Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-31
EXECUTIVE OFFICE
EXPANSION IS SEEN
Hoover Expected to Create
What May Amount to
New Department.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.

The executive Office under the ad-
ministration of Herbert Hoover will be
almost q department in itself. Not since
the Roosevelt administration. when the
crowded quarters of the living room
floors in the Executive Mansion were
abandoned for q separate office build
ing, has there been such prospect Of
change and enlargement.
Mr.. Hoover is going to have an adj
ditional secretary. The request has gone
to Congress. He probably will have
three private secretaries at salary of
$4,000 each. In other words. the
Executive offices are SO cramped and
that something like the organization
become necessary.
Hoover Dislikes Red Tape.
Mr.. Hoover Is accustomed to work
with executive assistants. He dislikes
red tape. He had personal secretaries
whom he paid privately when he was
Secretary Of Commerce. He did not feel
justified at that time in asking the Gov
eminent to take care of this burden.
But as President Of the United States
the situation will be different. Congress
has shown a disposition to tighten the
labors Of President by giving him all
the help he needs. Mr. Hoover has a
systematic method of approaching the
many problems that come to him for at
tention. He Is more like the executive
of big corporation, delegating his work
to trusted assistants who investigate and
report to him.
The general impression now Is that
Mr.. Hoover will have three secretaries
to divide the tasks that pile UP in the
outer Office of the President. Every
Cabinet officer has better auxiliary
staff than Is granted the President. 1t
is not that the present staff originally
was inadequate, but that the work has
been increasing. The correspondence
with the White House Is growing. 1t
takes one executive secretary to handle
and supervise 1t. 1t takes another secre-
tary to handle the callers from Congress
and other visitors Then there are the
people who come merely to pay their
respects.
Press Contact Was Needed.
Last and by no means least Is the
contact with the press which suffers
when the executive secretaries become
immersed in the business of handling
callers from Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
Many an important memorandum is
presented to the President for perusal.
He may want something looked up. He
cannot always send it to cabinet Of
f1cer. And. besides, there is other re-
search work to be done. The late Pres
ident Harding started the custom of
having personal secretary to look UP
data for speeches. This was continued
by Mr.. Coolidge. It has proved a great
help.
The belief prevails that George
AkerSon, formerly Washington corre-
spondent of the Minneapolis Tribune,
will be the secretary who contacts the
press and callers from Congress; that
Laurence Richie, now in Florida, will
look up data and take care of manv
personal matters of investigation for
Mr.. Hoover and contact other Govern
ment departments, while a third sec
rotary will be man Of the type Of
Julius Klein; now head Of the Bureau
Of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of
the Department of Commerce. In
other words, Mr. Hoover will have an
economic secretary familiar with the
many questions he has to deal with as
Secretary of Commerce and the many
more that will come to him in the