Wahoos for McAdoos

The broad bosom of the Pacific Ocean enfolded Franklin Roosevelt last weekend. To its gusts he could throw the heavy cares of the Presidency, to its rollers the carking complications of politics. Behind for a while lay the names of Barkley, Thomas, Adams, McCarran, McAdoo. Ahead lay marlin, sailfish, tuna, albacore, and the wild wahoo. His secretaries put away a sheaf of delivered speeches. His fishing aides aboard the cruiser Houston unpacked a trunkful of rods, reels and tackle. Instead of shining paragraphs for the electorate, now there would be shining spoons, dancing feathers for big fish. While Harry Hopkins administered work relief to the unemployed at home, the very much employed President would get no-work relief on the mother of oceans.

But if, while cruising off Cape San Lucas or among the storied Galapagos Islands, Franklin Roosevelt this week turns his mind back to the last half of his self-styled "look-see" trip across the continent, he will recall:

P: "Roosevelt luck" at Amarillo, Tex. The evening he stopped to speak there, in the middle of the "Dust Bowl," rain poured down.

P: Senator Alva Adams of Colorado shifting from one foot to the other during the Roosevelt speech at Pueblo (Mr. Adams' home town), waiting, while 15,000 people listened, to see what the President would say to help (or hinder) his renomination. Franklin Roosevelt spoke for ten minutes, praised the Royal Gorge of the Colorado River--and never once mentioned Mr. Adams. But neither did he mention Mr. Adams' opponent, old Justice Benjamin C. Hilliard, who had suddenly gone to Kansas to see a sick brother. So Mr. Adams' punishment for opposing the President's Court plan was not severe.

P: Franklin Roosevelt's reception at Carlin, Nev. which Senator Pat McCarran turned into a rally for himself. To Senator McCarran, too, another anti-Court plan man, the President gave the silent treatment. But the crowd saw smiling Pat McCarran beside the President and cheered him loudly, shouted for him to speak. "It's nice to see you," grinned happy Pat McCarran. Later the President publicly thanked him for several Nevada trout.

(Everywhere political wiseacres interpreted Franklin Roosevelt's failure to crack down on "naughty" Senators Adams and McCarran--right after the triumph of "naughty" Senator Van Nuys in Indiana [see p. 11]--as "the end of the Roosevelt Party Purge.")

P: Excerpts from the standard rear-platform speech which the President made with variations at minor stops throughout the West:

"In the past five or six years I have done as much studying of the map of this State as anybody in this State. I know the possibilities and I want to assure you that your Government in Washington is not forgetting your existence or your problems. We are trying in every way we possibly can to get more people into this State, to develop its resources for future generations who are going to live in the State."

"And now I have to go in and check on various telephone calls from Washington. One of the things I have had to do is to keep in touch with Washington because there are so many problems all over the country and, also, the problems with respect to foreign affairs, that it is very essential that I use the telephone."

P: His daughter Anna and her husband, John Boettiger, met Franklin Roosevelt in Salt Lake City, rode with him overnight to Crockett, Calif., motored with him to Mare Island Navy Yard, then through the Bay towns (hitting 70 m.p.h.) and over Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. As they passed City Hall, some one touched off the famed banshee siren that deafened the Democratic national convention of 1928 at Houston after Franklin Roosevelt nominated Alfred E. Smith. Mr. Roosevelt looked up as though he recognized it.

Over the Oakland Bay Bridge to man-made "Treasure Island" went the motorcade. Here the officials of San Francisco's 1939 World's Fair tendered the President a $12,000 luncheon, with Republican Governor Frank Finley Merriam in an honored seat because the State paid one-third of the bill. Seated honorably, too, for other reasons, were jealous representatives of the A. F. of L. and C. I. O., including radical Harry Bridges. Separated from his President by the speakers' stand was anxious Senator William Gibbs McAdoo. At the President's ear, as toastmaster, was saturnine George Creel, boss of the California Democracy.

Toastmaster Creel introduced Governor Merriam as "one of the few survivors of a once great tribe." San Francisco's Mayor Angelo Rossi, who had been having trouble with PWAdministrator Ickes over the Hetch Hetchy water project, Mr. Creel called "a man suffering from a severe attack of seven-year Ickes."

"Rarely in my life have I been thrilled as I am today," said Franklin Roosevelt who had never seen the new Bay bridges, had not visited San Francisco since 1932. He took due credit for his Government's share in building San Francisco's fair, then, before going to review the U. S. Fleet, declared: "We fervently hope for the day when the other leading nations of the world will realize that their present course must inevitably lead them to disaster. We stand ready to meet them and encourage them in any efforts they may make toward a definite reduction in world armament."

P: Aboard the cruiser Houston, chaperoned by "CINCUS" Claude Charles Bloch, the President reviewed 67 warships which steamed by on the Bay. Then he entrained at Oakland for a night ride to Yosemite National Park, a day motoring through its forests and canyons. Another night train took him to Los Angeles where, from the platform in the station, he at last said (coldly) his good word for "an old friend of mine," Senator McAdoo. Referring to a letter of last winter when he urged Mr. McAdoo to run again, Franklin Roosevelt said: "I meant I hoped he would be reelected, too!"

This did not please Mr. McAdoo's chief primary opponent, Sheridan Downey, one of whose complaints is that "Old Friend" McAdoo, if given another six-year term this autumn, will be 81 before it expires.

P: Paramount fact of Franklin Roosevelt's "look-see" trip was this: Starting as a statesmanlike sortie into certain critical primary elections, it ended as a march of personal triumph. The "outstanding personality of the generation" (San Francisco's anti-New Deal Chronicle) had overshadowed every factual issue of his administration. Pointing this up was a terse testimonial from some Colorado steelworkers:

"The condition of affairs not only in the United States but in the world demands a firm hand to guide this nation, not only for the two years to come, but for the four years to follow.

"We are fearful for the welfare of the U. S., as well as the peace of the world, if one less courageous, determined and intelligent were elected in 1940 to guide the destiny of this country. With this in mind, we most respectfully request, and most urgently request the President to be a candidate to succeed himself in 1940."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.