THE PRESIDENCY: To the Finland Station

The Finland Station in Leningrad is the place where Lenin got off the train on the night of April 3, 1917, to take charge of the Russian revolution. There in the cold, draughty Tsar’s Room of the depot, he stood looking uncomfortable while newly elevated bigwigs welcomed him with speeches and with a bouquet that he handled as gingerly as if it had been a bomb. The phrase “to the Finland Station” has a symbolic meaning, implies something like a rendezvous with destiny.

Last week Russia arrived again at the Finland Station, but this time it was really Finland and the trains were running West. As Russia’s westward expansion hit the border of the little Baltic country and she presented her demands to Finland’s envoy to Moscow, she also presented President Roosevelt with a major problem in statecraft. It forced on him what correspondents did not hesitate to call “the most delicate and momentous” decision of his career.

In the blunt terms of domestic politics, any blunder might have completely changed the situation in the Senate; any bold and dramatic action would have given ammunition to critics who believe the President to be unpredictable in foreign affairs. Inaction was unthinkable on moral and political grounds—not only had Finland scrupulously paid her war debt instalments to the U. S., but U. S.-Finnish relations have been an untroubled model of what international relations should be. Moreover a government that publicly and repeatedly frowned on the aggression of Fascist Germany would be placed in a truly remarkable position if it ignored the threatened aggression of Communist Russia.

Last week a subdued President Roosevelt gave reporters a measured and cautious account of his measured and cautious action. On Monday, said he, “there was reason to become alarmed at the possibility of extension of warfare into the Baltic.” Next day the Ambassadors of Finland, Sweden and Denmark called at the White House. Wednesday morning the President wrote a note (addressed to President Kalinin of Russia, but intended for Dictator Stalin), left it on his desk for Secretary Cordell Hull to read when he returned from New York at 2 p. m. The Secretary suggested several changes, the note was sent; Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt delivered it and talked for an hour with Premier Molotov. When Russia replied its contents would be made public, and “it was of a nature that should undoubtedly produce an acknowledgment.”

Reporters had already heard about its nature. The State Department had disclosed that it expressed “the earnest hope that nothing may occur to injure the peaceful relations of Finland and Russia,” and that U. S. action had been taken independently of that of any other country. If reporters could make no bang-up story of that, it was just because, when diplomats really go into action, bang-up stories are usually misleading.

Reporters scurrying to check up found that current U. S. diplomacy looked good in Finland and Russia. Thin, hardheaded, 47-year-old Ambassador Steinhardt in Moscow got a reputation for keenness as a lawyer, a trade expert, a ballyhoo-proof prophet of the 1929 crash, long before he won a diplomatic reputation in South America. Genial, portly Arthur Schoenfeld in Helsinki, a diplomatic trouble shooter, was sent to Finland two and a half years ago.

Whatever effect the U. S. move might have on world affairs, and however Joe Stalin replied, general agreement was that it was popular in the U. S. At the National Press Club in Washington, where generally foregather the most cynical, disgusted, acid-eyed newsmen on earth, a routine luncheon turned into an emotional spree: gathering to hear about news broadcasting in Europe, reporters spied Finnish Minister Hjalmar Procopé in the audience, cheered him to the rafters.

Last week the President dutifully:

>Reminded citizens of their duties to charity in connection with the opening drive of the 1939 Mobilization for Human Needs, supporting community chests which handle local welfare and relief problems in hundreds of cities.

>Welcomed on the White House lawn 4,000 postmasters in convention assembled, quoted Herodotus, Job, Wilson, Charles W. Eliot and Jim Farley in his brief remarks.

> Bade farewell to the departing Swiss Minister, popular Marc Peter, and welcomed the incoming Swiss Minister, handsome, mustachioed Karl Bruggmann, not forgetting to say a good word about the long and honorable course of Swiss democracy and the health and good-will of U. S.-Swiss relations.

Arrival of Minister Bruggmann reminded Washington of the diplomatic marriages of two sisters of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace. Madame Bruggmann was born Mary Wallace in Iowa, fifth in line from Brother Henry, married Karl Bruggmann in one of the most brilliant social events of the Coolidge administration. Next, her little sister Ruth married Swedish Diplomat Per Wijkman, who last week was attached to the Swedish legation in Helsinki. In Washington small, red-headed Madame Bruggmann looked for a house, explained U. S. ways to her two sons, visited old friends.

>Son James (“Jimmy’s Got It”) Roosevelt requested demotion from his rank of lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, which he held as a White House aide; asked to be made a captain instead. Reason: the rank of lieutenant colonel was too high for his “age and experience.” Captain-to-be Roosevelt is 31. His resignation was promptly accepted, his appointment to a captaincy speeded.