All at One Table

THE PRESIDENCY

One evening last week at the White House a mixed group sat down to dinner with President & Mrs. Roosevelt. They included Presidential Widow Wilson, Mr. & Mrs. Gene Tunney, Tobaccoman & Mrs. S. Clay Williams, Mrs. Roosevelt's friend Nancy Cook, Tax Expert Roswell Magill just appointed Under Secretary of the Treasury, and Wallstreeter Earle Bailie who might have had Mr. Magill's job three years ago if the Senate would have ratified his appointment. But if Franklin Roosevelt was inwardly amused at his guest list, it was not these guests who entertained him. He must have chuckled to himself at the juxtaposition of his guests of honor with others whom he had invited. For this was his annual dinner for the Supreme Court.

Mrs. Roosevelt had Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes on her right and the duck-hunting senior Associate Justice, Willis Van. Devanter, at her left. All the other members of the Court except liberal Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who, at 80, goes to no evening functions, and liberal Harlan F. Stone, recuperating from a recent illness, were ranged along the board according to precedence. Senator Ashurst and Representative Summers, heads of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, who before the week was out were to be handed a bill to dilute the power of the honored guests, were also at the table. Likewise Senator Borah, who had just stood up for the Court, Attorney General Cummings whom the Justices have often worsted, and several gentlemen who, although the august Justices did not know it, might soon be their colleagues, notably Solicitor General Stanley Forman Reed and Lawyer Donald Randall Richberg. Few of the guests had suspected that there was any special reason for the President's good humor, that within three days he was to shake his guests of honor in their seats (see p. 16).

Not yet ready was the President to name any of his dinner guests to the Federal bench, but one judicial nomination he did make. He named William Henry Hastie, 32, to be Federal judge in the Virgin Islands. While there are or have been Negro municipal judges in Chicago, New York City and the District of Columbia, no Negro has ever before sat on the Federal bench. No mere political gesture to colored constituents was this appointment, however, for William Hastie, Knoxville born, is rated one of the ablest Negro lawyers in the U. S. He was graduated from Amherst magna cum laude, went to Harvard Law School and became one of Felix Frankfurter's "Hot Dog Boys." He and his .cousin Charles H. Houston are the only two Negroes ever to have served on the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review. He has taught law in Howard (Negro) University in Washington, practiced it with his cousin's Washington law firm, Houston & Houston. For the last three years as assistant solicitor of the Interior Department, he has done much work on the problems of the Virgin Islands with their nearly 95% Negro population. Light brown, quiet, studious, witty, an indefatigable worker, he was recommended by Secretary Ickes on merit.

P: To Congress the President sent a report of his National Resources Committee with a message urging adoption of its six-year, $5,000,000.000 program of coordinated public works. The Committee specified 10,000 projects--street, highway, irrigation, drainage, flood control, building & equipment, slum clearance, sewage, recreation, forestry, game protection, pest control, grade crossing elimination, navigation aid--some to be undertaken at once, some to be investigated and held in, reserve for the Next Depression. As a further Flood Relief measure the President proclaimed an emergency under the tariff laws permitting the importation duty free of relief supplies sent to the U. S. by charitable foreigners.

P: "The President announced the death of the 'official spokesmen' in March, 1933. He now announces the passing of the so-called authoritative spokesmen--those who write as 'one of the President's close advisers.' " With these words the President officially disowned his intimate personal adviser and campaign aid, Dr. Stanley High, who founded the Good Neighbor League to re-elect him. Cause of the repudiation was an article by Dr. High appearing in the Saturday Evening Post, entitled "Whose Party Is It?" Prefaced by an editor's note describing its author as having the "reputation of being one of the President's close advisers," it went on to state the obvious fact that the conservative Democrats in Congress are no New Dealers and sooner or later must break with the New Deal. When Southern Congressmen grew angry, the President had to put his indiscreet adviser in his place.

P: Rural Electrification Administrator Morris Llewellyn Cooke, having twice tried unsuccessfully to return to private life, finally made his resignation stick as of Feb.

P: Some 30 years ago Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, disliking the red draperies planned for the East Room of the White House, put up gold ones instead. Mrs. Roosevelt last week revealed that the President asked the Commission of Fine Arts for permission to replace Mrs. Roosevelt's with a red damask set costing $4,000. Other proposed changes: a new piano to replace the gold piano in the East Room (its tone is failing); $10,000 worth of air conditioning equipment to cool individual rooms in the White House (complete air conditioning would cost some $200,000).

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