THE PRESIDENCY: Holiday at Home

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Three thousand men & women in evening dress were sitting at tables on the great floor (at $15 a plate). Among them were virtually all the ranking officers of the Administration and all shades of local politicos, including Democratic Boss Charlie Binaggio, who had just been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to tell what he knew about the revival of racketeering in Kansas City. Six thousand non-diners watched and applauded from the flag-bedecked balconies. An army of harried waiters served 3,000 tenderloin steaks without allowing more than minor peripheral cooling to set in—no mean achievement since all had come from the kitchen of the Muehlebach Hotel, three full blocks away.

As the speeches began, a wonderful, if temporary, surge of good feeling united the thousands in the hall. Bill Boyle almost wept as he stood listening to the roar of the crowd's applause. Vice President Alben Barkley was inspired to a stirring attack on Republicans. Challenging the G.O.P.'s new campaign slogan, he cried: "Will those people who see in every tree frog a roaring lion, and in every angleworm a spreading adder, please rise and tell us what is statism!"

"Not a Pipe Dream." When the President rose to make his off-the-cuff speech he had a crowd which could hardly wait to cheer. He stoutly defended the 81st Congress and the Fair Deal. "My political philosophy," he said, "is based on the Sermon on the Mount." He went on to lay down a proposition that would be heard again & again in the off-year election campaign; he hoped, he said, that the U.S. could eventually raise its income from $200 billion to $300 billion a year—enough to bring the national average to $4,000 a family. "That is not a pipe dream," said the President. The immediate job at hand, he urged, was to keep the Fair Deal program rolling. "Let's get to work and do it. If we do ... we will win with that program in 1950 . . . and in 1952!"

That brought the house down. With a sly dig at Vice President Barkley's attentions to Mrs. Carleton Hadley of St. Louis, he added: "I am exceedingly glad that he is about to become a citizen of Missouri." The following day—after a side trip to Independence—Harry Truman flew back to the White House, glowing with good spirits and leaving Missouri in a pleasant twitter of excitement over the Veep's romantic intentions.