Taking It

The strong chin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with the cigaret-holder slanting rakishly upward above a cloven bulb that is the delight of world cartoonists, last week took a series of blows such as no President of the U. S. ever suffered and survived. The blows would not, of course, have fallen had Mr. Roosevelt not stuck his chin out farther than any President since Woodrow Wilson. He could have seen the attack coming had he not blinded himself to the meaning of the last Congressional election. Fighter that he is, it is doubtful that he would have withdrawn his chin even then. All during the first session of the 76th Congress he absorbed attack, going back for more on one issue after another. But now came the terrible closing rounds, as an angry and rebellious Congress fought toward the adjournment bell.

A drive to deprive him of his unprecedented monetary powers the President had parried (TIME, July 10). But within six historic days: the legal authority of most of the "alphabet" administrative agencies set up under the New Deal was gravely threatened, its Labor program was imperiled, its yardstick utility plan was circumscribed and back to the State machines went a great share of the political power that Franklin Roosevelt had spent six years gathering into Federal hands. Hardest blow of all landed on his nose, which the Senate feared he wanted to stick too far into international power politics.

One evening last week, the Roosevelt chin protruded over a small table drawn up before his couch in the Oval Room, his upstairs White House study. Seated on straight-backed chairs facing him were Charles McNary and Warren Austin, the No. 1 & 2 Republicans of the Senate, and William Edgar Borah, the Senate's dean on Foreign Affairs. Seated nearby also were "Dear Alben" Barkley, the loyal but bemused Senate Majority Leader; Secretary of State Hull; Chairman Key Pittman of the Foreign Relations Committee, White House Secretary Steve Early. Slowly revolving a cigar between pursed lips, looking more than ever owlish, Vice President "Cactus Jack" Garner was also there.

This meeting was at Franklin Roosevelt's invitation. It was an act, not of self-abasement like Neville Chamberlain's trip to Munich, but of cheerful desperation. He wanted to tell the Senate's leaders face to face why he needed a free hand in world power politics, what was going on in the mad world abroad.

Master word-painter that he is, Mr. Roosevelt painted once more the sombre scene of war preparations in Europe, of foreboding peoples, massing armies, cities full of women & children trembling beneath a sky that soon might rain horror. (Ambassador Joe Davies had reported home from Belgium that very morning, "not at all happy about the situation.") Cordell Hull picked up the narrative when his chief was through, but was presently interrupted by leonine Senator Borah. He, too, he said, receives advices from abroad. Moreover, he reads foreign newspapers. He begged to differ with the chiefs of state that war was as imminent abroad as they let themselves think.

Secretary Hull demurred: surely the Senator did not propose to match his sources of intelligence with those of the U. S. State Department? The lion of Idaho, who has never been abroad, denied this implication--but now came a fresh interruption.

The Garner cigar had stopped revolving. The Garner grin was on. His precise words may appear some day in his memoirs. Commonest version reported last week was that, eying the President, the Vice President said:

"All right, Cap'n, we might as well be candid. What's the use of talking about it? You haven't got the votes, have you?"

The Borah-Hull-Roosevelt colloquy ended abruptly. Resignedly, Alben Barkley polled the Senators present on whether they thought there were votes enough in the Senate to give Mr. Roosevelt the kind of Neutrality he wants. All answered: No.

Secretary Hull sat dejected, slumped in his chair. But Franklin Roosevelt, taking this final wallop in his Neutrality fight, was more resilient. He informed the Senators that he would carry the issue to the People. (Senator Borah growled that, all right, the People should hear the other side, too.) He got the Senators to agree that full responsibility for failure to change the Neutrality law now should rest with them, and that Neutrality shall be the first order of business on their calendar next session. Taking pen & paper, he scratched off a statement reiterating that he and the Secretary of State still maintain that failure to act now weakened U. S. influence in preserving peace.

Three hours had passed. At the end of it, Franklin Roosevelt's chin was still out and he talked lightly with his departing guests about other matters. Secretary Hull made no effort to hide his disappointment as he left. Vice President Garner left grinning.

