Full Desk

The day Woodrow Wilson returned to the White House after his re-election in 1916, Washington was taut as a fiddle string. Wilson had received no clear mandate. His campaign shibboleth had been the cry that he had kept the country out of war, a fact which Wilhelm of Germany subsequently misinterpreted. Less than six months after that day in November 1916, Wilson, who loved peace, led a tragically unprepared U. S. into war.

On the cold, windy day last week when Franklin Roosevelt returned to Washington, there was a sense of relief that a bitter election was over. Roosevelt had received a more impressive electoral majority than Wilson. His mandate for a strong foreign policy, upheld even by the rival candidate, was also clearer than Wilson's. U. S. shipping was so far unscathed.*

President Roosevelt looked tired and grey last week as he rode from Union Station, cheered all the way by 200,000 Washingtonians who had been let out of Government offices and schools for the occasion. Patiently, good-naturedly, he doffed his battered tan fedora to the crowd which followed him to the White House door, swarming over the lawn. He stepped out again to face them and wave. Then he retired. His files were jammed, his desk was piled.

The country's bank account was very nearly overdrawn. Franklin Roosevelt, amateur economist, had a decision to make: whether to levy heavier taxes, lift the lid off the bubbling national debt, or resort to outright monetary inflation. He conferred long with Secretary Morgenthau. Mr. Morgenthau flew a tentative kite, suggested raising the debt limit to 60 or 65 billion dollars, and stripping exemptions from Federal, State and municipal securities (see p. 73), watched to see how public opinion blew.

The spreading war in the Balkans, Axis moves in Europe, the Far East, bases for the U. S. Navy in the Far East--each had its own terrific complexity. Most pressing problem of all was defense production. Still oppressive was business' fear of Franklin Roosevelt. His difficult position was put in a nutshell by his own mother, who said in aristocratic puzzlement after the election:

"I can't understand why business hates Franklin so, and why they talk about his stirring up class hatred, because there is nothing in his heart like that. We were always taught not to think whether anyone was rich or poor. ..."

Businessmen smiled grimly and waited to see what Franklin would do next. Many a U. S. citizen believed with the President last week that the security of the U. S. depends on Britain's defense. The problem of sending more aid to Britain was pulled out, laid upon the President's full desk. What would be the reaction of the U. S. to letting the British have the Army's secret bomb sight?

At his first press conference after the election, Franklin Roosevelt, in jovial good humor, sat and parried the questions of 200 newsmen. He revealed that his guess on the election had been the same as it was in 1936: 340 electoral votes. He got 523 then. This year his guess was 109 short. He was less jovial over a question from Scripps-Howard's Fred Perkins about a "fourth term" (see p. 68). He denied that he had even thought of taking Wendell Willkie into his Cabinet.

But there had been many a rumor about Cabinet changes. Harold Ickes had already offered his resignation. Although at week's end none of his colleagues had yet followed Bellwether Harold, stories had Frances Perkins out, Dan Tobin (president of the Teamsters Union) in as Secretary of Labor, Fiorello LaGuardia as War Secretary, G. O. P. Vice Presidential Candidate Charles McNary as Secretary of Agriculture. The President squelched all questions.

Biggest news of the day was his announcement that the allocation of U. S. munitions to Britain would be on a "rule-of-thumb" basis, roughly, half for England, half for the U. S. (see p. 23).

At week's end, the President took time off to go to the National Press Club dinner. There, on the wall opposite his table, hung a huge cartoon drawn by the Newark News's Walter Karig, showing the President holding a loving cup in the shape of the U. S., and asking: "I won it three times, don't I get to keep it now?" Briefly Mr. Roosevelt put off the solemn vestments of his office. But only briefly.

Last week the President:

>Proclaimed Nov. 21 as Thanksgiving Day, declared: "May we give thanks for our preservation."

>Opened the annual Red Cross membership drive by calling for national support, declared: "The Red Cross membership button ... is a splendid symbol of our national unity against the forces of destruction and misery." > On Armistice Day went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, restating a theme on which he is often eloquent: that democracy itself is the new order of civilization; that in comparison, the dictatorial systems are retreats to medieval darkness. "You and I who served in the period of the World War have faced in later years unpatriotic efforts by some of our own countrymen to make us believe that the sacrifices made by our nation were wholly in vain. . . . Historians will say rightly that the World War preserved the new order of the ages for at least a whole generation. ... If the Axis of 1918 had been successful . . . resistance on behalf of democracy in 1940 would have been wholly impossible. . . ."

* At week's end came the report of the first casualty at sea: the U. S. freighter City of Rayville, sunk by a mine off Australia (see p. 26).

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