Hush Week

Franklin Roosevelt experienced the satisfaction last week of one who, having raised his voice above those of angry disputants, hears them hush, sees their blows momentarily arrested. All American nations last week murmured admiring endorsements of his message the week-end previous to A. Hitler & B. Mussolini (TIME, April 24). Several European nations which would benefit from the ten-year peace pledge he proposed, offered grateful applause. Hitler reserved his reply for this week, only Mussolini jeered in a sarcastic rejoinder (see P. 25).

In the U. S. as expected, isolationist outbursts in the press (notably Hearst's) and Congress were evoked by the President's promise of U. S. participation in a world disarmament and economic conference. But a Gallup poll revealed that 73% of the U. S. people "would like to see the heads of the leading nations" confer now.

Advocates of abolishing or revising the Neutrality laws to give the President a free hand in foreign affairs began saying that Franklin Roosevelt's next step, to prove the purity of his motive in making his foreign policy so momentous, should be a clear disclaimer of any intention to seek a third term.

Point was lent to this suggestion when Senator Taft accused the President of "ballyhooing" the foreign situation to divert public attention from trouble at home (see p. 21). This charge was so serious that it may well boomerang and should war come in Europe, it would point to Franklin Roosevelt as a statesman-who-foresaw, might well improve his chances of a third term.

Meantime, however, President Roosevelt gave no sign of disclaiming third term aspirations. In a letter to the Young Democratic clubs, Mr. Roosevelt repeated the gist of his Jackson Day ultimatum to all Democrats (TIME, Jan. 16). Said he: "No victories are won by shooting at each other. There never was and never will be a political party whose policies absolutely fit the views of all its members. Where men are at variance with the course that their party is taking, it seems to me there are only two honorable courses--to join a party that more accurately mirrors their ideas, or to subordinate their prejudices and remain loyal.

"Instead of suicide or fratricide, what is the matter with our own side?"

This renewed threat of a Democrat Party purge forecast active Roosevelt participation in the 1940 primaries and, in the continued omission of a personal disclaimer, promised the continued presence of Franklin Roosevelt as a censor of other candidacies if not a real candidate.

>FORTUNE'S survey (May issue) revealed that in two months Franklin Roosevelt's general batting average had taken an extraordinary drop from 63.5% of popular approval to 58.8%, that whereas in March 36.9% of the population felt like voting for him in 1940 if he ran, now only 33.2% felt like it. But this survey was compiled before the Hitler-Mussolini peace message.

>In the East Room of the White House, the President received delegates to a National Parole Conference, told them that, with 60-70,000 prisoners coming out of jails and reformatories every year, their handling by the different States is of vital concern to the country. Said he: "We know from experience that parole, when it is honestly and expertly managed, provides better protection for society than does any other method of release from prison."

> The President received members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors for their annual "off the record" meeting, used the occasion to tell them frankly some of his official information about Europe.

>President Roosevelt received Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh, reporting in Washington for two weeks' active duty with the Army Air Corps, discussed the world's military plane situation.

>To fill vacancies in the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the President appointed Calvert Magruder, counsel of the Wage & Hour Administration (1st Circuit, Boston) and Democratic Governor-reject Walter A. Huxman of Kansas (10th Circuit, the Southwest).

>To the delicate job of Ambassador to Europe's newest Dictator Francisco Franco of Spain, the President named Alexander Wilbourne Weddell, *63, of Richmond, Va., urbane careerman whose first consulate 29 years ago was in Zanzibar, and who since 1933 has been trying, as Ambassador, to keep Argentina friendly despite a U. S. embargo on Argentine beef.

> Mrs. Cordell Hull, Mrs. Henry Wallace & Miss Frances Perkins played hostess at the White House for the D. A. R., from which Mrs. Roosevelt resigned because of its refusal to let Negro Contralto Marian Anderson sing in Constitution Hall. Mrs. Roosevelt was en route by air from Seattle to Boston, to attend the funeral of her brother Gracie Hall's son Daniel, killed flying in Mexico (see p. 36).

>Columnist Igor Cassini of the Washington Times-Herald printed a categorical denial by Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. that there was any truth in persistent Virginia gossip that he and Ethel du Pont Roosevelt were planning to divorce. Same day Franklin Roosevelt Sr. asked the press to let him make a trip to visit his son & daughter-in-law and F. D. R. Ill (aged nine months) at Charlottesville as "Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones"--i. e. without reporters. The correspondents were sorry: "Mr. Jones" would still be President of the U. S., they must go along.

"Mr. Jones" did motor forth, however, without his usual police escort. He paused for a picnic lunch on Bull Run battlefield, was late for tea at his son's colonial cottage a mile from the University of Virginia campus. Faculty members assured him the boy's law study marks were satisfactory.

>On the way back to Washington next day, via the Shenandoah Endless Caverns, one of those things occurred which turn Secret Servicemen grey. A car shot out of an intersection on the Lee Highway, directly across the path of the President's car. Only swift action by White House Chauffeur Monty Schneider averted a nasty collision.

>To Chairman Marvin Jones of the House Agriculture Committee President Roosevelt wrote a letter to sit hard upon a bill which would have upped the sugar quotas of tariff-protected mainland sugar producers by reducing the slice of the U. S. sugar market still left to the Philippines, Good Neighbor Cuba, and other foreign countries. The President damned the busy sugar lobby as "professionally dissatisfied."

-Kinsman of the seafaring Scotsman for whom are named an Antarctic sea and seal.

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