Year VIII

Year VII

Franklin Roosevelt jammed his broad-brimmed soft felt down over his thinning grey hair, hooked the top frog of his officer's boat-cloak, came ashore at Pensacola, Fla.

Behind him, in all probability, was his last real seagoing vacation before he and the U. S. people find out about Term III. Ahead of him were months of arduous labor in the White House: the burden of operating a vast, peaceable democracy in a war-gripped world, the problem of holding together the sagging New Deal. Tanned, re-toughened, in bouncing spirits, his February melancholy and his barren fishing luck forgotten, he took train for Washington ready to fight the G. O. P. and the White House air-conditioning for at least eleven more months.*

An old hand at combining business & pleasure, the President had taken time on his trip to scrutinize the Panama Canal Zone defenses minutely. He came back renewing his demand that Congress at once appropriate $15,000,000, authorize $99,300,000 for a third set of Canal locks--ultimately to cost $277,000,000. (Both appropriation & authorization were promptly turned down by the House.) He also wanted the number (secret) of airplanes & anti-aircraft guns in the Zone doubled.

The 21 American Republics are in accord on the Canal's defense, said the President to the press. To official circles, a few hours after his return, he said that he had personally obtained direct permission from three countries (Colombia, Panama, probably Costa Rica) near the Canal for U. S. military use of their airports in wartime defense of the Canal. If new locks are not begun pronto, he warned (their construction will take six years), Congress will be to blame. Mumbling "economy," his leaders moped back to Capitol Hill to try again.

By his first official act on his return--signing the bill under which Lender Jesse Jones was readying loans for Finland ($20,000,000), Sweden ($15,000,000), Norway ($10,000,000)--he emphasized his preoccupation with foreign affairs. No one near him doubted that his heart & mind were with high-domed Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles in Europe .

Grey and murky dawned Monday, March 4, in Washington, seventh anniversary of the New Deal--seven years since the miserable, slushy day he rode, face grave, to the Inauguration ceremonies beside haggard Herbert Hoover. In mufti--no sugar-scoop coat--trailed by his secretariat, he drove around Lafayette Square to the buff-stucco Church of the Presidents, old St. John's (Episcopal). Surrounded by officialdom, Wife Eleanor, Mother Sara, he sat solemnly through an anniversary service. Presiding in the chancel was robust, 83-year-old Endicott ("Peabo") Peabody,* Groton School headmaster, who has given diplomas to Franklin Roosevelt and his sons, the sons and grandsons of Theodore Roosevelt and 1,400 other high-bred U. S. youths. The President's proud face was humble, his head bent, as old Dr. Peabody intoned a prayer: "We make our humble supplications unto Thee for this Thy servant Franklin, upon whom is laid the responsibility for the guidance of this Nation."

Thus began Year VIII of the New Deal.

*The wet chill of the building's air-conditioning has kept Mr. Roosevelt's sinusitis chronic. If-&-when he asks a Congressional appropriation to overhaul the system, White House newsmen will be sure he plans to run.

*Averell Harriman once described Groton's founder-headmaster: "You know, he would be an awful bully if he weren't such a terrible Christian." An uncompromising believer in the Christian sacrament of marriage, he often preaches on the evils of divorce to boys who come from the nation's most divorcing circles.

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