"Hello, Steve"

At 10 a. m. one day last week Doorman Pat McKenna swung open the door into the private office of the President of the United States and announced: "The Gentlemen of the Press!"

Into the sunny oval room shuffled some 120 newshawks, the corps of eyes & ears through which the country sees its President from day to day. Behind a flat-topped desk sat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his mouth stretched wide, his eyes half closed in a vigorous grin. He was smoking a cigaret in a long ivory holder. Behind the President stood his three secretaries, Col. Louis McHenry Howe, Marvin Hunter Mclntyre, Stephen Tyree Early. Miss Marguerite Lehand, his personal secretary, sat in the window ledge. Near his elbow sat his stenographer, Grace Tully, with pad & pencil. Another stenographer, Henry Kannee, occupied one end of the desk.

Uncertain how to behave in this, their first formal press conference with the new President, the newsmen hesitated. Doorman McKenna said: "Pass by in single file, please, and meet the President. Mr. Young will introduce you." John Russell Young of the Washington Star, oldest White House Correspondent on the job, took post near the President.

Reporter Young: Mr. President, this is Mr. Tucker of the World-Telegram.

The President: Of course, I know Ray.

Reporter Young: . . . and Mr. Stephenson [of the Associated Press].

The President: Hello, Steve, how's the quartet?

Reporter Young: . . . and Mr. Storm of United Press. . . .

Reporter Storm: How do you do, Governor--I mean . . .

The President (laughing): That's all right. Some of you men have known me as "Governor" for a long time. I hope you'll keep right on calling me that.

So it went down the list of White House correspondents, many of whom were long known to the President. Ernest Lindley of the New York Herald Tribune had covered Mr. Roosevelt since he began his first gubernatorial term at Albany. U. P.'s Storm had been with him since the winter of 1929. Universal's Edward L. Roddan, International's George Durno, A. P.'s Francis Stephenson, Chicago Tribune's John Boettiger had been on the job since the Presidential campaign.

Immediately the conference began, seasoned White House reporters were aware of a new atmosphere of pleasant informality. They could recall friendly expressions of "cooperation" which opened their dealings with Presidents Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson; but not such cordial warmth as this. Presently they learned of a more important innovation. President Roosevelt intended to answer questions--not only written questions, but impromptu verbal questions popped to his face. He would try it, he said, despite advice by wiseacres that no President since Theodore Roosevelt had been able to keep it up.

Harding tried it for a little while, then insisted that questions be submitted in advance, in writing. Coolidge refused ever to be quoted, created the "White House Spokesman." He too invited written questions, which he usually ignored. Hoover won applause at the outset by abolishing the "spokesman." His very first sentence to assembled newsmen--"It seems that the whole Press of the United States has given me the honor of a call this morning"--was considered momentous because it was the first direct quotation from a President in years. But like his predecessors, President Hoover soon decreed that questions must be in writing, reserved the right to reply or not. Also he established three categories of White House news: 1) directly quotable; 2) background information ("off the record") not to be quoted, but to help toward intelligent reporting; 3) strict confidences.

The Hoover system failed because the Press audience included not only regular White House correspondents but also their editors and influential friends, magazine writers and "tipsters." Instead of barring the supernumeraries, Mr. Hoover simply talked with restraint. Later when the Press became critical of his official acts there grew a mutual distrust. Acutely sensitive to criticism, the President decided the Press was hostile. In turn the Press decided the President was sour, evasive. He began to ignore written questions, eventually practically abandoned press conferences.

President Roosevelt adopted the three Hoover categories of news, and did not promise to answer all questions. But he limited his audience strictly to the regular White House corps; and he permitted quotation only of his exact words, as recorded by the stenographers. The complete transcript of every press conference will be kept, said the President, because he does not want to revive the "Ananias Club." as Theodore Roosevelt called White House visitors whom he had to turnquote.*

"Smoothie." Long before he entered the White House, Franklin Roosevelt showed that he knew the secret of winning newsmen to him. He never betrays the slightest hint that the presence of reporters is anything but a pleasure. When photographers at last week's press conference requested him to "look this way." he said no, he would rather look toward Miss Lee Krieselman of the Wichita Beacon, one of the few women present. Another time, out of doors, he demurred at waving his hand for the cameras again because he was "afraid of developing a permanent wave." When his wrinkled Secretary Louis Howe bought a new suit, the President issued a playful "special bulletin" to the Press. Last week, when Radio Commentator Edwin C. Hill broadcast over C. B. S. an approving report of the President's first actions, the President had Secretary Steve Early telephone Reporter Hill, thank him, ask for a copy of his speech. With all admiration, slangy newshawks describe their new White House character as "a smoothie."

