ROOSEVELT RECORD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 156, 30 December 1938, Page 7

ROOSEVELT RECORD

FEW CHANGES OF ADVISERS

Change in, the Roosevelt Cabinet as the ■ result of resignations, although a subject of frequent discussion and ru-. mour almost since the Administration came into office, has finally come to actuality, but only after more than five and a half years of the New Deal have passed, wrote Frederick R. Barkley in the "New York Times" last month. The President's announcement that Attorney-General Cummings has asked to be relieved is the first break in the ranks of Mr. Roosevelt's original group of advisers except the two caused by ill health and death early in his first Administration. Mr. Robert J. Jackson, Solicitor-General, is credited with having the inside track for the job, though it is being rumoured that Governor Frank Murphy, of Michigan, recently defeated at the polls, may get the post. On the heels of the formal announcement of Mr. Cummings's retirement to re-enter private law practice comes the report that Postmaster-General Farley also expects to step out around the first of the year, and even before the Cummings retirement was announced it was forecast as soon to come, along with that likewise of Secretary of j Commerce Roper. But although at least half of the Cabinet members have been the^ subject of such rumours for a long time, the fact is that Mr. Roosevelt has kept his original group of advisers intact to a remarkable degree. CONTRAST WITH OTHERS. In his four-year term, by contrast, President Hoover made fourteen appointments to fill the ten \ Cabinet j posts. President Coolidge, on retiring after serving almost exactly the same length of time as Mr. Roosevelt has, had found it necessary to make eighteen appointments. In the three and a half years that Mr. Harding served he made thirteen nominations. President Wilson made twenty-one in eight years, and Theodore Roosevelt found it desirable to nominate a total of twenty-six men in seven and a half years to fill the eight Cabinet posts then existing. Only the placid William Howard Taft was able to get along with eleven men to fill nine posts during his fouryear term. In a few cases, Presidents have shifted an adviser from one Cabinet post to another, and some of the large number of changes made by Calvin Coolidge and Theodore Roosevelt undoubtedly were due to the fact that each inherited a full Cabinet on coming into office from the Vice-Presi-dency and naturally did not want to make complete shifts all at once. / OTHER CHANGES ALSO? Whether the first break in the Roosevelt Cabinet from resignation definitely presages others is still a matter of speculation, and unquestionably one on which there will be plenty. Mr. Roper's retirement in favour of Harry L. Hopkins, WPA chief, already has been reported, only to be definitely denied by the Commerce Department head. (Mr. Roper's resignation was announced by cable on December 15.) The retirement of Mr. Harry H. Woodring, Secretary of War, has been repeatedly reported. Mr. Louis Johnson, Assistant Secretary, has been frequently mentioned lately as Mr. Woodring's probable successor. <■

The retirement of Secretary of the Navy Swanson has also been rumoured for a long time, as Mr. Swanson has been in poor health- for the last two years. Should this come about, Mr. Charles Edison, Assistant Secretary and son of Thomas Edison, would be his logical successor, as Mr. Edison has carried much of the load for a long time.

Rumours of the retirement of Treasury Secretary Morgenthau also have cropped up from time to time. Mr. Morgenthau is generally considered to be tightly tied to his job, however.

Who might succeed Mr. James A. Farley if he gets the business connection he is said to have been seeking for some time is a matter on which speculation has been slight. First Assistant Postmaster-General William W. Howes, of North Dakota, would be a logical thoice.