Deep Waters

Last week an unaccountable gloom settled over Washington, wrapping its marble palaces in melancholy thick as the wet grey fogs that float up from the Potomac. Congress seemed listless, disheartened, worried.

The flag came down from the White House staff; a haggard, grey-faced, weary President was whisked over slush-bound streets to his special train on the lower concourse of echoing Union Station. Prying newsmen had discovered Franklin Roosevelt was headed for Pensacola, guessed he would there board the cruiser Tuscaloosa. But every movement had been shrouded in gloomy mystery; trainmen acted as if they had sealed orders, knew only that they were headed south. For the first time since his Administration began, Franklin Roosevelt had not furnished the press with an exactly detailed itinerary of his trip. ". . . Submarines," said an aide.

Submarines did not account for the secrecy of the train trip; newsmen wondered if they had a clue in a request to Congress that the White House police be raised from 60 to 80.

On the train the President spent hours over prison pardons; forced a tired smile for newsmen, for the first time failed to call by their first names the little group of correspondents that has traveled with him scores of thousands of miles. Piped aboard the Tuscaloosa, he posed for the usual pictures, standing at the rail; soon tired, he rested in a chair, bundled against the damp, cold day. Three wire-service reporters* trode up the gangplank of the destroyer Lang; the destroyer Jouett stood by. Ten minutes after the 21st salute-gun had boomed, the three warships slipped out into the Gulf of Mexico. As shipmates the President took no politicians, no bigwigs, no intimate advisers, but three men who were once described at the White House as "the only three fellows around here who don't give a damn about politics" --hearty Brig. General Edwin Watson, Captain Daniel J. Callaghan, Rear Admiral Ross Mclntire--his military and naval aides, his doctor.

Away from telephones, snow, gloom, pressure, rumors and Term III, Franklin Roosevelt could take off his coat, sit in the sun, nap, read a murder mystery, flip cigarets into the blue Gulf waters--perhaps smile at the revival of the 1939 rumor* that he would meet heads of European Governments in midocean, there settle the world's hash. Last week he could have killed the rumor with a wink or a lifted eyebrow; but he did not.

Such rumors were momentarily quieted when the President suddenly turned up at the Panama Canal after two days and three nights of steady steaming. He swiftly inspected the Zone defenses, boarded the Tuscaloosa again, slid out into the broad Pacific. Washington, like a husband whose wife is away, wondered a little, worried a little, went about its work with a slightly lost feeling.

The President who thus took leave was still the imponderable, focal figure of 1940 politics. He did nothing toward taking his name off his party's preferential primary ballot in Illinois. Wisconsin Democrats in convention plumped for a Third Term; Nebraska Democrats entered the President in their preferential primary; so did left-wing Commonwealth Federationists in Oregon (where California's visiting Governor Olson again urged Mr. Roosevelt to run again). Party committeemen in Ohio and Pennsylvania prepared Roosevelt slates of Democratic convention delegates.

"I expect to be for any liberal Democrat," announced Montana's Burton Wheeler, who would accept the Presidential nomination "if Mr. Roosevelt does not run." Columnists guessed that Mr. Roosevelt would surely declare himself in or out by next March 4--seventh anniversary of his first inauguration; that he would keep his silence and the enormous leverage which it gives him until the Democrats convene in Chicago to choose their nominees. Also on vacation, Jim Farley in Miami waited until the Republicans had chosen their convention date (see p. 17), disclosed Mr. Roosevelt had only 149 shopping days left. On July 15, decreed Jim Farley, the Democratic National Convention will open in Chicago.

Last week the President:

-- Proclaimed April 14, 50th anniversary of the Pan American Union, as Pan American Day, hoped it would be a "commemorative symbol of the sovereignty of the American nations and the voluntary union of all in one continental community."

-- Finally found a quiet Federal niche for his onetime Congressional troubleshooter, lean, prow-nosed Charlie West, of Ohio. Glib Mr. West, vociferous Term III fugleman was tucked neatly away in a $7,500-a-year post on the Processing Tax Board of Review.

-- Approved, while sailing in 85DEG weather, $272,500 worth of WPA emergency projects to meet blizzard and storm damages in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut.

-- Appointed as CCC Chief James J. McEntee of Jersey City. McEntee; wavy-haired chum and assistant of the late Robert Fechner, pish-tushed reports of CCC militarization.

-- Learned that Missouri's Representative John J. Cochran had wide House support for a bill to forbid an outgoing President planning the Federal Budget for the following fiscal year.

-- Formally named Lieut. Colonel Philip B. Fleming, Army engineer, as Wage and Hour Administrator.

-- Prepared to summon at the end of February A. F. of L.'s William Green, C. I. O.'s John L. Lewis for another labor peace showdown in the White House.

-- Received from Joseph P. Kennedy, 14 U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, a plan to exchange British and U. S. shipping routes, thus re-employing idle U. S. ships and seamen.

-- Made no reply to a Baptist demand that he publicly clarify the status of Myron C. Taylor, his representative at the Vatican. Ex-Tycoon Taylor (U. S. Steel) and glacial Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, boarded the S. S. Rex last week, Rome-bound, mum. Their instructions were diplomatic secrets, but the U. S. guessed that a substantial part of Mr. Roosevelt's peace program depends on the success of their missions.

-- Vetoed a $50-a-year pay-raise for U. S. village postmen; approved a $252,340,776 appropriation for national defense.

-- Was reminded by the Harvard Crimson that as a youth, on a cycling tour of Germany, he once ran down a goose, was arrested.

-- Douglas B. Cornell, Associated Press; Tom Reynolds, United Press; George Durno, Inter national News Service. -- First reported in the New York Times on April 28 as a "scoop" by Columnist Arthur Krock.

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