Louis, Mac & Steve. If President Roosevelt succeeds in maintaining a friendly Press it will be due not alone to his own adroitness, but also to the sense and tact of his Secretaries Howe, Mclntyre & Early, all oldtime newsmen. One cold night last week, "Mac" Mclntyre joined a vigil of shivering reporters on the White House veranda, started them singing "Sweet Adeline." Most of the Press contacts are handled by handsome, curly-headed "Steve" Early. A descendant of Confederate General Jubal Early, he covered the Navy Department for A. P. when Mr. Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary. He covered the Roosevelt campaign for Vice President in 1920. Last week Washington correspondents were delighted to find him an energetic liaison man, willing to hurry news to them while it was hot, or to interrupt the President with pertinent questions rather than make them wait for a formal statement.

Results. "Once again President Roosevelt exhibits the bald courage and unselfish leadership . . ."--Boston Transcript (arch-Republican).

"The fact that he acted without shilly-shallying indicates . . . that he knows what it is all about . . ."--Chicago Tribune (Republican).

"The action taken by President Roosevelt this week was a greater stride toward business improvement than anything else in the past three years."--Financial Editor Ralph West Robey, New York Evening Post (high Tory).

"The President, his Cabinet and the new Government of Democracy each has shown a virile and strong capacity for leadership."--George Van Slyke, New York Sun (Republican).

Even the cautiously impartial Associated Press sent out a dispatch beginning: "Having just become President, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: 'We must act, and act quickly!' And did he act? Well--. . . ."

"America has found a man. In him, at a later stage ... the world must find a leader. Undaunted by the magnitude of his stupendous task and cool in the face of its urgency, Mr. Roosevelt has made a splendid beginning."--Editor James Louis Garvin in the London Observer.

For the second time in 148 years the London Times spread a two-column headline, for the Inauguration Speech.

Presidents have won hearty non-partisan support from the Press in the past, but rarely such enthusiasm as Franklin Roosevelt got to start with. Virtually alone amid the chorus of jubilation was the Los Angeles Times, loyal Hoover organ, which reminiscently front-paged a cartoon of Uncle Sam shaking hands with President Roosevelt. Said Uncle Sam: "And may you get a better break than Hoover did."

Contempos

Contempo, a literary magazine of small circulation, was published in Chapel Hill, N. C. by Milton A. Abernethy and Anthony J. Buttitta. Last year they quarrelled. Buttitta moved to Durham, N. C. Editor Abernethy, continuing to publish at Chapel Hill, was distressed last January to read an announcement by his ex-partner that the latter had removed Contempo to Durham, would publish it from there. Each side hired lawyers, Abernethy decrying Buttitta as a humbug (TIME, Jan. 16). No humbug, Mr. Buttitta last week sent his own Contempo out from Durham, close on the heels of the latest issue of Abernethy's Contempo. Both are printed on similar rough stock with a nearly identical masthead, Buttitta's marked: "Reg. U. S. Pat. Off." Abernethy's is designated Vol. Ill, No. 7; Buttitta's, Vol. IV, No. 1. Buttitta's contained work by Floyd Dell and Henry Pratt Fairchild.

Abernethy's lawyer threatened to act on postal laws forbidding two magazines to appear under the same name.

Advt. of the Week

An unusual proofroom blunder let a book advertisement in Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis' Republican New York Evening Post run upside down. Readers who turned the page around saw that the book thus advertised was Charles Austin Beard & Mary Ritter Beard's The Rise of American Civilization.

* The "club" included legislators, politicians. No newsmen are on record as "members."

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