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Show NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS I . . Written or The Telegram By Ray Tucler i WASHINGTON Al Smith's ' birthday Interview was not a bit of passing politics. His delivery of judgment upon the Democratic Demo-cratic presidential candidates for 1940, with his clean-cut support of the third term tradition, marked the formal opening of another "stop Roosevelt" movement. move-ment. Mr. Smith's favorite, as exclusively ex-clusively revealed in this spare several weeks ago, Is John Nance Garner of Texas. But the antl-Rooseveltians antl-Rooseveltians are not definitely committed to the Texan; they will use him to stave off a third-term third-term threat, nominate him if they can, but shift to somebody else if he turns out to be unavailable. un-available. The important fact is that Mr. Garner alone has announced an-nounced that he will run regardless re-gardless of F. D. R.'s intentions, and therefore he furnishes the only rallying point for old-fashioned, conservative Democrats. The antl third term movement has assumed definite and powerful power-ful proportions. At least 20 Democratic Dem-ocratic senators and political leaders have declared against any break with tradition. Though seemingly a spontaneous opposition, opposi-tion, they have been conniving for months meeting together now and then, writing letters, organizing with the single aim of working up sentiment against a which cannot construct them with their own funds. But Mr. McNutt will not be , permitted to grab any glory from this venture. As a result of private pri-vate conferences at the White House, it will be handled from start to finish by Miss Josephine Roche, former assistant secretary secre-tary of the treasury in charge of public health. As another indication indi-cation of Mr. McNutt's low status, stat-us, the federal releases publicizing publiciz-ing the first payment of social security benefits to start about February 1 barely mentioned his name. S E C-crs are privately patting themselves on the back over the behavior the stability of the market. Although general business busi-ness is at least 20 per cent better than It was 12 months ago. Wall Street prices have remained fairly fair-ly level except in a few lines directly di-rectly influenced by the European Euro-pean war. The Washington watchdogs profess to believe that the market's mar-ket's quietude is due to the era of regulation which President Roosevelt Introduced to the safeguards erected against speculation. specu-lation. Had it not been for these checks, the securities and exchange ex-change people Insist that the country would have witnessed an artificial boom in which the public pub-lic would have been bruised as it was in the 1914-1918 period, and again in the years from 1927 to 1929. Economic cynics, however, dispute dis-pute these conclusions. In their opinion. Wall Street Is quiescent because of two elements of uncertaintythe un-certaintythe war Itself and the presidential election. Those influences, in-fluences, It Is believed by private experts, are alone sufficient to prevent a broad and strong upward up-ward movement Moreover, the general public has not been stampeded stam-peded into the market in the hope of getting rich quick. Nor have recent assurances that Washington will leave business alone stirred the capital markets. mar-kets. Financial leaders and the Important Interests from which they draw their funds are simply sim-ply laying low, in administration opinion. Brigadier General Edwin L. Watson, the president's genial and snappy military aide, figured in an amusing incident during the holidays.- It brought a guffaw guf-faw from Mr. Roosevelt when he heard of it. "Paw" lives at a fashionable apartment hotel wherein dwell many fussy and wealthy dowagers. dow-agers. One morning, as "Paw" stood In the lobby togged out In his army regimentals, an old gal approached him and said: "Here, my man, please go get my car for me," handing him her keys. She mistook him for the doorman. door-man. And "Paw," who possesses a delightful sense of humor, did her bidding. He won't say whether wheth-er he accepted the tip she offered of-fered him 25 cents. Copyright, 1940, McClure Syndicate renominatlon of the president President Roosevelt quietly knifed the McNutt-for-presldent boom within the last week, but he did it so deftly that It escaped the notice of all except the professional pro-fessional politico!. They now figure that the handsome Hoo-slerite Hoo-slerite Is definitely on the presidential presi-dential black book for 1940. Whereas Mr. McNutt hoped to endear himself to the populace by rushing forth as the champion cham-pion of the Wagner health bill, Mr. Roosevelt has served notice that he will not press the measure meas-ure at this session If ever. It Is too costly, for one thing, and It would launch the federal government gov-ernment on an experiment in mass medicine from which even Mr. Roosevelt shrinks. Instead, he will propose a milder and aimpler scheme for federal financing fi-nancing of hospitals in areas |