WASHINGTON CALLING
Washington Calling Washington, D. C. THE HONEYMOON is over, but Harry Truman's hold on the nation is stronger and more binding than it was during the first fortnight. Then, mourning over the...
...All Around The Town Sen...
...At last McNutt was prevailed upon to issue a statement, but the release added up to a dash of tweedledum and a jigger of tweedle-dee...
...He has shown a sureness and deftness in dealing with difficult people and more difficult situations which have amazed and heartened those who remember him as a fun-loving, easy-going citizen...
...The most sensible capital rumor has it that when the San Francisco conference ends and the Senate ratifies the results, as it will, Stettinius will be appointed American delegate to the new international organization...
...If President Truman is an avowed candidate for a full term in 1948, Wallace's chances will approach the zero mark, unless, of course, Mr...
...Plans, Policies, And Personalities Under Truman Wedded as he is...
...Meanwhile, Wallace's staff remains politically conscious...
...He has unequivocally announced his support of the late President Roosevelt's foreign policies, both in a general way and in touching on specific issues, but there is another and highly significant fact to ponder...
...A wireless dispatch from a RAMP camp near Paris—RAMP means Recovered Allied Military Personnel—disclosed last week that the men recover quickly and return to normal spirits and a decent frame of mind much more rapidly than the editors of the nation's sensation-mongering press...
...for the present, to the policies of his predecessor, Mr...
...American prisoners of war have had a frightful time in Nazi camps, but despite all the whoop-dee-do in the press and picture magazines, most of them are responding rapidly to food, kindness, and medical care...
...Washington heard that Hanne-jgan, who was in great measure responsible for the nomination of Mr...
...Some of the Presidential appointments, especially of old political and business cronies, are less cheering, of course...
...However, if widely circulated reports can be trusted, the President's appointment of Robert E, Hannegan, Democratic boss, to the post of Postmaster General, was in a sense a moral vic-tory...
...In his pre-San Francisco talks with Soviet Foreign Commissar Molotov, Mr...
...The organization hardest hit—politically—by the elevation of Harry S. Truman to the Presidency is the Political Action Committee, of course...
...The appointment of Charles Ross, chief of the St...
...Byrnes hustled up from, his South Carolina home when Mr...
...Sidney Hillman, PAC boss, and Hannegan, Democratic Party boss, were always getting in each other's hair, and it is no secret here that a deep hostility has developed...
...Now, one month afterward, Mr...
...Truman took over, but there is a feeling here that things didn't quite click, that the President felt he was being crowded, and hence that Byrnes returned home empty-handed...
...Truman is on his own...
...Washington Calling Washington, D. C. THE HONEYMOON is over, but Harry Truman's hold on the nation is stronger and more binding than it was during the first fortnight...
...President Truman has disclosed in several public utterances that he is just as much concerned with the substance of the peace settlement itself as he is with the form of the international organization to police that settlement...
...Next in line to the Presidency is Secretary of State Edward K. Stettinius, pleasant, well-meaning, photogenic, but totally ineffectual...
...Mail is answered with the most painstaking care, and few opportunities to praise a friendly editor or massage the ego of a sympathetic politico are overlooked...
...Louis Post-Dispatch's Washington bureau, to the post of White House press secretary, is also an excellent one...
...Although he has a measure of the humility which correspondents have written reams of copy about, he is no "me too" boy...
...doesn't run away from new ideas, nas a dogged determination, is a patient listener, and most important of all, has plenty of that quality called "guts...
...Sehwellenbach was a first-class progressive in the Senate and is widely regarded as an able administrator...
...Grapevine reports indicate that Mr...
...Truman will then be able to pick the next-in-line by appointing a new Secretary of State...
...the people called for an adjournment of politics and for a fair chance for the new President...
...Shakeup In The Cabinet Coming Soon President Truman's announcement that he will reappoint David Lilienthal to the Tennessee Valley Authority has been immensely heartening to progressive forces, even though they know the nomination faces a fight in the Senate...
