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Show L..jas,::;m.glri- J V -t'4. ..re:.. -m;: J Reads Right Meaning Into Barkley's Break With FDR By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, lGlfi Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. Continually I encounter evidence of the Importance of semantics, as I have mentioned before In this columnthe col-umnthe importance impor-tance of words, of their meanings, mean-ings, and of the necessity that the meaning In which the speaker or writer uses them Is the same attached at-tached to them by the listener or reader. r : ! f l . "'; Jr.- v 1 t :. to rlr'aking, but did not actually ma', the "dishonesty" charge. H said the President used a method of calculation "which obviously obvi-ously was handed to him by a mind more clever than honest." I It was natural to assume that some White House advisor had produced pro-duced the data, and in all likelihood, that some literary aide had written the veto message. Indeed, one of the columnists omnisciently announced an-nounced at the time that it was the work of Judge Rosenman. As a matter of fact, I can state with absolute certainty that that was one of the few speeches which President Roosevelt, who was good and mad because congress fiad refused re-fused to give him the tax bill he wanted, wiote himstlf, inditing the entire philippic with his own hand. Whether Senator Barkley would have replied with greater or Jess vigor had he known the actual authorship, au-thorship, I do not know. The fact remains, however, that he said what he meant and meant what he said. Nowhere did he call the President dishonest. He did establish his own Independence, and that of congress, con-gress, and probably did the President Presi-dent a favor by warning him against allowing his emotions to get the better bet-ter of him. In Barkley's delivery of the speech, and his nomination of President Pres-ident Roosevelt less than six months later, there was nothing Inconsistent. Inconsist-ent. Certainly nothing which, when understood, should shake the public's pub-lic's faith in the public man. Brakes Save President Truman Very little publicity was given to something that almost happened the day Secretary of State Byrnes departed de-parted for the foreign ministers conference con-ference in Paris. Something which might have given us a new President. Presi-dent. Mr. Truman, in order to emphasize empha-size the importance of the mission, rode with Mr. Byrnes to the airport to see the delegation off. There was ' no motorcycle escort, and while the car was moving along Constitution avenue at a fair speed, there came very near to being re - enacted an accident similar to that which cost General Patton his life. A truck dashed out of a side street toward the official automobile. Fortunately Fortunate-ly the brakes of the Presidential car held. The' party had a bad shake-up, but that was all. It might havejbeen otherwise. Ths newly appointed and not over popular popu-lar Secretary of the Treasury Snyder Sny-der might have had to move next door. After the secretary of state, who shared the near-miss with the President, the secretary of the treasury is next in line of succession. succes-sion. This is not the first time Mr. Truman Tru-man has taken risks. But he is by no means the only President who has worried Secret Service men to whose care the lives of the Chief Executives are entrusted under the law. Three times, newsmen, trying to keep up with Presidents, have been In serious automobile accidents. A certain amount of speed is desired de-sired at times when a presidential party is passing through strange territory but, as a rule, the White House chauffeurs who are specially picked men, "loaned" by the army, if left by themselves, lean to the safe and not the sorry side. At least one President was forced to change his automobile habits. President Hoover had a fishing lodge at Rapidan in Virginia, some 85 miles from the Capital. Hoover believed that time was money. He was always a hard worker, and when he'd finished fishing, he wanted want-ed to get away from there and back to his desk. It was a job for the Secret Service men and newsmen to keep up and keep on the road. Those mad chases were the subject sub-ject of considerable conversation by the correspondents and also their wives.. It was not considered a choice assignment. Finally there was a bad accident that sent one reporter to the hospital. After that, the presidential car proceeded at a more normal pace. The Alexander Hamilton institute says savings during 1946 will be considerably lower than last year's. Fine, if it reduces inflation pressures; pres-sures; but if it goes too far and the consumer doesn't consume, the producer pro-ducer can't produce, and we are back to 1929 once more. A few days ago "' '" i-ti&l I received Baukhage a letter from a listener lamenting what she called "one of our greatest troubles today" laok of faith In our leaders. She then described her "consternation" "conster-nation" when she heard Senator Barkley's "gushing and flowery talk" nominating Franklin Roosevelt Roose-velt for President In 1944, after hearing the senator's famous "revolt" "re-volt" speech sharply criticizing the President's veto message In the tax bill the previous February. To Washington, there was nothing Inconsistent In those two performances perform-ances at all. What happened was this: two persons who had worked together In a common cause fell out. Amends were made, and still loyal to that cause, the man who had been affronted registered his complaint, and then, feeling that the virtue of his position had been recognized, took up his labors In the common cause again. Perhaps that explanation would satisfy my disillusioned listener, had It not been for the fact that she not only misinterpreted the significance of Senator Barkley's speech, but actually put into his mouth words that he didn't use. She said that Barkley had said that the President was dishonest, and that he (Mr. Roosevelt) knew he was dishonest. Now, by interesting coincidence, omething had recalled that speech of Mr. Barkley's to my attention only a day or so before I received the letter. let-ter. A loyal toiler in the Democratic party had remarked to me that the senator from Kentucky, having served as majority leader longer than any man who has held that job In the senate, had increased tremendously tre-mendously In stature in the eyes of supporters and opponents. And, my friend explained, it, was his "revolt" "re-volt" of February 23, 1944, which marked the moment when Barkley began to wax In the favor of opponent op-ponent and supporter alike! As a result of the coincidence the letter and the remarks of my friend I reread the revolt speech. Nowhere in it did Senator Barkley Bark-ley accuse the President of being dishonest. But it is easy to see how a listener might have missed the shades of meaning in the speaker's speak-er's words. However, those words, correctly interpreted, I feel certain, cer-tain, reflected precisely the feeling of the senator. Had he wished to go further, he could easily have done so. Resent Personal Slap at Congress There were two especially sharp passages in Barkley's talk. The President had charged in his message mes-sage (vetoing the tax bill) that "it is squarely the fault of the congress of the United States in using language lan-guage In drafting the law which not even a dictionary or a thesaurus can make clear." There was a biting, personal flavor fla-vor in that sentence which congress as a whole, and Barkley individually and as majority leader, could not help resenting. Barkley said: "If it (the above statement) was made by anybody who ever sat in a tax committee meelins:, it was a deliberate and unjustified mis-statement In order to place upon congress the blame for universal dissatisfaction with tax complexities and in order to produce pro-duce the illusion that the executive . departments have in vain protested against this complexity." Here one can see that Barkley is defending the integrity of the congress. con-gress. He did not spare his anger at the affront. But, since he knew FDR had never sat in a tax committee com-mittee meeting, he wasn't placing the onus entirely on the President. There was one other sharp riposte In which Barkley carpe still nearer |