Not Entertained

From the article "Talks Drafted By Roosevelt" in The Miami News on this day in 1936:

Hyde Park, N. Y. -President Roosevelt tonight faced a busy weekend...The executive assembled...data for his talks in a series of conferences today with persons sympathetic to his program at the summer White House.

[New York Enquirer publisher William] Griffin acquainted the president with the observations of a recent trip to Europe and revealed he asked French officials to turn over the Normandie to the United States in part payment of the war debt. A similar request was made in England with the liner Queen Mary to be given this country as part payment in kind.

"Naturally," Griffin observed, "they were not entertained."