NEWS OF THE WEEK
Mil. ROOSEVELT is not merely the greatest living opportunist; he must be very nearly the greatest opportunist- of all time—to use the word, not in any derogatory sense, as denoting the capacity to meet a series of crises one by one as they occur, and surmount each in time to be ready for the next. He is getting into troubled waters, as his difficulties .with Congress over the Bonus Bill and his appeal for wide powers of tariff negotiation indicate, but in the last day or two his personal authority has been sufficient to secure the postponement of two great strikes which threatened to bring the motor industry and the railway system to something like a standstill. It is true that they are at the moment only postponed, not averted, but to achieve postponement is half the battle, and there is every prospect that the President's personality will do the. rest. The motor manufacturers have always been particularly refractory in the matter of recognizing the unions, and the American Federation of Labour, in agreeing to call off the strike and go to the White House to talk, no doubt counts on Mr. Roose- velt to see that its interests in that respect are safeguarded. An automobile strike just when business is beginning to boom would have disastrous effects on the steel and other industries. No one knows that better than the President. *
