THE PRESIDENCY: Peanut Man

One day last October one of Washington's oldest merchants who has done business on the same spot for 28 years proudly issued a press release. The spot: intersection of Pennsylvania and East Executive Avenues, northeast corner of the White House grounds. The merchant: Nicholas Stephanos Vasilakos, proprietor of a peanut stand. The Press release, written in pencil on an empty popcorn bag: "Was certainly a great pleasure for me to wait on a new customer today at noon. The First Lady of the Land stopped by my stand and purchased a bag of fresh roasted popcorn for pastime while she was walking with another fine lady and with one of her favored dogs."

One afternoon last week Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, perusing the Evening Star, saw another press notice about Steve. It reported that the local Chamber of Commerce's transportation committee had recommended to the District Commissioners that Steve's stand be removed as an obstruction to traffic, that Steve, who has certain ancient and vague connections with California, was about to appeal to his Senator William Gibbs McAdoo to save his business. The First Lady took shears, neatly clipped the paragraph, pinned it to a sheet of paper, scrawled on the paper: ''Must this man go? E. R." A servant carried the paper to Presidential Secretary Stephen T. Early. Mr. Early started to set the executive office machinery in motion, then abruptly halted it. The President's Negro valet, Irvin Henry McDuffy, friend of Steve and also a reader of the Evening Star, had shown it to the President and the President had already sent word to the head of Washington's police traffic division that Steve was not to be molested.

¶ The executive pen in the Presidential hand decreed: 1) That the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps should be extended one year beginning April 1; 2) that all discriminating duties and imposts on Soviet vessels and their cargoes should be forthwith ended; 3) that veterans pension regulations should be eased.

¶ By way of diversion: The President and Mrs. Roosevelt gave a dinner and entertainment (Miss Jessica Lee, diseuse; Master Ruggiero Ricci, violinist) for a number of Senators, rear admirals, major generals and newspaper correspondents. Mrs. Roosevelt took a number of Cabinet wives to a morning concert attended by many diplomatic corps members, at which Eide Norena. soprano, and Mrs. Roosevelt's White House guest, Flautist René Le Roy, performed. The President and his Lady held the third of their five annual State Receptions, for Congress. Notable absentees: the Vice President and Mrs. Garner, the dean of the Senate and Mrs. Borah (ill).

¶ To the Poor Richard Club in Philadelphia, celebrating the 228th birthday of Benjamin Franklin, President Roosevelt sent a message praising his namesake's sanity. The club thereupon awarded its annual Poor Richard Achievement Medal, in absentia, to Walt Disney on whose behalf it was accepted by Eddie Cantor.