THE PRESIDENCY: Week at Washington

Back in Washington after 18 days at Hyde Park and on Long Island Sound. Franklin Delano Roosevelt last week found himself somewhat in the position of most U. S. citizens at the end of summer vacations: swamped with work. Items that demanded his immediate attention were the uproar about Associate Supreme Court Justice Hugo La Fayette Black (see p. 10); two speeches on the same day; and the war in China. Pitching into this impressive lineup, the President started with the War.

His first day in Washington was devoted to conferences with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Roving Ambassador Norman Hezekiah Davis and Chairman Joseph P. Kennedy of the Maritime Commission. Members of the Cabinet hurried up to the White House for their first meeting in several weeks. After the meeting, Secretaries Wallace, Ickes and Roper hurried to the Carlton Hotel for a special showing of the MARCH of TIME newsreel’s current issue on the War in China. A few minutes after the President left the Executive Offices for the day, a three, sentence statement on the war was released to the Press:

“Merchant vessels owned by the Government of the United States will not hereafter, until further notice, be permitted to transport to China or Japan any of the arms, ammunition or implements of war which were listed in the President’s Proclamation of May 1, 1937.

“Any other merchant vessels, flying the American flag, which attempt to transport any of the listed articles to China or Japan will, until further notice, do so at their own risk.

“The question of applying the Neutrality Act remains in status quo, the Government policy remaining on a twenty-four-hour basis.”

Ever since the war in China started six weeks ago, Franklin Roosevelt has been embarrassed by the fact that, until war was declared, he could scarcely apply the Neutrality Act without making a bad situation worse. Last week’s embargo appeared to bear the same relation to an official application of the Neutrality Act that the Sino-Japanese conflict bears to a declared war.

Government-owned ships in Far Eastern trade are the 13 vessels of the American Pioneer Line, currently being operated by the Roosevelt Steamship Co. for the account of the Maritime Commission. First ship to which the statement applied was the Pioneer Line’s freighter Wichita en route from Baltimore to China with a cargo which consisted partly of barbed wire and 19 Bellanca planes for the Chinese Government. Day after the statement was released, the Wichita put in at San Pedro, Calif., for supplies. Before she proceeded to Manila, her war cargo was unloaded.

¶ At Antietam Battlefield, north of Washington, the President spent 40 minutes watching a re-enactment of the bloodiest day of the Civil War. Saving most of his fire for his Constitution Day address in Washington the same evening (see col. 3), he got a cool response to a short speech which contained only one notable reference to the New Deal: “I believe also that the past four years mark the first occasion, certainly since the War Between the States and perhaps during the whole 150 years of our Government, that we are not only acting but also thinking in national terms.”

¶ A trip to the West Coast to find out for himself how some of the people in the States whose Senators were among its strongest opponents felt about his Court Plan has been on Franklin Roosevelt’s schedule for a month. Last week he made up his mind to go. Plans called for one major speech, at Bonneville Dam, rear platform talks along the way. After his five busy days in Washington the President at week’s end went back to Hyde Park to rest and map his itinerary. First public appearance scheduled was Cheyenne, Wyo., home of Democratic Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney. Tentative program thereafter included a week-end at Yellowstone Park, a stop at Boise, Idaho, a visit to his son-in-law, Publisher John Boettiger of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.