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Louis, Mac & Steve. If President Roosevelt succeeds in maintaining a friendly Press it will be due not alone to his own adroitness, but also to the sense and tact of his Secretaries Howe, Mclntyre & Early, all oldtime newsmen. One cold night last week, "Mac" Mclntyre joined a vigil of shivering reporters on the White House veranda, started them singing "Sweet Adeline." Most of the Press contacts are handled by handsome, curly-headed "Steve" Early. A descendant of Confederate General Jubal Early, he covered the Navy Department for A. P. when Mr. Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary. He covered the Roosevelt campaign for Vice President in 1920. Last week Washington correspondents were delighted to find him an energetic liaison man, willing to hurry news to them while it was hot, or to interrupt the President with pertinent questions rather than make them wait for a formal statement.
Results. "Once again President Roosevelt exhibits the bald courage and unselfish leadership . . ."—Boston Transcript (arch-Republican).
"The fact that he acted without shilly-shallying indicates . . . that he knows what it is all about . . ."—Chicago Tribune (Republican).
"The action taken by President Roosevelt this week was a greater stride toward business improvement than anything else in the past three years."—Financial Editor Ralph West Robey, New York Evening Post (high Tory).
"The President, his Cabinet and the new Government of Democracy each has shown a virile and strong capacity for leadership."—George Van Slyke, New York Sun (Republican).
Even the cautiously impartial Associated Press sent out a dispatch beginning: "Having just become President, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: 'We must act, and act quickly!' And did he act? Well—. . . ."
"America has found a man. In him, at a later stage ... the world must find a leader. Undaunted by the magnitude of his stupendous task and cool in the face of its urgency, Mr. Roosevelt has made a splendid beginning."—Editor James Louis Garvin in the London Observer.
For the second time in 148 years the London Times spread a two-column headline, for the Inauguration Speech.
Presidents have won hearty non-partisan support from the Press in the past, but rarely such enthusiasm as Franklin Roosevelt got to start with. Virtually alone amid the chorus of jubilation was the Los Angeles Times, loyal Hoover organ, which reminiscently front-paged a cartoon of Uncle Sam shaking hands with President Roosevelt. Said Uncle Sam: "And may you get a better break than Hoover did."
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