Three days later, in Hyde Park, the President held a press conference. Never had reporters seen Franklin Roosevelt in such a mood of passive defeatism. Though not knocked out, he appeared definitely stunned by what he had taken. Only flash of his old self was a sidelong crack to the effect that the Senate, in leaving Neutrality up in the air, causing "uncertainty" (for which he has so often been blamed) and "gambling" against war abroad, had bud-nipped a nice little boom.* > The Hatch bill effectually demolished the national Roosevelt political machine, as distinct from the national Farley machine (composed of State bosses & underlings) which built up and elected Mr. Roosevelt in 1932, stayed with him in 1936. At the Philadelphia convention three years ago, about half the 1,100 delegates were Federal jobholders. Next year only Cabinet officers, Congressmen and a few top-rank policy officers of the Roosevelt regime may be delegates. Power unprecedented will be in the hands of the State bosses, Jim Farley's friends. The whole Roosevelt strategy of getting uninstructed delegations for 1940 was out on the ropes. If ever there was a juncture when Franklin Roosevelt needed to talk with Jim Farley, this was it.

Two months ago Jim Farley completed a tour of 13 Midwestern and Western States to assay Roosevelt third-term sentiment. What he found was never published. He loyally saved it for Franklin Roosevelt's ear first. Weeks rolled by and Jim Farley was not asked for his information. Jim Farley did not like that. Then Mr. Roosevelt appointed brash, ambitious Paul McNutt, whom Jim Farley dislikes, to a post of honor and influence (Security Agency). Jim Farley boiled.

Last week came Jim Farley's call to Hyde Park. Reason given was that the President wanted to bid his able, surplus-producing Postmaster General/- good-bye before his vacation (six weeks in Europe mostly Poland). Before going to Hyde Park, Jim Farley called on Jack Garner and Senator Burton Wheeler, two of the strongest anti-third-termers known to man. Stories were published that Jim Farley had declared himself to them as of their kidney. Jim Farley announced:

"Any time I have anything to say I will say it publicly and definitely."

He denied nothing. At Hyde Park he met Franklin Roosevelt whirling down a lane in his handbraked Ford.

"Hello, Boss," said Jim Farley.

"Step in, Jim," said Franklin Roosevelt.

And away they went to talk all that afternoon, late into that night, more on Monday.

When reporters were at last allowed to approach the two men, Franklin Roosevelt ran the interview. He and Jim Farley had been having talks like this for eleven years, he said. Their results were usually "fairly effective," and would continue so. And that, said Mr. Roosevelt significantly, was all that reporters would get out of either of them.

If Jim Farley was still boiling, he masked it beautifully. "Nobody is going to catch up with me," he said. "Goodbye, Boss. I'll keep in touch with you." And away again went the 1940 Roosevelt riddle, its answer now (most reporters felt sure) locked in Jim Farley's bosom, its terms dictated (many a reporter suspected) by Jim Farley.

> Librarian of Congress & Mrs. Archibald McLeish, also rotund Author Alexander Woollcott, were Presidential weekend guests and witnesses of a deed-signing ceremony whereby Franklin Roosevelt turned over to the Nation twelve Hyde Park acres where his books and State papers will be housed.

> Another caller-of-the-week: John L. Lewis, to tell the President what went on in C. I. O.'s packinghouse worker drive against Armour & Co. in Chicago.

> The President appointed to the ICC a onetime railroad brakeman, switchman, conductor: William J. Patterson, 59, director of ICC's Bureau of Safety

> In his dark political hour, Franklin Roosevelt received the comfort of a Gallup poll taken in France, which showed that he outranks other foreign statesmen for popularity among Frenchmen as follows: Roosevelt 58%, Chamberlain 22% Stalin 4.5%.

*In Washington, after citing sharp stockmarket rises that day, Senator Vandenberg wisecracked: "The third-term boom?"

/- Unique in the deficit-producing Roosevelt regime, Mr. Farley last week reported a $10,000,000 postal surplus for fiscal 1939, his fifth plus in six years.

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