MR ROOSEVELT HAS HIGH POINTS AND LOW

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23317, 1 May 1941, Page 6

MR ROOSEVELT HAS HIGH POINTS AND LOW

PRESIDENT AT CLOSE QUARTERS

[By RICHARD A. STROUT]

(Published by Arrangement with

WASHINGTON, March 28. There are three outstanding • figures in the world to-day. Adolf Hitler, Prime Minister Churchill, and President Roosevelt. We have watched one of them, Mr Roosevelt, on and off for eight years. We have seen him twice a week at press conferences. We have seen him campaigning. .He is so 'familiar to Washington correspondents that it is hard to realise that a century hence he will' be a name in history, whatever the result of this great crisis. How did he look, how did he act why did he do such-and-such a thing?, His torians will scan contemporary accounts for the,answer. _ .. . Living up to' history for a Prominent is a good deal like keeping up with the Jones’s for an ordinary person. R can be very wearing. It is better to *neet it on a casual .note. Woodrow Wilson had the proper flippant approach. Why worry about posterity, he asked, what has posterity ever done for us/ Mr Roosevelt is conscious of history s writing hand but he is not self-con-scious about it. Likes-to Laugh

Mr Roosevelt likes to joke. loves to chaff, waits open-mouthed sometimes at press conferences for the first chance to join in the laughter. Sometimes

MR RQOSEVELT

these conferences are hilarious affairs. Mr Roosevelt has a large, mobile face. He screws his mouth, erches his brows, purses' his lips or assumes a prefernaturally grave expression. He reads the "Christmas Carol”-to his family every year and he is the type who can carry the thing off admirably and mimic every one of Dickens’s characters. Sometimes at his conferences he, is arch or coy; then, when the point of his joke has been made, comes the peal

the “Christian Science Monitor."), , .t| of laughter. Amidst the Btrai»draMtj|f decisions Mr Roosevelt v seems to us pathetically eigek to the chance of a little belaratioß,. tfrgi a relisher of little incidents. ample, he liked the telegcafaUaf•» ceived the other day after r hjTS® speech from a woman In a gipaiftjWß Western town who said: "Dear MrjSS dldent: Thank you for taking su/s*| interest in our country." When the joke turns against- 'bwSp It not Infrequently does at preWml! ferences, he joins in the laughter, TW' is a touch of noblesse oblige, t6o*»S on such occasions he often scemr-S, give news that might otherwise!®.# forthcoming. Astute sometimes capitalise on this trait.- 5 * We think there is a cycle in~l£ Roosevelt’s activities. He has aW? of energy immediately on retuhjLw from a vacation. His face is hmiJ he Is exuberant, he applies hirnyw? the unending round of conference** sits 6 behind a big desk desk-mascots in a big swivel aitsi there hour after hour rec*gj»! callers: that is what being ' comes down to. 'Where would break the grind with IffiS : stride, about the room to relieves*} ypus energy Mr Roosevelt has bm hii' swimming and his trips. ' The Low Point . The confining routine berni®wear him down. His answenhMf tart. Often after a curt reply :»aaa} half-apologetically smooth’it nff/ajSS! is nothing surly about the HuM Valley country squire.- But it such times that a grim look settlS% his face. Questioning the PresidStJ* not just a jolly game, and 9fIUM& darts are occasionally flipped deftly - into the Chief Executive’s ajriness diminishes and there be a superior and condescendingM* toward the press and a tectifo'lS. haps on managing editors and wSRr offices, Even at such times MkjteS' vejt excepte his friends in 'xu&w3» ington corps, for whom, It libram to believe, he has genifine fleMai; This is the low point of the Roomw cycle. Such a point came at thrilaii of the November election, Resides'thl strain of. that campaign there w a sttin war. They were grim, taciturn : *mt Wien at last a break comes, iSW election is over or some favomwiblU passes. There Is talk of a trip/Nit ’a mere week-end visit to Hyde but a fishing trip on a yacht wjfli some “sun” in it. Mr brightens like a boy. The kiddtali tope comes back. At his iqost chfeiri ing, Mr Roosevelt is irresistible tpflwjt people at least as a person, whatever reservation one makes on the politics!' side. . Then a Trip N , The trip follows. Mr Roosevelt 4 on such a trip to-day. He comes back rested. He throws himself agaipintf the job. It would be a mistake ft think these trips are wasted. Expedience shows they may be fruitful «- decision. We imagine he •finds.** easier tp make up hig mind oni calm and isolated yacht to which,jfcis so attached, than in the hurly-big ft of Washington. Maybe the answtirs. u questions come subconspiQUßly p We know about the mystic ;'H{ K Hitler brooding, in his eagle's y a Berchtesgaden, We know domitable Mr Churchill pro»l|| Britain blood and sacrifice, sv/eanif® suffering. For Mr Roosevelt seems to be this cycle. We sburjaH pect far-reaching decision# returns from his latest trip.