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>Told newsmen that the Government was prepared to take over Ford Motor Co., or any factory in the country, if that action were necessary for defense.
>Added fuel to his old feud with Isolationist Senator Burton Wheeler. Three weeks ago, when Senator Wheeler charged that the President was going to "plow under every fourth American boy," Roosevelt retorted that the remark was " dastardly." Last week, Mr. Roosevelt passed on a piece of gossip about Senator Wheeler. According to the memoirs of the late William E. Dodd, Roosevelt's Ambassador to Germany, Senator Wheeler had remarked at a dinner given him by Brain-Truster Rexford Tugwell, "some time in 1934," that Nazi domination of Europe was "inevitable." Ambassador Dodd had told him about it at the time, said Roosevelt. Asked whether the President interpreted the remark to mean that Senator Wheeler favored a German victory, Mr. Roosevelt pointed out that the word "in evitable" was a very comprehensive word indeed.* Did Mr. Roosevelt think Senator Wheeler held the same opinion now? The President had no comment.
Because Jan. 30, which is the date of the President's birthday, is also the birthday of Anna Sklepovich, Anna had sent a letter with her best wishes. Anna was to be 14. Back to her home in the mining town of Gary, W. Va., fortnight ago, came a formal thank-you note over the President's signature. But before Anna got the letter, her 18-year-old brother Steve had opened it, prankishly written a postscript : "We would like to have you come to the White House and meet the President." Anna read the postscript and was thrilled. Mother Sklepovich and Father Sklepovich, a mine mechanic, were thrilled too. They scraped together bus fare for the 350-mile trip to the Capital, and sent Anna off. Still clutching the note, Anna presented herself at the White House door.
An attendant took a look at the note, saw the postscript was a hoax. Next thing Anna knew, she was being hustled away by a Secret Service guard. Bitterly disappointed, Anna sobbed herself to sleep that night at the Receiving Home for Children.
Capital newsmen heard the story, and next day Washington papers front-paged it. In bed that morning, Mr. Roosevelt read about it, pressed a button, uttered a command. Wonderful things began to happen to Anna.
George E. Allen, balding, round-faced chairman of the President's Birthday Ball Committee, whisked her to the White House, where she shook the Presidential hand. Shyly she said: "Happy birthday, Mr. President. I am very glad you can see me." Then she was whirled off on a sightseeing tour, to a store to buy a pink formal evening gown, to a hairdresser's, to a suite at the Mayflower Hotel.
Next night, as Washington staged its annual President's Birthday Ball, Anna Sklepovich helped Eleanor Roosevelt cut the President's birthday cake, posed for pictures with cinema stars, scribbled her autograph. Then back to the Mayflower she went, through goggling crowds. There she sighed happily, took off her new white, green and gold wedgies, ended the most exciting birthday she had ever known.
*Said Senator Wheeler, recovering from influenza at the Florida home of Joseph P. Kennedy: "This slanderous attack on me—attributed to a dead man—is absolutely false."