Man at Work

"The taxpayers," observed Harry Truman with a grin last week, "are working me too hard."

Boarding the gleaming white presidential yacht Williamsburg, the nation's No. 1 hired man took a leisurely overnight cruise down the Potomac to Quantico, Va., with the ship hardly moving faster than the current, which suited the poker players in the presidential quarters fine. "I could have walked down faster," groused a Secret Sendee man.

Down the Barrel. At Quantico, the President--whose visit to the Marines was long overdue--saw a thunderous show. From a canvas-covered grandstand, he watched marines storm objectives with tanks, flame throwers, bazookas, phosphorous grenades and 500-m.p.h. bombing attacks. A Marine major kept up a breezy ringside commentary, improving the slower moments by hinting broadly, for the President to hear, that the Marines could do even better with more equipment. A simulated carrier attack by seven banana-shaped helicopters demonstrated how troops could land behind enemy forts and disgorge their equipment in 30 seconds.

When it was over, Old Artilleryman Truman made straight for a 75-mm. howitzer, the one-hoss shay of the ordnance on display. He patted it lovingly, sternly told photographers who had snapped him peering down the barrel of a rifle a short while before that he would not pose looking down this barrel. "You don't look down the barrel of a cannon," said he, "you might get your head shot off."

Back on the Williams burg, the President burnished the yacht rail with his elbow like a Gay Nineties bartender, and called to reporters, "What'll you have, boys?"

Up a Bench. Next day at the White House, Harry Truman greeted about 1,000 visitors--more than on any day since he became President. They included labor politickers, 4-H Club campers, editors of business magazines. The bigger crowds he led out into the rose garden, where, standing on a wrought-iron park bench, he explained that he'd like to shake each & every hand, etc., but couldn't.

During a lull between visitors, he took a long, hard look down the barrel of a cannon. He vetoed the controversial basing point bill (see BUSINESS). He had waited until the tenth and last day, after which the bill would have become law without his signature. But he had intended all along to veto it, he told a caller. He felt like the blacksmith on the jury out in Missouri, said the President. The judge asked him if he felt any prejudice against the defendant. "Oh, no, judge," said the fellow. "I think we ought to give him a fair trial, then I think we ought to take the s.o.b. out and string him up."

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