Untitled

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20102, 8 May 1935, Page 12

In England it is rather difficult to understand how the wife of a prominet Government official could make such a mistake as that committed by Mrs Franklin D. Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States, in her public comments on the Hauptmann murder verdict (says “The Queen”). Mrs Roosevelt not only said, publicly, “I was glad that I did not have to sit on that jury,” but she made certain comments on the value of circumstantial evidence which were essentially unfortunate coming from anyone in her position. The matter has now reached such a stage in America that the President must be considerably embarrassed. Wives of statesmen and high officials in England are invariably careful in the extreme about making any public statement regarding their husbands’ duties. One could scarcely imagine, for instance, Mrs Baldwin or Mrs Neville Chamberlain alluding publicly to official matters affecting their husbands. The practice may be a trifle less rigorous in the United States, but in this case Mrs Roosevelt seems certainly to have overstepped the mark.