Judge — May 1937 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Think of it, Gus—in three hours we'll see a King of England crowned!” THE SENATOR-AT-LARGE So You Want to See the President! HE machinery in the Executive Offices at the White House goes like clock work these days. Gracious, smooth and efficient, there are few who leave it dissatisfied. Getting in and out go-s something like this. However and with whatever endorsement, you find yourself talking to Marvin McIntyre who either explains the impossibility of the President personally discussing the mat. ter, for the time being, or else assures you that he will be so doggoned glad to see you that he can hardly wait. There are of course many less impor- tant things taking his time until, we'll say, ten fifteen Tuesday morning. You have breakfast in your room that morn. ing. You leave your hotel and get in a taxi that smells like the driver had let a couple of sheep sleep in it all night, and rattle up to the Executive Offices. You add an extra dime to your tip because you feel that important, and, as non- chalantly as possible, walk through the front doors expecting to be stopped by a couple of machine guns at every step. You are a little surprised that no- body seems to pay much attention to you. You can’t be so hard boiled that you won't experience an increased heart beat as you step inside these walls that house the greatest power in the civilized world. You aren't unobserved, howeyer, from the minute you pass the door. Secret service men look at everything jon the cuffs on yous fousers to the ulge in your et made your traveler's Grecks Tf the bulge is’ too 16 large you may get yourself courteously bumped a couple of times by hurrying men who seem to be secretaries but who have analysed that bulge before they have unbumped you. Somebody (you never quite remember whom) leads you into a stately room where seated in chairs around the walls are people who got there before you did and are trying to look as unconcerned and important as you feel. You are as- sured that Mr. McIntyre will be with you directly and the way you are assured makes you immediately superior to the other occupants of the room. Vou tehearse again your specch, because it. will be a speech no matter how much you try to make it conversation, and of course you don't know that you will never get to voice more than one or two of the opening paragraphs. Much to your surprise what you have memorized so carefully just won't come back smoothly. While you are worrying about that and whether your sox aren't wrinkled a little, in pops a new face from a door you hadn't noticed before and makes sounds which you interpret as an invitation to come on into Mclntyre’s office, and so you go. Now you really get important. You thought you were going in to the Presi. dent but somehow or other you don't mind too much because McIntyre assures you it will only be a moment, and you see setiting around his walls people whom you know must be more important than those you just left. Over there is Heflin of Alabama, rip- snorting Ex-Senator, subdued now a little with age and retirement, well groomed, more dignified than you ex- pected him to be and certainly more respectfully spoken to by those around him than you would imagine. Over here—but now McIntyre has come to take you into the President's office. You move across the room and find yourself looking at a lot of eye- glasses, a lot of teeth, a lot of smile, a lot of face, all of which you finally focus into clarity as Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States. OU can’t remember what you came to tell him because he has started to talk and you don’t dare interrupt. All you know is that you wish he would stop a minute so you could tell him how much you admire him, admire his family, how grand you think he is, how many times you voted for him, how many times you'd like to vote for him again, how much you approve of everything he does ‘and always will do, and have him believe that both he and you are quite all right and just buddies together. McIntyre hovers a minute and away in the back of your mind is a picture of the little slip of yellow paper you saw outside which said “10:15 to 10:18 John K. Whoozis,” and you know that it's after 11 o'clock. Won't the President stop talking so that you can tell him you admire him? What was it you came in for? Ah, now he has stopped a moment and you stammer and stutter words that sound stranger to you than they do to him because Mac has told him what you wanted before you got there. He agrees, you look up and Mac is back again, or did he ever leave? On his face is the kind of smile you see at family reunions and Elk’s picnics which seems to say “Doggone, isn’t this fun? I'd like to sit down and be just three buddies for the rest of the day, the President, good old Jack Whoozis and I, but outside there are a lot of ople who might get mad if I didn’t let them in, so I now experience one of life's disappointments in having to get good old Jack Whoozis out of here.” You suddenly want to help him get you out, you look back at the President who is looking at Mac with a “This is a dirty trick, taking good old Jack away from me” look. And then you are standing out on Pennsylvania Avenue. T four o'clock the same afternoon you telephone the White House and inform Mac, (you, too, are calling him Mac now) that you forget to say what you forgot to say, and he assures you it’s all right, he'll take care of it. You telephone your wife, you tele- phone your partner back home, you catch the six.thirty out of town and boy, you've had yourself a time! —Harry NEwMAN. Judge comicbooks.com