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Show i Merry-Co-Round By DREW PEARSON and ROBERT 8. ALLEN WASHINGTON President Roosevelt is peeved at Washington newsmen. The boys have been scooping him on certain proposals on which he hss been working secretly, and the premature publicity has got under his skin. Reason for the president's irritation is that the reporters are upsetting his legislative strategy. strat-egy. Roosevelt doesn't want congressional attention at-tention occupied with too many things at once. Four years of experience have convinced him that too many irons in the fire on Capitol hill bring about log-rolling and insurgency. When only one or two issues are under consideration, con-sideration, the floor leaders can maintain a firmer hold on the unwieldy Democratic host and keep a closer check on lobbyists. Just now the president is primarily interested interest-ed In rushing through the deficiency relief appropriation ap-propriation and in securing extension of various emergency measures with maximum speed and minimum opposition. Inner Administration Gag The newsmen, incidentally, aren't the only ones to feel presidential displeasure over leaks. He has talked very plainly to his cabinet on the subject. At a meeting of the official family he ordered them very emphatically to put the lid down tight on their subordinates regarding the government reorganzation proposal. Inner administration sniping at White House policy is an old Washington story. Roosevelt apparently appar-ently is determined not to tolerate it on the reorganization re-organization issue against which there is extensive ex-tensive though secret hostility throughout his entire administration. He told the cabinet he would insist on a united front on this question. Secretaries Wallace and Roper informed their lieutenants that a rigid "gg ' was in force on the reorganization plan and that there was to be no talking about the matter, either on or off the record. Secretary Irkes issued an even more severe warning. No talking and no lobbying, lobby-ing, was his stern ukase. Honorable Hull The Honorable Cordell Hull, secretary of state, is capable of expressing himself either in the dignified, measured phrases of the statesman states-man or in the homely, expressive language of the Tennessee mountaineer. He switches from one to the other deliberately and without regrets. re-grets. The other dsy Hull granted an interview to a man who went much farther than he ahould in seeking a favor. The secretary broke forth in a storm of verbal abuse as colorful as it was profane. Later the visitor suggested thst a memorandum memoran-dum be made of the interview. "All right" said Hull, "and put in the cuss words, too!" . Disgruntled Farmers Farmers everywhere are dissatisfied with the present soil conservation program of the AAA. They say it is a shoddy imitation .of the original AAA and they don't like it. This is the report made to Secretary Wallace Wal-lace by George E. Farrell. head of AAA's western west-ern division, who spends most of his time in the field, talking to farmers. "The farmers gang up on me," says Farrell, "and let me have it straight from the shoulder. What they say is: 'Soil conservation is all right, but I want to know first of all what price my crop is going to bring.' ''In other words, they're afraid of overproduction overpro-duction and falling prices. They see it coming. They don't went to wait for 50 -cent wheat and 40 -cent corn. They know what happens when, in an era of high prices, everybody plsnts up to the hilt They want to be prevented from planting. "They want production control, even enforced en-forced control of the Bankhead kind if necessary. neces-sary. And if they don't get it something is going to break loose." Friend at Court Senatorial displeasure banned cabinet wives from seats with their husbands on the inaugural inaug-ural rostrum aUthe capitol, but the ladies had one friend who took up the cudgels for them, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. When she learned (via the Washington Merry -Go-Round) that the cabinet wives had been refused places on the inaugural platform, she sent for Admiral Cary T. Grayson, chairman chair-man of the inaugural committee. She insisted that the cabinet wives be given comfortable and accessible sests. Then, thinking his worries were over, he started to leave. Mrs. Roosevelt stopped him. "Just one "more thing, admiral," she said sweetly. "How about taking care of the children chil-dren of the cabinet members?" Grayson blocked out additional seats for the cabinet children. ICeeirrltlM, Vatte Veaur arasmle. las.) |