer with him on "production methods in Britain."

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