Squire At Rest

In the field between the house and the road, the wheat had come up and been harvested. Across the way corn stood four feet high. The inland meadows were dotted with piles of new hay. The cows looked fatter and sleeker than ever. These good sights came under the critical eye of Squire Franklin D. Roosevelt last week when he returned to his native Krum Elbow for the first time since that dark February day he left for Washington to assume the Presidency. "Fine! Perfectly fine," he said half to himself as he drove up & down the dirt roads and appraised the 1,000 acres of fields and woodland bordering the Hudson River. Nature had dealt well with Squire Roosevelt while he had been off dealing with the nation.

A special Pennsylvania R. R. train carried the President out of Washington at midnight. Also aboard was Mrs. Roosevelt who had returned from her vacation just in time to join her husband on his. After breakfast next morning the special came to a leisurely stop at Hyde Park. The President descended a gangplank from the observation platform. Around him were hundreds of old friends and neighbors whom he saluted as "Tom" and "Joe" and '"Harry." A car sped him to Krum Elbow, the estate of his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, who was on hand to greet her son. The Vincent Astors dropped in for luncheon and in the afternoon the President went swimming in his outdoor pool. Determined to be a country squire taking his ease, for the week-end at least, he refused to receive telephone calls even from members of his Cabinet.

P:Before he left Washington President Roosevelt greeted World Flyer Wiley Post at the White House. At Hyde Park he had the flying Mollisons, Amy & Captain James, to Sunday dinner with Amelia Earhart and her husband George Palmer Putnam. "Well, well," cried he to his bandaged British guests, "you're both looking fine in spite of your accident." P:One hundred and eighteen Missourians presented the President with a bay gelding to ride. Naming him "New Deal," he shipped the thoroughbred animal to Hyde Park for his guests' use. P:To be Minister to Finland the President appointed Tennessee's Edward Al bright, good friend of Tennessean Secretary of State Hull.

P:Into the White House stormed Louisiana's rambunctious Senator Huey Long to "demand" his "rights" in the matter of political patronage. Thirty minutes later he emerged calm and chastened. "The President and I," said he, "are never going to fall out. I'll be satisfied whichever way matters go."

P:President Roosevelt picked up from his desk a Government check for $517 and handed it to stocky, red-faced William E. Morris, first Texas cotton planter to agree to plow up part of his crop. The check was the Agricultural Adjustment Administration's payment for 47 acres of cotton destroyed. Spotting a cotton stalk in Farmer Morris' left hand, the President declared: "That cotton looks better than that which we raise down in Georgia." P:President Roosevelt approved a special N R A 3-c- postage stamp to be issued Aug. 15. Design: a farmer, a business man, a factory worker and a woman "walking hand in hand in a common determination.'' P:A start on the great Columbia River Basin project was assured when the President approved construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington out of public works funds. Originally the dam was to be 300 ft. high with a hydroelectric capacity of 1,000,000 h.p. Because no market existed for so much power, modified specifications call for a 130-ft. dam costing $63,000,000. Also put on the public works program was a 9-ft. channel for the Upper Mississippi and a $22,700,000 flood control-irrigation project on the North Platte near Casper, Wyo.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.