Evening star., 1947-01-27

Here Is the shameful record: Cd
Last Wednesday it was announced
that he had asked Herbert Hoover
the only living eX-President, to make
q study for this country of the
alarming and acute food and related
economic problems in the American
and British zones of occupied Ger
many. This was followed by Mr.,
Hoover's visit to the White House,
where he had a long talk with the
President and agreed to take the job.
Now this was the second time Mr..
Truman had called on Mr.. Hoover
for help In a food situation, which
makes it twice as difficult to over
look.
Probably Mr.. Truman would ad-
vance as a reason for asking Mr..
Hoover's help that he was clearly
the most informed, experienced and
competent man in the world to
handle this particular situation. But
Is not that preposterous reason?
Does Mr.. Truman not know that
during the ~ years of MIR. Roose-
velt's presidency the Roosevelt policy
was to ignore the existence OF Mr..
Hoover. to pretend that he no longer
lived?
Hoover's Service Not Solicited.
Does he not know that even dur
ing the war when the need for the
ablest possible food administrator
was very great, and Mr.. Hoover,
acknowledged to be. the best
equipped man in the country was
available, he was ignored by Mr.,
Roosevelt and the task allotted to
inferior men?
Does he not know, too, that all
during the Roosevelt regime no one
ever spoke q favorable word about
Mr.. Hoover in Mr.. Roosevelt's
presence and that the happy habit
Of the Inner circle" and those who
clung to it's fringes was to dispar-
age, belittle and libel him? Surely
Mr.. Truman knew all this-because
1t was very widely known, indeed.
Yet, see what he has done.
And that is not all. On that same
wednesday, 1t appeared in the press
that Mr.. Truman, his wife and
daughter had crossed a picket line
actually. It occurred at a WASH
tngton theater-and the pickets,
white and colored. were held back
by the police while the Trumans
passed through.
Well, that Is about the limit. It
Is lust impossible that Mr.. Tru-
man did not know it was a settled
Roosevelt policy never to cross y
picket line How could he forget
that Mrs. Roosevelt, herself a men,
ber of a CIO union, more than
once, while she was the wife Of the
President, was highly publicized for
her refusal to cross picket line
and that on one occasion she sup
ported a strike without knowing
what the strike was about?
Certainly. Mr.. Truman could not
help knowing that the Roosevelt
policies were to be sympathetic to-
ward all picket lines and all strikes
especially those of the CIO. Yet,
in face of all this, here is Mr.. Tru-
man, his wife and daughter push
ing through picket line with po-
lice aid. The excuse" that he did
not know there was picket line is
much too thin. He should have
known. Mrs. Roosevelt would have
known.
Sees Senator Wiley on Courts.
But even this, shocking as it must
seem to the engineers of the Amer
lean Progressive movement, was not
all that happened on wednesday.
On that day Mr.. Truman received
at the White House. Republican Sem
ator Wiley, who had publicly de-
'clared that the Federal courts,
including the Supreme Court, had
been outrageously packed with New
Deal Democrats during the Roose-
welt regime, gave some startling
statistics as to their predominance
and insisted that in the interests OF
Justice and the courts Mr.. Truman
should do what he could to correct
this deplorable state of affairs.
Upon leaving Mr.. Truman, Sena-
tor Wiley let it be known that he
had found him responsive to his
views; that Mr.. Truman did not ap-
pear to favor any further court
packing and, Senator Wiley felt,
might be expected to appoint some
Republicans to the Federal bench.
Unauestionably, these three Incl
dents do give some foundation for
the claim that MIR. Truman is not Q
"true liberal" according to the old
Roosevelt standards-nor, indeed, by