Trip Postponed

President Roosevelt intended to make an off-the-record speech at the National Press Club Saturday night, then leave for Warm Springs. Sunday he was still in the White House. Events, in the bulky shape of John L. Lewis (see p. 20), history, in the acrobatic shape of a Japanese diplomat (see col. 2), winter, in the guise of a head cold, came together to make it a week of postponement.

To the President, almost certainly, the U.S. seemed to stand last week, as he stood, on the edge of a journey--the tickets bought, the destination clear, the plans made. The news from the Pacific said that the U.S. was ready for war in the East (see p. 36). The way the U.S. met the Japanese envoy, Saburo Kurusu, said that Washington was ready for war with Japan. President Roosevelt got his Neutrality Act repealed--but by a chillingly narrow margin (see p. 22). But unlike the President's trip to Warm Springs, this great journey into the unknown was nothing the country looked forward to.

But the President had one thing that the nation was spared, a cold. He stayed close to his second-floor quarters in the White House. The time he had intended to spend traveling dragged like the hours of any enforced delay. He welcomed Bernard Baruch--who has stayed away in recent weeks since castigating the U.S. defense effort. The problem of Lewis and Labor dragged on and grew more bitter (see p.20). The problems of inflation grew more wearisome (see p. 23).

At week's end the President put aside the cares of office to play host to 31 friends and schoolmates of Diana Hopkins on her tenth birthday, and, while the adventures of Dumbo unreeled on the White House screen, over & above the piping of school girls' squeaks, the President's hearty laughter boomed.

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