Progress & Pessimism

Harry Truman had been President only a few days when he was rubbed the wrong way by a time-honored White House custom: he got stuck between floors in its creaky elevator. Ever since Theodore Roosevelt had it installed in 1902 (his rollicking sons used it to haul their patient pony Algonquin to & from their quarters). U.S. Presidents had frequently been stalled in the ornate mirrored and oak-paneled cage. The only power a President had in that emergency was to ring a gong, then wait while workmen hurried to the basement and jiggled the rachitic machinery back into motion.

Last week President Truman could see progress, on at least one of his pet programs. Workmen started tearing out the old lift, proudly reported they had found a hoofprint of Algonquin in the cork tile floor. The cage will go to the Smithsonian Institution as a relic. It will be replaced by a speedy, fireproof elevator designed by White House Architect Lorenzo Winslow at Harry Truman's order. Until about Oct. 1 the Truman family will have to use the stairways.

Another modernizing job was near completion. Architect Winslow had found the two big sandstone pillars of the northwest Pennsylvania entrance to the White House grounds out of plumb. One had slipped two inches off the vertical. Wind and vibration from Pennsylvania Avenue's trolleys had tilted the other about three-quarters of an inch. The pillars dated back to the restoration of the White House after the British burned it in 1814, but they would not become relics; Winslow's workmen got them back in plumb after weeks of work.

Within earshot of workmen's tools, the master of the White House spent a week heavy with routine work, light of newsmaking action. He was clearly pessimistic over getting the kind of OPA bill he wants out of the Senate-House stalemate. He took a whack at Congress by predicting that prices would go higher without a price control law.

The President also:

P: Nominated former Senator Warren R. Austin to head the U.S. delegation to the September meeting of the United Nations Assembly in New York.*

P: Authorized Selective Service to lower its draft age limits to take in only men aged 19 to 29 (the law would permit inductions up to 45).

P: Signed the $7,263,542,000 War Department appropriation bill (about one-third of the last wartime measure), providing for continued operation of atomic bomb projects and for military occupation expenses.

P: Signed legislation for U.S. assistance to China in building up and maintaining a naval establishment.

P: Gave the nation's thanks and Presidential citations for "extraordinary heroism" to the men of eight aircraft carriers -- the Belleau Wood, Bunker Hill, Cabot, Essex, Hornet, Lexington, San Jacinto and Yorktown.

P: I Nominated Assistant Secretary of State James C. Dunn to be Ambassador to Italy.

*The other members: Senators Arthur Vandenberg and Tom Connally, Rep. Sol Bloom of New York, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Alternates: Rep. Charles Eaton of New Jersey, Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas of California, John Foster Dulles of New York City and Adlai Stevenson, Chicago lawyer who served with the U.S. delegation at U.N.'s London sessions.

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