PRESIDENT’S RIFT WITH CONGRESS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 128, 25 February 1944, Page 6

PRESIDENT’S RIFT WITH CONGRESS

Theories As To Cause

(Received February 25, 1.30 a.m.)

NEW YORK, February 24. “The significance of Senator Barkley’s resignation as majority Leader of the ■Senate obviously far transcends the immediate question of the merits of the legislation involved,” says the “HeraldTribune,” in an editorial. “The cleavage is far too deep to be repaired by any eleventh-hour repentance by the President. however abject. “Two theories have been advanced to explain the growing -rift between the President and Congress. One is that President Roosevelt, like President Wilson, has become so immersed in world affairs that he has lost touch with publie opinion at home. The other is that he has embarked on a deliberate campaign to discredit the legislative branch as part of a fourth-term campaign.” The “(New York Times,” in a leading article says:: “The tone even more than the fact of President Roosevelt’s veto/of the Tax Bill precipitated the crisis in the relations between the President and Congress. The intemperate language of the veto was an obvious blunder and the President in his telegram to Senator Barkley wisely recognized how essential it is for the sake of collaboration with the legislative branch to repair that blunder. The “Herald-Tribune’s” Washington correspondent says’that Government officials are anxious to determine whether a Congressional revolt would imperil the hitherto non-partisan support of foreign policy such as leud-lease. U.N.R.R.A., strategic materials and purchasing.