Pitching in a Pinch

Pitching in a Pinch

When a baseball pitcher pitches a no-hit game, he and his teammates are likely to exchange congratulations. Conversely, when the pitcher is being batted out of the box in a crucial moment, his own infielders are likely to find fault with him and with each other. That something of the latter sort was going on between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his circle of close advisers was suggested last week by two well-informed Washington observers.

Wrote Columnist David Lawrence in 146 U. S. newspapers: "To find the President's own appointees talking privately in tones that frequently amount to indignation and resentment is not only so extraordinary that it is important to report it even in this guarded way, but it is a reflection of the do-nothing stalemate which must be broken if business is to improve at all."

Wrote Columnist Arthur Krock in the New York Times:

" 'You must give the cattle a chance to put on fat,' said one of the President's visitors to him yesterday. The advice was in answer to the question Mr. Roosevelt is frequently asking these days : 'What can I do to revive business?' And, noting the simile and its wisdom, no one doubts that Mr. Garner was its utterer."

Garner theory according to Mr. Krock was that the cattle--i.e., American people --had plenty of grass but that the "stock is being chivied around" so much by "the Administration's cowboys" that it has grown not only thin but nervous. Concluded Mr. Krock: "Having had this pointed out to him in trenchant Panhandle trope . . . Mr. Roosevelt may begin to believe and apply the blunt Texas counsel." This week it was reported that blunt Texas counsel had turned thumbs down on further deficit spending, that Mr. Roosevelt might take the issue to the microphone.

P: If by any chance Franklin Roosevelt failed to understand Mr. Garner last week he could have found substantially the same advice expressed with equal cogency elsewhere. In her Washington Herald last week, Publisher Eleanor Patterson, sister of Publisher Joseph M. Patterson of the proletarian and pro-Roosevelt New York Daily News, ran an open letter headlined WHAT YOU COULD SAY, PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT. In it she took the President's "dare" to tell him exactly what to say "that would banish fear." Cissie Patterson's remedies:

"You said once, with eternal truth, that the only thing to fear is fear itself. Fear is depressing industry. With due respect, you should concede the obvious: This fear is fear of you.

"You should inform the American people that, proud--as you should be proud--of the great moral and social advances which have been made under your leadership, you are willing now to consolidate these and attempt no more until your Cabinet, your Congressional leaders and you agree that the Nation can foot the bill.

"If you will do this, Mr. President, explicitly, generously, candidly; make no effort to keep Congress in session longer than is absolutely necessary, and reduce your blacklist to real, intentional enemies of the common welfare, you will be astounded to witness the curative effect of this single thing.

"You have been a great leader and a great man. You can be again."

P: At one of the Gridiron Club's semi-annual dinners. Franklin Roosevelt last week contrived to chuckle at a travesty on TVA, dictators, Hitler's annexation of Austria, the 60 families, et al.

P: On Army Day, commemorating the 21st anniversary of U. S. declaration of war on Germany, the President stood bareheaded at times for an hour-and-a-half in a Constitution Avenue reviewing stand to watch a parade of 12,000 persons, including a fleet of small tanks.

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