A Little More Hectic

"[You think] every week that next week will not be quite so hectic," said Harry Truman. "But the coming week is always just a little more hectic. This is one place where there is always a crisis just around the corner and I have to do something about it. ... We must face those things."

The President had more than his routine assignment of crises last week. Across the world crept the threat of starvation, and at long last he tackled the problem. Once, when it seemed that the situation was serious but not critical, he had lifted rationing and other food restrictions. Now it suddenly appeared that Mr. Truman might have been badly advised. Only by cutting its own wheat consumption (see below) could the U.S. meet its moral obligation to help feed the world's starvelings.

The President hopefully addressed the nation: "I know the conscience of the American people will not permit them to withhold or stint their cooperation while their fellow men in other lands suffer and die."

Afraid that the President's words meant a shortage in flour, the nation's more excitable citizens rushed to the grocery stores. A Newark, N.J. storekeeper reported: "One man bought ten 10-lb. sacks." A Chicago chain-store manager frantically called headquarters for more supplies. "They said all the stores were calling in for white flour--that they'd need 30 carloads to take care of the demand."

This was one of the things Mr. Truman had to face. The U.S. public was inclined to criticize him, but sometimes it might be the public that was to blame.

A Man's Friends. The President had other troubles of his own stubborn making. Even after Honest Harold Ickes accused opportunist Oilman Ed Pauley of trying to bribe the Government with a $300,000 donation to the party, Harry Truman said he still wanted Pauley as Under Secretary of the Navy.

Mr. Truman had nominated George Allen to RFC, and George weathered a Senate committee's scrutiny. But Funnyman George hardly added luster to the Administration. And when bumbling Jake Vardaman, whom the President had named to the Federal Reserve Board, was called before the Senate, God only knew what would happen.

A man any less stubbornly loyal to his cronies might have decided that some friends were more trouble than they were worth. This was one decision that Harry Truman seemed unwilling to face.

A Touch of Inflation? The President's aides and cronies spent another futile week of monkeying with the steel strike. Old Crony John W. Snyder, onetime St. Louis banker and now director of OWMR, wanted to settle the strike with a little inflation. Price Boss Chester Bowles, no crony, wanted a line to hold. While they argued, the striking Steelworkers' Phil Murray and the struck Steel Corporation's Ben Fairless could do nothing but cool their heels. More than anyone else, they wanted to come to terms, but that was impossible until Mr. Truman's policy was stabilized.

Chet Bowles, hoping to bring things to a head, laid his resignation on the President's desk. Harry Truman had to face it. Reports were that he decided to cut Snyder down a little, lift Bowles to a bigger, better job, settle the steel strike with a price increase of around $5 a ton, give Bowles full authority to hold the line in the future. Another report: Paul Porter, the towering (6 ft. 4 in.) and genial Kentuckian who is now chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, would succeed Chet Bowles as administrator of OPA.

But these rumors, in various forms, went flying about for days while the President scurried around. One of Mr. Truman's closest aides sighed: "I can't even keep up with the newspapers, much less with what's actually going on."

Two Old Conferees. At week's end Joseph Stalin took a cross-eyed, Red-eyed look at Western democracy (see FOREIGN NEWS), and thumbed his nose.

Mr. Truman, like his people, is not a belligerent man; like his people he wants nothing so much as to live in peace with all other people, including Marxists. But he is also the President of Western democracy's biggest and greatest nation. Stalin's challenge was something else he had to face.

When Winston Churchill arrived at the White House for a visit this week, Harry Truman greeted him in an atmosphere far different from the sunny Florida holiday they had planned together. There were too many crises, old, new, neglected or unyielding, or just around the corner.

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