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it would cost no more money in that session, Scribner withdrew by some miracle because he's a curmudgeon if I ever knew one, and the bill passed.

I considered the President's signature would be a routine matter and that we might get a supplemental appropriation through in the last few days of the session in spite of Kieth's hasty promise to Scribner. A few days passed and President Truman left Washington on a speaking tour of the country in order to do a little politicking on his own reelection, and I became anxious about the mechanics of getting the bill to him, as he was making short stops and staying no place long, making short stops on a train, believe it or not.

I phoned Oscar Ewing just to check on whether or not the bill had been signed on about June 11th. He was confident that everything was in order, but he checked and found that the bill had not even been sent to the White House, as there was an error in one word, between the House and Senate versions, so someone in the legal office had pigeonholed the bill and was not doing anything about it. It could have been a pocket veto had I not started to agitate about it, even though we had done everything to get it through both sides. This absolutely panicked me.

Ewing got the legal difficulties unsnarled and then Anna and I phoned Les B and David Niles, who was then in the White House, to beseech them to get the bill by mail pouch to San Francisco, by special plane to the President that day.