FIGHT FOR POPULARITY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20561, 12 March 1935, Page 1

FIGHT FOR POPULARITY.

Roosevelt’s Radio Talks to Regain Prestige. WASHINGTON, March 3. President Roosevelt has returned to the White House from a short holiday and his lieutenants announce that he will shortly resume his broadcast addresses to the nation in an effort to regain his waning prestige. Admittedly, the President’s loss of authority is causing much anxiety in Washington. Simultaneously, the militant president of the American Federation of Labour, Mr William Green, will engage in a series of national broadcasts, seeking to justify Labour’s quarrel with the White House. There is no sign of a lessening of Mr Roosevelt’s personal popularity among the common people. What is unsettling, however, is the increasing number of legislators and legislative groups who are willing to take chances with the President’s displeasure. General Johnson’s series of articles in the “ Saturday Evening Post ” have exposed the quarrels, bickerings, backbiting and bootlegging in the highest Washington circles and newspapers like the “ Chicago Tribune ” assert with great finality that the N.I.R.A. is “ as dead as the dodo ” and that not even the President can revive it. The worst feature is that the country at largo i'o slowly coming to believe it. Judge Nields’s decision upholding the legality of company trade unions as against nation-wide unions is regarded as a vital blow against the Administration.