Baptism

". . . And the next four years have begun!" So wrote Columnist Eleanor Roosevelt day after her husband's reinauguration. Before last week was out she might better have written, "So the new term has been baptized." One baptism took place when five-month-old Grandson Elliott Jr. was christened in the White House.

Another baptism took place at one of the rainiest inaugurations in history (see col. 3). Afterward the new President told his press conference that the possibility of building a national auditorium to shelter future inaugurations should be looked into. But when the chairman of the inaugural committee, Rear Admiral Gary T. Grayson, next called at the White House, there was another matter to consider: the catastrophic baptism of the Ohio Valley and part of the Mississippi by an unparalleled flood (see p. 12). Admiral Grayson, as chairman of the Red Cross, Admiral Leahy, as chief of Naval Operations, Rear Admiral Waesche as commandant of the Coast Guard, General Craig as Army Chief of Staff, Harry Hopkins as Relief Administrator and CCC Director Fechner assembled with the President to set the wheels of succor turning day & night for 400,000 flood victims. And the flood was merely one more unexpected item in the torrent of events which proceeded to baptize the new term. One day John L. Lewis boldly demanded that the President help the C. I. 0. lick General Motors and was turned down (see p. 11). On another arrived Dr. Jose Carlos de Macedo Scares, onetime Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, one of the President's South American friends, who had flown up to attend the inauguration but was delayed by storm in Santo Domingo. In quick succession followed other important matters: the President asked Congress to extend the expiring Reciprocal Trade Act; Chairman Pittman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee popped up with a new neutrality bill; hard-headed Walter Runciman, proprietor of the Isle of Eigg and president of the British Board of Trade, arrived with his wife to spend the week-end--quite unofficially--at the White House. These last three events were enough to cost Franklin Roosevelt a full week's cogitation. The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act has been the New Deal's biggest project in foreign affairs: to break down the forces that make peace impossible, that tend to starve nations to the point of fighting. Neutrality legislation bears on the same point, how to keep out of the fighting once it starts. Since the Trade Agreements Act expires June 12-and the present Neutrality Law May 1, Franklin Roosevelt has a quick interest in both. And Mr. Runciman, as president of Britain's Board of Trade (a position analogous to and far more potent than Secretary of Commerce in the U. S.), was there to pose some vital questions concerning both laws. Question No.

1 was whether there should be an Anglo-American trade agreement, for such a step between the two richest nations in the world would carry more weight than all the 15 trade agreements' so far negotiated. Question No. 2 was whether Britain can afford to make a trade agreement and become dependent on the U. S. for supplies which will be denied her by U. S. neutrality laws if an enemy attacks her.

Mr. & Mrs. Runciman accompanied numerous Roosevelts to evensong services at Washington Cathedral and went through the motions of being mere week-end guests, but soon that pretense broke down. Host Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull sat up till small hours of the morning listening to Guest Runciman expound the incompatibility of a neutrality law which tries to prevent war by compulsory isolation, and a trade policy which tries to lay the foundations of peace by destroying isolation. Wrhat understandings were reached the world was left to guess, but finally Mr. Runciman gave an interview, declared that "great progress" was being made toward a trade agreement. He added: "I agree heartily with Secretary Hull that improved economic relations throughout the world generally is the best guarantee for continued peace."

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