Letters, May 21, 1945

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F.D.R. was President a long time, so long that newspaper editors in general forgot that he was the 32nd President. I took refuge in the thought that TIME [April 23], with all those researchers, would set everyone right. A broken reed! You cannot count either. President Truman is the 32nd person to be President. If one refers to him as the 32nd President, that is half-true. But when he is called the 32nd President of the U.S., you have permitted an error to creep in. Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th President of the U.S. It is true that the records of Congress list F.D.R. as the 31st President. But the Congress is a separate branch of the Government. Check with the Constitution. WILLIAM E. BARINGER, PH.D. The Abraham Lincoln Association Springfield, 111.

¶I Thirty-one men have served 32 tenures as President of the U.S. Whether Harry Truman is the 32nd or 33rd President is, in the absence of any final authority, up to Mr. Truman. He has decided that he is the 32nd President of the U.S. The Congressional Directory, Senate Manual, and the numbered nameplates on the Presidential portraits in the White House concur with him.—ED.

Historic Route

Sirs: . . . Since Presidential movements are news and since the censorship which cloaked [Roosevelt's] ended with his death [TIME, April 23], you may be interested to know that there was another [railroad] route which President Roosevelt used almost ex clusively in recent years. He traveled on the Baltimore & Ohio from Washington to Phila delphia; from there his train went over the Reading to Bound Brook, N.J., where it traveled over the Jersey Central Lines to Jersey City, and on to Highland, N.Y., over the New York Central's West Shore Railroad.

At Highland, the President used an auto mobile to complete his trip across the Hudson and on to Hyde Park. . . .

Presidential special trains raise many problems for the railroad handling them. The President's safety comes first, and elaborate precautions are taken. On our own road, for instance, all freight trains in the 31-mile distance we carried the President each trip were required to be at a standstill a half-hour before his train was scheduled to arrive at that point.

A staff meeting of key officers was held before every movement of the President over our lines, and approximately 20 key supervisors were assigned to various key locations in case of any difficulties. Specially selected coal was used; supervisors, master carpenters, bridge inspectors, track foremen and trackwalkers covered the entire right-of-way to examine all bridges and all track conditions; highway crossings which normally were unprotected at night were given special protection to guard against automobiles striking the train.

While we naturally are proud of our record in transporting the President, this information is offered not in an effort to extol the Jersey Central but to give you an appreciation of the unpublicized job done as a matter of special routine, year in and year out, by all the railroads who participate in transporting our Presidents.

RAYMOND F. BLOSSER Director of Information The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey Jersey City

Comforting Cocoon?

Sirs: