First Christmas

In the midst of all his other troubles, unhappy Herbert Hoover's White House offices caught fire four Christmases ago. President Roosevelt had better luck last week when a blaze in the wastepaper storage room of the Executive Offices was promptly discovered and extinguished by an alert guard.

Day before Christmas Eve the President gave a holiday to his clerical staff. To each clerk and stenographer he presented a book, with his autograph on the flyleaf. Next day he entertained, first, the families of his chauffeurs and mechanics, then the families of the White House domestic staff. All children under 15 received their gifts from the President himself. That night, true to family tradition, he read A Christmas Carol aloud to kith & kin. Just before he put out the light to go to sleep he saw nine socks and stockings hanging over his big bedroom fireplace: his own, his mother's, his wife's, his Aunt Dora Forbes's, his daughter's, Son John's, Son Franklin's, Granddaughter "Sistie" Dalls, Grandson "Buzzie" Dall's. Next morning very early the President was awakened by his grandchildren, another Roosevelt tradition dictating that the grownups must supervise the opening of all packages. The family tree, set up in the second floor hall, was decorated with real candles because Mr. Roosevelt dislikes the new-fangled electric bulbs. Then the President settled down to open three clothes hampers full of presents sent by admirers all over the world.

As a Christmas present to 1,500 War-time agitators and draft dodgers. President Roosevelt issued an amnesty proclamation restoring civil rights to all who, convicted under the Espionage and Selective Service Acts, had served their sentences. Unaffected was the case of notorious Slacker Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, who escaped to Germany before serving sentence.

P: Most important act of the President's week was a proclamation directing the Treasury to buy 24,421.410 oz. of domestically-mined silver, coin half of it, store the rest in its vaults (see col. 3). Next day, during a Press conference. President Roosevelt expressed the hope that the international agreement on silver "could be extended to other monetary bases." Did he mean gold? The secretive President smilingly reminded his interviewers that "sea shells with holes in them are a monetary base in the South Sea." P: Presiding at his first meeting of the National Emergency Council, the President added three more members to its board, announced that NEC would soon take over the enforcement of NRA's and AAA's compliant provisions. Its field personnel would receive salaries, but NEC would save the Treasury "a very large sum of money'' by eliminating existing overlapping Federal special agencies. P: The President also: issued an executive order designating the National Labor Board as the supreme arbiter in labor disputes under the NRA, and making its previous rulings retroactively binding; 2) extended his voluntary re-employment agreement to May 153) created another recovery agency, Electric Home & Farm Authority (see p. 27). All the Government's relief purchasing activities were handed over to Federal Surplus Relief Corp., which had heretofore shared this function with AAA, used AAA's money. P: White House visitors: Manhattan's Philanthropist August Heckscher, who is interested in low-price housing; Banker-Senator & Mrs. Andrew Jameson of the Irish Free State to pay respects; Insurgent Republican Senator Hiram Johnson of California who was said to be slated for the next vacancy on the Supreme Court; a delegation of United Confederate Veterans, who brought the first pledge of fealty ever given a U. S. President by Confederate soldiers.

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