Salesman's Reply

In his sick room at Rochester, Minn. several weeks ago,* James Roosevelt received Writer Walter Davenport of Collier's to reply through him to Writer Alva Johnston's article "Jimmy Got It" in the Satevepost (TIME, July 4). Last week and this, Collier's published the Roosevelt reply, "I'm Glad You Asked Me," in two installments.

Writer Johnston had suggested Son Roosevelt's income from his Boston insurance firm of Roosevelt & Sargent was between $250,000 and $2,000,000 a year. Reply (with photographs of his income-tax returns): James Roosevelt's taxable income was as follows:

1933 . . . $21,714.31
1934 . . . 49,167.37
1935 . . . 33,593.37/-
1936 . . . 44,668.60
1937 . . . 23,834.38

Writer Johnston insinuated that, after three false starts in insurance, Son James's ultimate success was entirely due to his father's becoming President. Replies:" Sure, I got into places I never would have if I wasn't the son of the President. . . . But, son or no son, I got tossed out a lot too. Listen, fellow, prospects don't wilt just because you're the son of the President. Try it sometime."

Writer Johnston charged that many of Son James's accounts were "twisted" away from other agents by his political potential. Reply: "It has never been suggested to me in any form, directly or indirectly, that I intercede for a client or a prospect in any Government branch. . . . And this has surprised me. . . . And naturally I have never suggested to any client . . .that I might exert political influence in his behalf."

Writer Johnston called James Roosevelt "by a wide margin the biggest whiskey-insurance man in America." Reply: Roosevelt & Sargent never insured "so much as a bottle of whiskey imported into the United States." But their National Distillers Products Corp. account blankets all that big company's plants & stocks.

Other items and excerpts from James Roosevelt's reply:

P: Since becoming his father's secretary, "I have not solicited nor attempted to solicit--no, and I haven't accepted--a single dollar of insurance from anyone, anytime, anywhere. Anything to the contrary is a miserable lie."

P: To save taxes, James Roosevelt gave half his interest in Roosevelt & Sargent to his wife.

P: "Tell me if I'm screwy for having the idea that, being the President's son, they'd have called me a crook no matter what business I'd entered."

P: "I'm not a rat."

Last week James's youngest brother, John Roosevelt, home from honeymooning in Bermuda, was promised a job "at the bottom" ($18 per week) in Wm. Filene's Sons department store in Boston.

*To light last week came a tale about Patient Roosevelt's stay in St. Mary's Hospital, Rochester: Among those curious to see James Roosevelt was a young nurse who made bold to enter his room at 6 a. m. while his night nurse was out writing her report. Waking the patient, the youngster popped a thermometer into his mouth, gazed her fill, removed the thermometer, marched out. When Patient Roosevelt asked his doctor if he must be wakened so early, the young nurse was discovered, fired--but soon given a job in another hospital.

/-In this year, the Collector of Internal Revenue had to remind Taxpayer Roosevelt about $1,089.56 in stock dividends omitted from his return.

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