...Now that the war in Europe has come to an end, President Truman may speed up the tempo of reorganization, although he has been reluctant thus far to make any kind of major splash which would detract from what had been billed as the big show at San Francisco...
...Stettinius has advanced by being kicked upstairs to higher-sounding but less important jobs...
...Specialist In Double-Talk War Manpower Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, who has fallen to low estate in Washington, handed the Japanese Government what must be the equivalent of a battleship or two, or a division of men...
...Francis Riddle, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, and, perhaps, Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard...
...The Political Parade President Roosevelt's death has naturally cast a great shadow over Henry A. Wallace's Presidential ambitions...
...Truman as candidate for Vice President, wanted the job of Attorney General, no less, and that the President turned thumbs down...
...Wayne Morse, Oregon Republican, is rapidly emerging as an outstanding progressive battler in the Senate...
...Will it be Jimmy Byrnes, former Senator, former Supreme Court Justice, former Assistant President...
...He has been tried—and found at least 2 or 3 notches above merely "acceptable...
...During his entire career in public and private life...
...A continuation of this strategy may soon be the answer to the problem of the succession...
...The trip has beer conceived by Wallace's able, young secretariat as a Presidential sounding-board for 1948...
...Even in Washington, headquarters for so much double-talk, there was a feeling that a new record had been established...
...In an attempt to break into the headlines and curry popular favor, he • recently made a speech in Chattanooga wherein he said that "the Japanese people should be exterminated in toto...
...Mc-Nutt's hopes for the post of High Commissioner in the Philippines are fading fast...
...McNutt complained that that would only make things worse for him...
...Progressives are encouraged, too, by the imminent appointment of Judge Lewis Schwellenbach, former U. S. Senator, to a key position in the Administration...
...Nothing more...
...For a town which loves to guess, there are amazingly few guesses here in Washington...
...Then, mourning over the death of Franklin D, Roosevelt, dazed over the magnitude of the job being thrust on this former necktie clerk, and moved by the American spirit of fair play...
...He was showered with sea I lions where he expected roses...
...Washington is always worried, and at the moment Washington is most worried about the succession, despite the fact that President Truman is reported to be in excellent health...
...Roosevelt died and Mr...
...Truman was friendly and cooperative, but he made it crystal-clear that he would tolerate no Winking at previous agreements...
...The reaction was as instantaneous as it was stunning to McNutt...
...The Office of War Information demanded that McNutt issue a public retraction...
...Despite the drab outlook ahead, Wallace is reported determined to go ahead with the coast-to-coast stump tour he has tentatively scheduled for 1946...
...In the few months since he took his oath of office, Morse has won the respect of a'l factions and is now being ticketed by careful observers as a leader of the growing group of progressive Republicans...
...The tacts make a simple pattern...
...Truman will soon accept the resignations of Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Atty...
...Truman has made few major decisions of his own in the fields of foreign and domestic affairs...
...Government offices were bombarded with demands for retraction and explanation...
...Hillman, it is reported, is ready to quit his PAC post, leave direction of the organization to younger, more capable hands...
...Insiders feel that only President Roosevelt's death saved him from a well-deserved trouncing...
...Other Cabinet posts will be opening up soon...
...Equally significant is the new President's quiet determination to make our Allies respect the agreements they made when they needed our aid so desperately...
...Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes and Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace, two of the most progressive members of the Administration, are reported fixtures for the present, and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal are said to be safe enough until the war against Japan is concluded...
...Truman squanders away the reserves he's been depositing in his political bank...
...The PAC fought Truman at the Chicago convention, subsequently made its peace with him, but the two never reached a cordial relationship...
...This is all high-powered guess-work...
...This correspondent has had an opportunity to watch him at close range and to talk with many persons who have had the President's ear during his first month in the White House...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 20
