The Cordova daily times., 1921-03-17
BAKER POOREST
 WAR SECRETARY MANY DECADES
BY COL. WINFIELD JONES

inet has passed into history Perhaps no cabinet of any president was so bitterly criticized, on the whole, as the Wilson cabinet. Next to Mir. Wilson's personal failings, of which the greatest were an exaggerated ego and new freedom" that did not look first to the welfare of his own country but to inteTnatiOnalisuf the Wilson cabinet was the greatest handicap to the Wilson administra- ! tion. In the campaign which landed Warren c. Harding in the White House attacks on the Wilson cabinet and it's record were as effective as attacks on MT. Wilson himself and his policies.
 Without attempting any defense of the cabinet that has just left office It may be stated that the outgoing cabinet had tremendous tasks to handle, both in peace and war, and there is no doubt that most of MT, | Wilson's official family did the best they could. They just simply were aot big enough, mentally or morally, to grapple successfully with the prob lens they attempted to solve, Hence their failure. Personnel had a great deal to do with these failures. When the neWSpapermen stationed at the war department referred to Mr.. Sec retay Baker as 'Pansy" Baker, furth- CT explanation of MT. Bakers ability was not needed. MT. Baker was the poorest excuse for a secretary of war seen since Grants time, when the war secretary at that time. Will ian E. Belknap, made an even worse record
 The Wilson cabinet had one dis tinction, however, that no other cabinet had. Three of it's members served continuously for eight years. No other cabinet had such record. The men who struck manfully in the Wilson cabinet during the whole eight years of the Wilson reign were Postmaster General BurIeson, Secre- tary of the Navy Daniels, and Secre- tary of Labor Wilson. Both BurIe- son and Wilson were under fire bv the public more than any other mem Der of the cabinet but MT. Wilson held to them and they to him.
 Few men have ever served eight years in any cabinet, James Wilson, Of Iowa, secretary of agriculture un- der Mckinley, Roosevelt, and Taft holds the long distance record for cabinet service. He was for sixteen years head of the department of agri- culture and made that department practically what it is today, or at least laid the foundations broad and deep for all secretaries who came after him. Albert Gallatin, of New York, served as secretary of the treasury for thirteen years under Jef- ferson and Madison. Gideon Welles. secretary of he navy under Lincoln and Johnson served eight years; E. A. Hitchcock put in eight years un- der Mckinley and Roosevelt as sec- retary of the interior. Others could be named who served eight years and still others who put in six and seven years in cabinet places. Gideon Granger, postmaster general under Jefferson and Madison, served twelve and a half years.
 In the eight years of the Wilson administration four cabineteers fell out with their chief and either left the cabinet or were fired" These were Bryan, Lansing, Garrison, and McAdoo. Bryan left because he did not agree with the foreign policy then being experimented with; Lansing was removed because he called cab met meetings without the presidents permission when MT. Wilson was sick; Garrison quit in a huff because congress and the president refused to endorse a scheme of national de- fense devised by Garrison and mis- named the continental army" Me Adoo left because he could not live on the salary. Of the four McAdoo was the only one who quit with Mr. Wilson's blessing.
 The Wilson cabinet members are now in private life. They are oc- cupied as follows: Colby, practicing law in New York; Baker practicing law in Cleveland; Palmer practicing law in Washington and Strousburg, Pa; Postmaster General Burleson, resting in Austin, Texas; Houston, taking a rest; Daniels, editing a pa per in North Carolina, where it is reported he will run for the senate against Senator Simmons; Payne, undecided; Alexander, undecided; Wilson, undecided.