PRESIDENTIAL POWER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 May 1941, Page 3

PRESIDENTIAL POWER

ROOSEVELT OUT TO GET JOB DONE. Last week Franklin Roosevelt _ became 59. Few men on their 59th birthday could say what he said of himself last week. One day he got out of bed. where he had been nursing a cold, dressed, put on his best face, and held a conference with House and Senate leaders in his second-floor study.--" They had come to discuss the Lend-Lease Bill. _ . . The dialogue was almost as simple as this:— Congressman Joe Martin (Republican).—What’s your objective, Mr President—what do you want? Franklin Roosevelt. —Joe, I want to help England lick Hitler. Martin—Mr President, _ what about the tremendous power this bill confers °n y° u? , , . Then the President made his exua*' ordinary statement. Roosevelt.—Joe, this bill can t give me as much power as I already have. •I am Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. The power of that position frightens me sometimes. I am not interested in more power. All I want is to get the job done. Then the conference broke up, ana Franklin Roosevelt, the man who at 59 thought he had all -the power he could wish for, went back to nursing his cold.—(“Time” magazine, 10/2/41.)