The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-03-05

litical support.
 Roosevelt, faced with the same problem has spent his time almost exclusively on the war. Much of this is necessary. But the President carries 1t to extremes. He makes 1t 8 point to know the location of almost every destroyer in the fleet, discusses the details of ship design, even took time to sketch Q plan for the shrubbery of the Naval hospital.
 Actually, the President Is re-
 living his old days, as assistant
 secretary of the navy, days which he loved, days when he
 could afford to take time for ship design and admirals. But now 8 political empire is dis- integrating around him, with a 10regn policy necessarily SO dif- Ricult that its intrlcacies may sour naturally isolatlOnist American people.
 FDR's RIGHT HAND
 Tn the ten years he has been in office, Roosevelt has not real- ly changed. But the people around him have. And in all the reams written about Roosevelt after @ decade in the White House, no one has emphasized the most im- portant change in his staff.
 It is his faithful personal sec- retary Miss Marguerite (Missy) Le Hand. Few people knew 1t, but 1t was Missy who every even- ing after the stream of callers left, got the Chief" alone and made him make important decisions.
 POstpOnement of decisions which may jar peoples happi- ness is natural for any presi- dent. And FDR is no excep- ton. But Missy lived on the theory that there was no use putting off till tomorrow what you could do today, and she saw that the Boss" lived up to it. Furthermore, when he made his decisions, she was al- ways in there fighting for the little fellow.
 Today, Missy Is i'll, @ casualty of the tremendous pressure of White House work. In her place are Harry Hopkins, @ worse pro- crastinator than Roosevelt and General "Pa" Watson who shields his chief from unpleasant things with a curtain of gold braid.
 The earthly plebian, do-it-today influence of Missy Le Hand is gone.
 ED FLYNN'S DEFEAT
 That, perhaps, is one reason why, when a White House order comes through, 1t frequently hap pens that the cabinet officer or administration sub = commander waits about two days before carry ing 1t out.
 This occurred in the case of Ed Flynn. Back in 1940 when Jim Farley got out of the Dem- ocratic National Committee, FDR persuaded Flynn to become chair man. He didn't want the job, but the President said, "YOu can resign and become an ambassa- dor after the campaign is Over." "All right I want to 90 to Mexico" i" Flynn replied.
 Later, the State Department ob- jected to Mexico but agreed to Australia, and the President told his secretary Grace Pulley to have press relations secretary Steve Early issue an official statement.
 But Steve waited two days. Flynn, having received word dl- rect from the President as to when the White House state ment would be issued, went ahead with his announcement in New York. He did not know. that Presidential orders don't mean so much these days with White House sub-c0mmanders.
 Two days later, when Steve Early got around to 1t, he issued his announcement, but by that lime Flynn was out on a limb To the Senate it looked as If he had forced Roosevelt's hand. That two day delay was what defeated Flynn - a defeat which Roose-