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Show Truman Labors Under New Deal 'Inheritance' Congress Seen Taking Advantage of President's Presi-dent's Rightist Leanings; Lacks Influence Influ-ence of FDR to Put Policies Over. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, 1G16 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. It was a cool, crisp winter day. A week before the erratic Washington Wash-ington weather had seduced a whole circle of credulous pansies which pushed their startled faces up from the garden on the White House lawn. Poor bemused flora! They were soon frozen as solid in their beds as the President's labor legislation in congress. We hurried along Pennsylvania avenue, our coat collars turned up, arguing heatedly as newsmen do when they are released from the inhibitions in-hibitions which seize them the moment mo-ment they sit down and meet the solemn stare of their typewriter keyboards with that threatening noose, the deadline, tightening about the medulla oblangata. "The most astounding thing," said one of us, "is the way Truman, with all his experience In congress, can't get along with It. If he would only buttonhole some of the thinkers in the opposition, say Vandenberg In the senate and men like Wollcott in the house, and appeal to their sense of patriotism, he wouldn't have all this trouble." "It isn't as simple as that," in-terrupted in-terrupted another, as we paused to show our photographic passes to the guard at the gate (who has known us all by our first names for a decade dec-ade but who always solemnly studies stud-ies our cards as if they were aliases). ali-ases). "It isn't as simple as that. After all, congress has to be realistic realis-tic in an election year. They are facing real issues. And the President's Presi-dent's program isn't realistic." "Whether or not it is realistic," the third member of the group put In, "after all it isn't his program. He inherited it It's New Deal and the New Deal is Old Hat now. It doesn't represent Harry Truman's ideas at all but he has to go through with it." All I felt I could add to those sage observations, without agreeing that the New Deal was Old Hat or the latest Downing Street model, whether wheth-er it was realistic or modernistic or neo-marxian, was that it certainly cer-tainly is probable that if the President Presi-dent were able to shatter his in- j heritance to bits and then remould I it to something nearer his heart s desire, he could probably put a lot more pep into his selling talk to congress. con-gress. By this time we were adding our coats to the huge pile of garments on the great Aguinaldo mahogany table in the lobby of the executive offices and taking our place in the line outside the conference room. Resentment Shades Chief's Feelings On this particular day the President Presi-dent started ofT with the note on which the whole conference was carried. I don't quite know how to describe it. He kept smiling. He didn't lose his temper. But there was just a shade of resentment in his voice and his words. It all sounded more like the later, somewhat some-what disillusioned days of his predecessor, prede-cessor, than the merry moments when a Roosevelt interview was always al-ways a good show as well as a news-ful news-ful event I mean the early days before be-fore the weight of war descended upon FDR's wearying brow. There is a weight on Truman today quite as heavy, for peace has its miseries mis-eries as well as war. Just as it was freely predicted that "the United Unit-ed States will never stand for an occupying oc-cupying army for any length of time" (which proved to be so painfully pain-fully correct), so everyone took for granted that any President in office of-fice when the war ended would have an impossible job. But let's get back to the crowded office of the President on the winter win-ter day I am describing. He sat there smiling, exchanging wisecracks wise-cracks with the men in the first row. On the table behind him were the photographs of his family, crowned with a great bunch of jonquils jon-quils from the White House greenhouse. green-house. He looked cheerful enough. The usual signal "all in" was sounded. sound-ed. He stood up and began to talk about what he called a "tempest in a teacup" the controversy over 'building an addition to the White House. Personally I think it is the height of folly to continue the ef- L & ' if i fort (begun by Theodore Roosevelt) to try to house the office work of the President under the roof of "the President's House," but I mention this controversy simply because it reflects the seamy side of White House-congress relations. Many of the President's friends feel that trying to make a modern office out of a beautiful old American colonial residence is folly, but they also felt that much of the furor raised in congress was due to a desire to embarrass em-barrass Mr. Truman. Why can't Truman get on with congress? Perhaps because he is a little too much like them. This is merely a hunch but I am not the only one who has toyed with the idea: both congress and the President Presi-dent (I realize that "congress" is a loose term because the legislators are a collection of many men of many minds) inclines farther to the right than the inherited Roosevelt program is targeted. Congress, the part of it that knows Harry Truman well, undoubtedly feels that his heart leans just about, as far in the same direction. Therefore, he just can't get these more leftist) ideas across. Harry Truman has a tremendous tre-mendous respect for the office of the presidency, a deep feeling of duty to carry out the program which death placed in his hands a duty and a function he never sought. He cannot can-not toss this heritage into the discard. dis-card. And he probably reasons that if he feels that responsibility, the members of the party should do likewise. like-wise. But it must be remembered that it was the powerful influence of a personality which could win an election four times, a task no American had dared to attempt even for the third, which kept congress con-gress obedient and even then, toward to-ward the end, only falteringly. Truman Reveals His True Self On this particular day of which I am speaking, I think we heard Truman Tru-man revealing his true self. He believes be-lieves that the White House should be enlarged. He resented the opposition op-position which he suspected was at least in part personal and political rather than the product of sincere I conviction. I thought I heard that in his voice. But I also think I heard in his words, a similar expression of his own philosophy, when he said that he thought the present industrial strife was a struggle for power between be-tween labor and management. In other words that basically it was not the demands of the men who work for more pay nor was it an objection on the part of industry to pay higher wages, as much as it was a pitch battle between labor leaders and the top men in management manage-ment to see which could beat the other down. To one who brags about being middle-class, without even a drop of blood of an Irish king in his veins, it sounded like good, sound (call it stuffy if you want) middle-class resentment. re-sentment. Then the President added add-ed that he thought that both labor and management had too much power and it was time for the government gov-ernment to step in and assert the power of the people which government govern-ment is supposed to represent. But when we asked the President if and how the government was going go-ing to assert itself to exert the "power "pow-er of the people" to settle the mess, all he said was that he had done all that he possibly could do. He could have called out the army and the navy, the national guard, the FBI and the United Marching and Social Clubs, and taken tak-en over the steel industry the next day. But a step like that, which was no more than the wave of a tapering cigarette holder yesterday, was one which no cautious middle-class, middle-class, middle-western, middle-of-the-road American would like to take except under duress. (I say that as one such.) And so congress, part of it responding respond-ing to the pressure of management and part of it under the pressure of labor, fiddles and filibusters while industry contentedly lives off its fat, labor on union funds or relief and the "people" with all their alleged "power" wonder how long, oh Lord, how longr |