President's Week

Southern politicians were still circling the White House like Sioux menacing a covered wagon. A lot of the hallooing after Harry Truman's scalp came from men who simply enjoyed listening to the echo, but last week the President heard one statement which hurt. Alabama's Senator John J. Sparkman, former Democratic whip of the House, and hitherto an ardent Truman supporter, demanded that the President remove himself as a candidate.

"There is no use hiding our heads in the sand," cried the Senator. "People in the South are so bitter . . . that they will never accept him as a candidate. I wish very much that he would sense the situation and withdraw." He predicted that the Democratic Party would be "cut to ribbons" in November if Truman were its standard bearer, and urged the nomination of General Dwight D. Eisenhower.*The President, who had firmly announced his candidacy a fortnight ago (TIME, March 15), made no comment.

Last week the President also: P: Directed all executive agencies to refuse both Congress and the courts access to confidential information gathered in loyalty investigations of Government employees. Republican Congressmen immediately attacked the order as a step toward "one-man government." The President's explanation: "Disclosure of sources would embarrass informants . . . disclosure of information might be the grossest kind of injustice."

P: Reviewed Manhattan's St. Patrick's Day Parade, and came face to face with New York's Republican presidential aspirant, Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Both beamed, exchanged enthusiastic handshakes and stood shoulder to shoulder in amiable conversation while the parade passed.

P: Appointed Joseph O'Connell Jr., former general counsel for the Treasury, to the Civil Aeronautics Board.

P:Accompanied Mrs. Truman and daughter Margaret to Constitution Hall for a concert by the Don Cossack Chorus (whose members had been carefully investigated by the Secret Service and duly pronounced White Russians). The President slipped out before the intermission, went to the Statler Hotel to address a savings bond rally. As he left for the concert again he said: "I've got to escort them [Mrs. Truman and Margaret] home. What I mean is, I have to escort them to the White House. There's a decided distinction and a difference."

*A Republican also attempted to revive the Eisenhower-for-President boom. A Manhattan adman started a "People for Eisenhower" campaign, hoped to get an avalanche of letters and postcards to dump on the Republican convention floor.

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