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Long, fresh from a nine-day Senate filibuster. "I'm going to talk turkey with Roosevelt," he shouted at by-standing reporters. "I am going to ask him, 'did you mean it or didn't you?' Goddam it, there ain't but one thing I'm afraid of—and that's the people."
He marched up to the President-elect's door, pounded on it. Nothing happened. To oblige cameramen, he repeated his impertinent performance. Half an hour after he was admitted he reappeared, a big smile on his face. He reported his interview thus:
"He's the same old Frank . . . just like he was before the election ... all wool and a yard wide. ... I come out of this room happy and satisfied.
"I walked into the room and the first thing he said was. 'Hello. Huey.' I says to him, 'This is the Kingfish.' and then I said, I want a post office.' He said to me, I think you have a fair chance of getting one if you are right.' Well, I'm always right.
"Then I said. 'I want an Ambassador-ship.' He asked me then, 'How much money has your candidate got?' I told him. 'He hasn't got any money; that's the reason he wants a job.' and he said, 'Well, he can't have it,' and that is the reason he ain't agoin' to get it.
"Crack down on me? He don't want to crack down on me. I come out of this room happy and satisfied. He told me,
'Huey, you're going to do just as I tell you,' and that is just what I'm agoin' to do."
When patrician Senator Glass emerged from his Roosevelt conference he was asked if he and the President-elect had discussed the Long filibuster against the Glass banking bill. "I never discuss trivialities," snapped the little Virginian. Most outsiders believed that Senator Glass had been offered the Secretaryship of the Treasury.
At midnight Mr. Roosevelt wound up his conferring for the day. A model White House was on the table before him. He touched it, tasted his finger. "It's candy," grinned the President-elect.
At 11 sharp next morning another Presidential car drove him to the White House (see p. 11). At 12:35 he returned to his hotel to talk with Senate Leader Robinson about speeding through the bankruptcy reform bill recommended by President Hoover for debtor relief. At 2:30 p. m., accompanied by a platoon of Congressional leaders from Tennessee and Alabama, Mr. Roosevelt used a special nickel-railed ramp to board the train that took him to Muscle Shoals.
At Florence and Sheffield, Ala., he promised cheering hundreds full-time operation of the nearby government-owned power and nitrate plant virtually idle since construction. As he turned from surveying the $150.000,000 Wartime white concrete elephant, he put his hand on the shoulder of Nebraska's insurgent Republican Senator Norris, who wants to see Muscle Shoals made a model for the federalization of electric power. "This should be a happy day for you, George," said Mr. Roosevelt.
Tears filled the eyes of the wrinkle-faced Nebraskan. "It is, Mr. President," he replied, "I see my dreams come true."