Stateless Reception

Stateless Reception

The Diplomatic Corps, which hugely enjoys its annual state reception, would have been shocked if the President and First Lady had received them as 1,400 guests were received at the White House one night last week. But the Franklin D. Roosevelts know well that what is one man's humiliation is another man's flattery. At this reception there was no official receiving line, no order of precedence, no pompous music by the Marine Band, no formal evening dress.

Instead Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Garner stood near a door laughing and chatting with those who entered. The President sat in a comfortable chair at the far end of the East room, smoking and calling greetings to his guests. Beside him was Vice President Garner looking more gay and easy than he ever looked at a state reception. Gus Gennerich and the President's son Elliott stood nearby. Mrs. Dall circulated freely. Alice Longworth romped about, sometimes sitting down to argue with the President, sometimes giggling in a corner with her Cousin Eleanor. Music was furnished by Joe Moss's jazz orchestra and between dances the guests supplied their own songs and accompaniment. A few red-coated Marine bandsmen sat disconsolately in the hall but no one asked them to perform.

Such was the President's second annual reception for Washington newshawks. Instead of the 500 (including wives) who attended last year, there were more than twice as many because the New Deal has brought more journalists to the Capital, because single newshawks were supplied with invitations for their ''best friends."

Newsmen in flannels and white linen danced, sipped punch, ate ice cream in the state dining room, showed their wives and friends through the ground floor rooms, down to the swimming pool and out on the terrace. Instead of retiring early as he does at state affairs, the President stayed up until 11:30 and Mrs. Roosevelt did not leave until 1:00. P: Congress sent President Roosevelt a bill to equalize nationalization rights for men and women and grant U. S. citizenship to children born abroad of U. S. mothers. The State Department reported to the White House that there was an accidental flaw in the bill; it would, as it stood, make it hard for a child born abroad of two U. S. parents to keep its U. S. citizenship. Instead of vetoing the bill the President requested Congress to recall and amend it. The bill's sponsors, Representative Dickstein and Senator Copeland, grumbling at the demand for a change, went to the White House, found that the State Department had found a real flaw. They took the measure back to the Capitol, got Congress to accept a four-word amendment, and two days later the President blessed it with his signature. P:Under special powers granted by the Recovery Act, President Roosevelt last week upped the tariff on Japanese cotton rugs from 10-c- to 25-c- a sq. yd. The increase, 150%, was three times that which he could have made under the provisions of the flexible tariff law. P: Executing a second aboutface, President Roosevelt won a compromise agreement on the Stock Exchange Control bill vhich speeded it toward enactment. Originally Mr. Roosevelt accepted Senator Glass's proposal to place the power of exchange regulation in a separate commission instead of in the Federal Trade Commission. Fortnight ago, after consulting with Federal Trade Commissioner Landis, the President reversed himself. Peppery little Senator Glass was furious and many another Senator shared his displeasure. Last week House and Senate conferees kept in touch with angry Senator Glass who kept in touch with Federal Reserve Governor Eugene Black who kept in touch with the President. To end the argument the President once again agreed to Mr. Glass's amendment for a separate stock control commission.

P: Continuing his campaign to end the practice of changing the service records of men dishonorably discharged by U. S. services the President imposed his ninth veto on a bill to grant an honorable discharge to Joseph G. Mclnerney who. serving in the Coast Guard in 1902. was confined in the brig, demoted from third oiler to coal heaver, and finally discharged for using insolent and mutinous language and insubordination.

P: The President shortly afterward imposed his tenth veto on a bill to place a bronze tablet bearing a design of the Congressional Medal of Honor on the grave of Brigadier General Robert H. Dunlap, U. S. M. C., in Arlington Cemetery. His objection: it established a precedent contrary to Cemetery rules and constituted a discrimination against other holders of the decoration buried at Arlington. P: The President signed a municipal bankruptcy bill by which bankrupt towns and cities may, with the consent of a Federal District Court and 75% of their creditors, compromise their debts to get back on their financial feet. Good news was this for many a ruined town. Such municipalities as Atlantic City, Miami, Asbury Park, Asheville, Flint, Pontiac, Hendersonville (N. C.), Wilmington, Mobile, and Astoria (Ore.) were expected soon to reorganize their debt structure under its terms.

P: To succeed Dr. Willard L. Thorp, efficient head of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce who resigned because a Democratic Senate committee refused to approve the appointment of a onetime Republican (TIME, May 21), President Roosevelt last week named another professor of economics: Dr. Claudius T. Murchison of the University of North Carolina.

P: To Congress President Roosevelt sent a message urging repeal of the 3-c- a Ib. tax on coconut oil imposed by the Revenue Act of 1934. Chief points: 1) the tax was a breach of faith because the Philippines had been promised, under the Philippine Independence Act, the right to ship 448,000,000 Ib. of coconut oil into the U. S. duty free; 2) the tax would bring destitution on thousands of Philippine coconut oil workers.

P: To rid NRA of some of its worst body squeaks, President Roosevelt last week authorized General Johnson to strike out the price fixing and trade practice provisions in the codes of service industries. Next day General Johnson promptly performed the permitted operation on seven codes: 1) cleaning & dyeing; 2) automobile storage and parking; 3) barbers: 4) bowling and billiards; 5) shoe rebuilding; 6) advertising display installations: 7) advertising distribution. This stripped these codes to the bare bone of wage, hour, child labor, and collective bargaining clauses which service industries must still obey. Local groups may write prices back into their local codes provided 85% of their members agree, but no longer will NRA headquarters try to set the price of pressing a pair of pants in Bangor, Dallas and Santa Barbara.

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