Show 01 MO president talks everyone wants to get in on the act by news analyst and commentator washington the colonel was talking to the g eneval it was obvious that the general was as bored as his secretary looked her interrupted dictation on her crossed knee which she uncrossed as the general s eye wandered the colonel was tha the army a s no 1 special st on the super gadget which was about to revolutionize warfare as the colonel could and would if he got a chance tell you the colonel knew the history of the gadget a develop F ment from its crude semi g s mo stage when primitive as it i f was it caused MN the entire re or of I 1 the th e g tactics ot of t the h e gats u under n d e r Is otto the great first king of the germans he could trace its evolution d down 0 w n through the days of delicate inter play when it broke up the empire of charlemagne and on down to the fall of stalingrad the colonel had brought the gen eral about up to the third punic war and the secretary was wig gling the general himself had begun to fumble with form aa the colonel realized that he was rapidly losing his his audience so he raised his voice so that file clerks in the next office stopped filing their fingernails and looked up by the way general he remarked confidentially did you know that I 1 int m writing the president presidents s next speech the one he delivers to the inter planetary association the general generals s secretary perked up the general raised an eye brow the colonel smiled at about the same hour over in the metropolitan club a very dapper 3 oung man from the div sion of the far near and middle east and expert in economic eth c I 1 pathology was s aping a th n scotch and soda which his ch et ef had just ordered H s ch ef was bored uie the way chief he said in a whisper so loud that even the waiters stopped looking respectful and I 1 I 1 m writing the pres dent s next speech at the inter planetary association s confer ence in four tour other places four other young experts were telling the r bosses the same thing all were perfectly honest all were believed and in 20 minutes or so raphers clerks messengers wait ers and cab drivers were po nt ng out the guy who writes the dent s speeches all this has been going on I 1 suppose in world capitals since before somebody else thought he bad had codified the code of ham ilam hurabi what really happens Is this the president calls to in one of his more literary secretaries all of them are literate but not all liter ary some those whose duties are conversing with politicians don t have to be too literate the dent says to the literary one bill in this speech I 1 have to write for the interplanetary inter planetary con ference I 1 in going to ment on the super gadget and I 1 want to touch on the current economic and social situation in beleria also there are some erosion statistics I 1 n need eed and some data on the problems which arose as a result of the whiskey rebellion oleh okeh chief says the liter ary secretary and on bis his way to he begins classifying according to departments the people he thinks may have the facts or the people who will knave know who knows somebody who has the facts he either phones or dictates a brief memo to these people requesting not more than one page from each on the subjects indicated highly pleased young and old men on rece pt ef of the memo or phone call begin leafing through their research libraries and die tating to their secretaries in two days a number of large packages are delivered to the white house via special messengers the liter ary secretary curses and sets to work boiling down a 24 page thesis on the progression of tau mute from the sanskrit et eha to a sen tence and a halt half which he has his stenographer type into the rough draft of the speech which the president has dictated and sent to him tor for the purpose franklin roosevelt became an because columnists persisted in revealing which confidential adviser wrote the last speech be he delivered whatever it was that he once showed us the actual draft of a speech be he had dictated and writ ten and rewritten re written as was his custom in fact the last minute revising of roosevelt s interlined manuscripts often went on while news hounds growled in the outer office and ere ers stood by to handle the finally okayed sheets in take takes I 1 I 1 WAS i a president truman got a little peeved recently over the same line of columnar chatter and be gan to let it be known that he could write himself of course all presidents get advice counsel assistance and inspiration from many men of many minds of course there are humanitarians and grammarians stylists and carl carlyle ie ests lexicographers and geographers economists and agronomists russians prussians and persians upon nhom he can call it if the need arises and somehow or other each and all if it they but contribute one jot or t atle to the sacred paper th they wrote the whole or at least the stenographer who had to take down all the stuff hopefully offered tor for possible presidential use thinks so and tells her friends about it confidentially the problem of presidential speeches is much to the fore these days for this reason president truman and his abusers despite the rebel yells the wails walls of the defeatists the triumphant roar of the elephant and the ominous hoof hoot beats of the polls as they gallup downhill still believe he has a fighting chance to return in novem her ber to the white mite house and he intends to fight for it the pres dent is going on a speak ng tour of the west of course it isn t a campaign that would be undignified and immodest before the convent on has asked he will speak under no political sponsorship but he will speak and he is go ng to ad lib hb as we say in the trade even if it we hadn haan t had our ears condit boned for 12 long years by the golden voice that breathed area thed over the f res orator cal oratory of harry truman when hen he reads a speech be it ever so humble never would be mis taken for the vox humana or the angels chorus cut but nhen harry truman gets up and talks he s very human very sensible and not altogether un persuasive so from now on he a going to speak extemporaneously no matter how much preparation it takes he showed what he could do with out notes or manuscript and with out learning by rote when he hol addressed dressed the newspaper publish ers and the grid ron club in april and again in may when he talked off the cuff to the national confer ence on family life in washington and since such speeches arent aren t written nobody can say he wrote them for him 0 will vill to peace finds expression next month a national confer ence for the prevention of world U ai III will be held on the cam pus of grinnell college in iowa the purpose is to present a definite concrete wording working plan to prevent a third world war methods which can be presented to the two national political conventions at philadelphia the roster of speakers will include representatives of many of the organizations now working for a s agle sovereign world organ za tion meanwhile winston churchill Is hammering steadily at his pur pose of building a united states of europe although the attlee grov gov eminent has not approved the idea the prime minister himself has spoken words of encourage ment regarding the formation ef of a real federalization of the western union attlee even went so far as to say that britain was willing to sacrifice her sovereignty in part to bring it about although he be qualified the promise by say ng the time was not yet ripe for such a step but churchill wants to strike now he received considerable support from the unofficial gath ering in the hague a forum they called it composed of re presenta tives of the marshall plan coun tries plus exiled leaders churchill a proposals and the Grin grinell conference are both part of the tremendous will to peace that currently is anding expression perhaps eventually we will learn that great lesson of history to yield the sovereignty that causes wars to the kind of sovereignty that allows not only the other free doms to the individual but which also will give him freedom from the FEAR of war just as the federalization of the separate col onles made the citizen of the state of new york free from the fear of war with the state of pennsylvania a situation possible because both recognize a higher sovereignty the united states government 11 ll rzula |