THE PRESIDENCY: Squared Away

When Franklin Roosevelt addressed all the People in depressed April, he said he proposed to “sail, not drift.” But not until Congress had rigged the ship of state for him and cleared the decks by going home, was Skipper Roosevelt free to kick the tiller over and square away. Last week that moment came, and with vigorous word and action Franklin Roosevelt made perfectly clear what course he had laid out: through the narrow Strait of Recovery, boldly past the storm-ridden Primary Isles, to the snug harbor of Fall Elections.

Congress had given him much of the rigging he had ordered (TIME, June 27). He hastened to make it fast by signing bills industriously all week long, working at his Hyde Park desk, collarless, in shirt sleeves and seersucker pants. With hawk-sharp eye, he vetoed a batch of little pension and claim bills, several efforts to expand veterans’ compensation, a $3,260,000 building program for the Bureau of Fisheries, a pay-raiser for the Immigration & Naturalization Services, a bill enforcing publicity for PWA subcontractors and material men. These brought his veto record up above 300 since 1933, second only to Grover Cleveland’s two-term record of 344 vetoes.

The rest of his new gear Franklin Roosevelt approved with gusto and dispatch—Spend-Lend, Wages & Hours, Deficiency Bill, etc. And during the week he added two executive devices of his own: 1) a raise in pay for all WPA workers in 13 Southern States; 2) a loosening of requirements in bank examinations.

Back in Washington, he hurried away from the annual dinner tendered him by the “Little Cabinet” (assistant and undersecretaries) at the sumptuous country house of Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, to address the People once again. When he had finished, no one could doubt that Franklin Roosevelt’s immediate objectives now are these:

1) To split the country into “liberal” and “conservative” halves politically.

2) To woo the “liberal” half openly, in person.

3) To combat “conservatives” in business and politics but perhaps less savagely than before, since he thinks that some of them may now be ready to surrender.

¶ The President received Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Naval Operations, and approved plans to push ahead at once the building of the following new craft: four battleships, four light cruisers, one aircraft carrier, eight destroyers, six submarines. The President exercised discretion vested in him by Congress by deciding not, at this time, to raise the tonnage on two of the battleships from 35,000 tons to 45,000.

¶ Inspecting the East for the first time, Cinemoppet Shirley Temple, 9, in a blue shirred frock and red hair-ribbon called on President Roosevelt squired by her father & mother, Mr. & Mrs. George Temple. The conversation ran on lamb chops, a tooth Miss Temple had lately lost, a salmon she had caught in Vancouver. Leaving the White House she exhibited her autograph book, which she considered “a very important book now.” Inscribed across one whole page was: “To Shirley, from her old friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

¶ Ambassador Joseph E. Davies and his very rich wife returned last week from their purgatorial year in Russia, to report to Franklin Roosevelt and make ready to go to Belgium, his next step toward Ambassadorial eminence. But their presence was completely eclipsed by the arrival four days earlier of another Ambassador named Joseph. Home from his complete capture of London was “Joe” Kennedy with flashing smiles for the press, a “long and somewhat cheerless” report to the President about conditions abroad, emphatic denials of any mission more secret than attending Joe Jr.’s class day exercises at Harvard.

¶ The President signed executive orders making about 130,000 more employes of the Government eligible for the Civil Service and permanent tenure of their jobs, if they have held them six months and can pass examinations (non-competitive). The orders also set up a personnel council, to watch over the merit system which will now blanket 660,000 of the Government’s 826,319 civil employes.

¶ The President announced the personnel of his commission to study labor laws and conditions in Britain—and Sweden—this summer. Conspicuously absent was a representative of C.I.O., but John L. Lewis would have no part in any study that might lead to altering the Wagner Labor Act. Mostly of good calibre, the Commission was notably mixed, including the president of General Electric Co. and the principal of Mrs. Roosevelt’s Todhunter School for Girls.

Lloyd K. Garrison, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Robert Watt, American Federation of Labor.

Gerard Swope, president of General Electric Co.

Henry I. Harriman, past president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.

William H. Davis, onetime NRA Compliance Director.

Mrs. Anna A. Rosenberg, New York director of Social Security.

Charles R. Hook, president of American Rolling Mill Co.

Marion Dickerman, Principal of Todhunter.

William Ellison Chalmers, Assistant U. S. Labor Commissioner at Geneva.