Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-13
Picking a New Cabinet
His Has

| ureS of the presidency I really sup
posed at that time that what a Presi-
dent should do was to pick out 10
| friends who had been most loyal to him
/ and give them the honor of the highest
gifts at his command really supposed
that would be the way would go about
| it. I looked forward to the chance to
be kind to my friends in this way as
enc of the compensations of the presi-
dency. / looked forward to the pleas
ure my friends would show when
| told them I was going to put them in
| the cabinet. OF course, knew the men
would have to be Republicans and
would have to be otherwise equipped
ard available, but thought of cabinet
| making wholly in terms of personal
| friendship"
Couldn't BE Done.
Thus far Harding spoke. and then,
with most appealing gesture of hui
n1ility, of meaning to do his best, OF
| being surprised by high ideal, he put
his hand on his heart and said, with
almost evangelical earnestness:
But 7 find you can't do 1t that way.
You just can't. You must get big men
| for the cabinet. 1t pains me to think
of the friends that cannot appoint.
hate to think of meeting them.
am going through torment right now
about man l would like to appoint,
| who, think, expects to be appointed,
and who will be disappointed and who
will feel hurt, together with his friends,
when I don't appoint him
| Recalling that Harding, at the time
| he said this, was just in the midst of
| his cabinet making, that he had arrived
at about five of his appointments and
| had five yet to make, one can survey
| the Harding appointments in the light
| of the change occurring i'll his psy-
chology 1t will refresh recent memory
| to print the entire Harding cabinet as
it was announced and took Office some
| two months after the conversation here
| recited:
Secretary of State, Charles E. Hughes.
Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew
w. Mellon.
Secretary of War, John w. Weeks.
Attorney General, Harry M. Daugh-
| erty.
: Postmaster General Will Fl. Hays.
| Secretary of the Navy, Edwin DENLY.
Secretary of the Interior, Albert B.
Fall.
Secretary of Agriculture, Henry G.
| Wallace.
Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoo
| yer.
| Secretary of Labor, James j. Davis.
4, Incidentally. it was interesting to
observe that of those 10 cabinet men,
bers who took office March 4. 1921, two.
| Secretary of the Treasury Mellon and
| Secretary of Labor Davis, are still in
office A third, Secretary Hoover of the
! Commerce Department, remained in Of
| flee until his nomination for the Presi-
| dency last June. and but for that nom
| nation probably would have remained
to the end)
! Overlapping Categories.
| In the process that selected these
| 10 members of the Harding cabinet
| there were really four overlapping cate
| gories rather than the two that Hard
/ ing mentioned Some were selected
primarily, and in two cases almost ex-
clusiyely, on the basis of old personal
friendship.
The Attorney General, Harry Daugh-
erty, had been Harding's intimate per-
sonal friend for many years Only
| that friendship and no other quail
! fication, counted for the Daugherty ap-
| pointment. 1t is true that Daugherty,
| in addition to his personal intimacy
with Harding, had been politically
serviceable to him, had been his sue
cessful political manager But Daugh-
erty would hardly have been made At
! torney General on the basis of political
services alone. The Secretary of the
Interior, Albert Fall, was another of
| Hardings intimates. 1t was these two.
parenthetically, who got Harding into
CONTINUED on Fifth Page.)