Evening star., 1937-06-21
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLI4.N VILE,

Few acts Of any recent administration
ever received wider bipartisan praise
than President RooSevelts appointment
OF the Taft-McGrady-Garris Federal
Board of Mediation to seek peace in the
steel labor war. On all hands it's &C
claimed as stroke of Statecraft in the
nick Of time Only here and there, in
certain anti-NeW Deal quarters is the
chorus OF approval broken by suggestions
that F.. D. r. moved at John L. Lewis
suggestion and not until after the c. I O.
realized 1t was waging a losing fight.
The selection of Charles P Taft, last in
the public eve as policy adviser of Gov.
Landon. strikes Washington as par
ticularly adroit maneuver. Though the
lawyer son of the late President and
Chief Justice is in undeniably good Re-
publican standing. some G. o. P. loyal
lists suspect him of more than friendly
leanings toward the New Deal In his
booklet, You and land Roosevelt"
published in 1896, the young Cincin-
natian conspicuously refrained from
condemnation of the Administration.
Politicians of all breeds continue to
discuss the Roosevelt Congressional JET
ferson Island love feast-if such it is to
be-as one Of the most amazing events
in modern party history. Opinion differs
both as to the probable course OF pro-
ceedings and as to how the get-together
is going to turn out. Much depends on
acceptances and regrets. The former
OF course. will be preponderant. but, as
An Irish bull in the House OF Commons
once put it, the place may swarm with
absentees," especially among senatorial
court-bill opponents. Who will WELD the
big stick seems a matter Of some doubt
whether the President intends talking
turkey to a recalcitrant House and Sem
ate. or whether it will be members them
selves who'll do the plain speaking. The
understanding is that the lid is off
that the whole idea is for both Mr.
Roosevelt and temperamental gentle
men from the Hill to take down their
hair and call one another by their real
names. as frankly as picnic amenities
permit. The President. by the way,
says he'll be at the club as paying
guest
Senator Joe Robinson's thunderous
broadside against reckless Federal
spending, delivered before an aston
ished Senate on Friday, holsters the
conviction OF his friends that he would
wear no mans collar, except his own,
as an associate justice Of the Supreme
Court. The Arkansan's demand for cur
tailment of the public debt by curbing
Hopkinsism was about as frontal an
attack on New Deal extravaganza as has
come from any quarter. 1t typifies the
intensity Of the Congressional revolt
against continuance of the blank check
system. That is the issue likely to bulk
conspicuously at impending heart-to-
heart festivities in Chesapeake Bay.
In the midst of Senator Robinson's
bombardment of the Rooseveltian f1nan-
cial trenches the following colloquy, de-
scribed by him as all in the best of
good humor," took place between the
majority leader and the party whip,
Senator James Hamilton Lewis. Lewis
had asked for an explanation Of the
necessity of his chiefs amendment re-
specting local contributions to relief
projects. Robinson replied: II can give
the senator from Illinois the explana-
ton, but, great God! I respectfully de-
cline to give him understanding Re-
joined Lewis: "One cannot confer that
which he does not possess"