THE PRESIDENCY: Manners

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One day last week Franklin Roosevelt, brooding over his bed-breakfast, decided to resurrect a long-laid ghost—that of the "White House spokesman." Unghostly, cherry-cheeked Secretary Steve Early got the call. Spokesmanlike, he asked the U. S. Press to consider the "timing" of Russian Premier Molotov's blast at U. S. foreign policy—on the day of a crucial House vote on the 1939 Neutrality Act. Later that day the White House released without comment past correspondence between President Roosevelt and U. S. S. R. President Kalinin, in which Mr. Kalinin thanked Mr. Roosevelt for a non-aggression proposal to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Two days later, after Representative John McCormack of Boston had demanded the recall from Moscow of U. S. Ambassador Steinhardt, Franklin Roosevelt remarked softly that bad manners should never beget bad manners.