Birthday No. 60

Today, Jan. 30, the anniversary of your birth, smoke-begrimed men, covered with the marks of battle, rise from the fox holes of Bataan and the batteries of Corregidor to pray reverently that God may bless immeasurably the President of the United States. So cabled General Douglas Mac Arthur, who, like Winston Churchill, can turn a dramatic phrase.

Other events on President Roosevelt's 60th birthday--his ninth in the White House:

P: "The President is in fine shape," said his personal physician, Rear Admiral Ross T. Mclntire--and no one who looked at the President needed a rear admiral to confirm the statement.

The Gallup Poll reported that 84% of the U.S. people are satisfied with the President's policies, compared with the 72% who approved him before the Japs struck Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.*

P: He signed the Price Control Bill, with a wry crack at farm lobbyists, signed bills appropriating another $13,330,000,000 for the armed forces, met with the Cabinet.

P:At lunch he had a bevy of movie stars and as special guest a four-year-old paralysis victim from Manhattan, Gerry King, who swings his tiny legs between crutches--and who, before lunch, created a sensation. When Cinemactress Dorothy Lamour leaned down and smeared a lush kiss on his cheek, Gerry hauled off and socked her in the nose. Cried Dorothy: "Darling! you mustn't do that!" Said Gerry: "I don't want that red stuff on me."

P:He and Mrs. Roosevelt had a few old friends in to dinner. They included members of the "Cuff Links Gang" (who had campaigned with him back in 1920, when he was running for Vice President). He cut his private birthday cake, bearing just 21 candles, tuned in on an hour-long nation-wide broadcast to hear welders sizzling in factories, riveters clattering, presses crunching, a chorus singing Yellow Rose of Texas. Said he into the microphone himself: "In the midst of sorrow, suffering . . . and death . . . the day itself and the evening have brought with them a great reassurance. ... I am very sure that this day has not been wasted-that it has been a useful day. For all that you have done, I am very grateful. . . ."

P: At 12,540 birthday parties guests paid up to $250 to dance, eat. hear the broadcast: proceeds to The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and to aid victims in the communities which sponsored the parties.*

P:In Washington's concrete Uline Arena some 4,000 screaming rug-cutters watched Eleanor Roosevelt slice a 6-ft. birthday cake, distribute chunks to Rosalind Russell, Gene Autry, more than a dozen other cinema stars. Newlywed Actor Mickey Rooney crammed down five slices, mugging for cameramen, before Mrs. Roosevelt gave up. At one of Washington's smaller private parties in the Willard Hotel ballroom, Production Boss Donald Nelson tried to take the private elevator, was told by the operator: "Sorry, sir, but this is only for movie stars and big shots."

P:In London, representatives of the 26 United Nations sipped tea, munched cake, auctioned off 60 candles for $534.79.

P:Sixteen of the 20 Latin American Republics celebrated the birthday. Costa Rica named a street in San Jose Avenida Roosevelt.

P: A Chicago mother gave birth to twin boys, named one Franklin D. Roosevelt Swanson, the other Douglas MacArthur Swanson.

*A British survey found that, in spite of Britain's defeats in Malaya and Africa, 89% of the British people are squarely behind Winston Churchill. *In the last four years, the National Foundation has taken in $3,280,296. Georgia Warm Springs Foundation got $1,467,392 through 1937, now receives an occasional grant from the National Foundation. Net proceeds of the first eight birthday celebrations: $9,296,524.

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