Problems Postponed

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Many a challenging problem hung over Franklin Roosevelt's desk last week. But in the first days after his return from Africa, he was not yet ready to cope with them. First came the odds & ends, which a returned traveler could clear away easily and painlessly.

The President called in his right-hand men in Congress and the Administration, gave them a quick fill-in on the Casablanca conference. He gave another resumé—more travelogue and good spirits than vital information—to his first press conference in over three weeks.

At week's end, Franklin Roosevelt said that he was caught up on everything but sleep. But he had merely postponed the big issues. In his absence, the pressure of administrative disorganization on the home front had become crushing. And two of his first visitors last week laid another heavy burden on his desk. Labor Leaders Philip Murray and William Green reported that they were dissatisfied with the Little Steel wage formula, would demand higher pay for their C.I.O. and A.F. of L. Among other things, Roosevelt would have to fight the battle against inflation all over again.

Last week the President also:

> Signed a glowing letter of praise to Russia's Joseph Stalin: "I congratulate you on the brilliant victory at Stalingrad of the armies under your supreme command. ... All Americans are celebrating today. . . . One of the proudest chapters in this war of the peoples united against Naziism and its emulators. . . ." To the White House came an equally warm reply from Stalin.

> Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Major General Alexander Archer Vandegrift of the Marine Corps, for "outstanding and heroic accomplishment" as commander of the Solomon Islands forces.

> Conferred with U.S. Minister to Finland H. F. Arthur Schoenfeld, back in Washington to report on the state of that unhappy little nation.

> Tried, in a letter to Chairman Robert L. Doughton of the House Ways & Means Committee, to squelch a Congressional revolt against his $25,000 salary ceiling.