Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-06-11

heHtS hVLemulV' Id GudIuld 10
one Little Flower" who never folds.
He is doing more work IN "a hours
these days than most politicians do
in a term of office. In tact, many
officeholders would stand for re-
election on the strength of what ne
does in one day.
He gets up with the sun and goes
to bed at about the time even grown
up owls are drinking black coffee to
keep awake 81
He has more jobs than an alder
mans brother-in-law, and If you
haven't the patience TO walt for
Halley's Comet you should plan a.
trip to New York City and watch
this ball of fire at work.
I did. but before noon I felt that
I needed two weeks vacation at tHE
seashore. Being a man who thinks
twice before stirring himself once,
it wore me out to watch La Guardia
handle the problems Of New York
City, take care OF the affairs Of thsz
National Conference of Mayors. Of
which he is the head; run the bus1-
ness Of the JOINT Defense Board o.
Canada and the United States and
hurl his 5 feet 2 inches into the
task of organizing all civilian de-
Tense in this country.
He has eight secretaries and the
only time they get rest Is during
the che minute OF silence on Ar
mistice Day.
He has more visitors than Yellow
stone Park. Every one in New
York with any trouble, be it about
a blight that has struck his pet
nasturtlum or disappointment over
not getting a permit TO hold an
Easter egg hunt in Times Square,
rides down to see La Guardla.
While leaned, exhausted, against
a wall in City Hall, this 59-year-oid
blueprint of perpetual motion ma
chine talked to half hundred
callers. read 500 letters, dictated Ike
an articulate octopus to squad OF
secretaries and completed plans Tor
the rest of his days work.
The Mayor only uses the City
Hall as a sort of bullpen in which
he warns up for his real work. New
Yorks airport, La Guardia Field, Is
aptly named He uses it so much
that he should have a permanent
hangar. He things nothing Of daily
schedule that finds him at his desk
in the morning, Chicago in the
afternoon, Washington in the eve
ming and midnight back at his desk.
/ La Guardia is the countrys
! hercest backseat-driver - ask his
/ secretaries who help him carry on
his work in the back seat Of his
limousine. Propped up on the cush-
/ ).
floor, he dictates. digests and tele-
! phones as he travels to lay corner
stones. WELD the first acetylene
| torch at the tearing down OF an el,
! address a graduating class, Christen
a boat, turn the first spadeful at a
new project. or take a box seat at
four alarm fire.
! The Mayor, who hasn't missed a
fire since Tammany Hall burned
its records during the Seabury in
vestigation. says he really doesn't
/ like fires and only goes to them out
of a sense of duty. The fact remains,
however, that he nearly always
beats the fireman and the moths
to the flames.
La Guardia recently opened a
branch Office in Washington and
broke a historic precedent when he
refused new furniture. Said the old
stuff was good enough, and sat right
/ down and went TO work. This won Z
help his prestige in city where a
/ mans rank is determined to a great
/ degree by the number of birds eyes
in the maple of his desk, the grade
of carpet on which he calls his
subordinates and the architectural
lines of his water cooler.
But he'll do all right, I guess.
Maybe the Little Flower" will
turn out to be the century plant.
or better still, the plant of the
century, insofar as the Government
/ is concerned.