Evening star., 1938-01-24
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

To hear President Roosevelt tell 1t,
his heart-to-heart talks with industrial
leaders have been orgies OF brotherly
love. At least the session with the Ad-
visory Council Of the Department of
Commerce did not in all respects measure
up to that rosy description. There were
several occasions during the Seance with
young Averell Hartman and Dan Roper's
other trained seals when the fur flew on
both sides of the presidential desk
There was an unusually lively interlude
during Mr.. Roosevelt's airing of his
views about holding companies. The
gage of battle was taken up in particu-
lar by Fred I. Kent, vice president of the
Bankers Trust Co. of New York and
former deputy governor of the Federal
Reserve Bank in that city. Although Mr.
Kent'S hearing is somewhat impaired. his
ears evidently served him sufficiently we'll
at the White House to catch the Presi-
dent mapping at certain points. Having
stood about all he could of F. D. r.
holding complex. the veteran
f1nancier finally calculated: You're en-
tirely wrong on that subject. Mr.. Presi-
dent!' The master of the New Deal ap-
parently didn't think so. for he rejoined: ::
You're the one who's wrong. Mr.. Kent, -
or vehement words to that effect. Be-
fore the pow-wow wound up the atmos-
phere in the cabinet room was somewhat
less explosive. But at times it reeked
with gunpoWder.
These confabs with big business mag
mates at the executive offices haven't
augmented good feeling between the
White House and Congress- especially
the Senate. The why and wherefore is
that Senator Jimmie Byrnes' Unemploy-
ment Committee feels that President
Roosevelt deliberately set about to steal
the show. Just as the Capitol group
started in to hale captains of commerce
and finance before it, for exploration of
the cause and cure of the recession.
Roosevelt began summoning economic
royalists to the throne. The inevitable
result was that on conflicting days the
White House got the front page and the
headlines and the Senate committee gen.
orally got left. No man in the White
House ever had so keen q sense of pub
licity values, especially the all-impor-
tant timing element, as the incumbent.
At his elbow, moreover are those vilv
wizards OF the printed word and it's
manipulation. Nicholson and Early.
Aggrieved solons incline to think It was
Charlie and Steve who tipped of the bic
chief how and when to grab newspaper
space from the politicians at the other
end OF Pennsylvania avenue.
y Xxx
Indications that Mr.. Roosevelt will an
point Bob Jackson Solicitor General of
the United States to succeed Stanley
Reed, as the first stage in grooming the
young New Yorker for national honors,
recalls that two presidential candidates
IN our time made the grade after serving
as Solicitor General. One was William
Howard Taft Of Ohio and the other
John w. Davis of West Virginia. The
statute defining the duties of Uncle
Sans lawyer" whose special RESPONSE
bility Is to take charge Of the business Of.
and appear for, the Government in thu
Supreme Court, sets forth, as the chief
requisite. that he must be learned in
the law"
Senator Charles L. McNary of OREGON,
Senate minority leader, doesn't have
much occasion to hang around the
White House, though, because of his
benevolent attitude toward many New
Deal measures, no Republican mogul en-
joys higher favor there McNary has
just called on President Roosevelt to
discuss oreson's 10 G. c. c. camps, con-
tanning some 1900 men, rs Of January l.
T4Va ~ tto ~ S,as,s ara ->.ks>. - 80