Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-26
BY WILLIAM HARD.

Col. Arthur Woods, President Hoover's
new unemployment emergency relief
director, Is a very composite American
character. He completely combines the
three interests that foreign observers
habitually declare to be the three Amer
lean dominant interests: Education,
business, altruism.
Col. Woods was for 10 years teacher
of prep school" boys at Groton, Mass.
He went there from Harvard. He was
born in Boston. One need hardly add
born educated, has become educateder,
and even In the horde Of our present
Presidents advisory academicianS will
proceed to rank high among the
educatedest.
Manner Is Cultured.
He has a very cultured manner and
a very refined voice. There Is in him
a great delicacy of sensibility. His
demeanor is graceful, considerate, even
gentle.
Thus, naturally, on the principle that
the drawlingest Virginian Is the quick
est on the trigger, Col. Woods went
on from Harvard and Groton to become
for two years deputy police commits
sioner and for four years police COM
missioner Of the City of New York and
then went on further to join the avia-
ton section of the United States Army
and to go overseas in 1918 and to get
his colonelcy and to get advanced to
being assistant director of military aero
nautics. Throughout these experiences
he refrained from looking artistically
tough for tOughneSS' sake. He also
omitted many opportunities to be rough,
when roughness was not needed.
This writer formed the colonels
journalistic acquaintance first when he
was police commissioner. There were
then In New York City q great many
more radicals" and of greater ferocity,
to talk at large and at length on public
squares. Col. Woods was not rough with
them. One reason was that he was not
afraid Of them. Another reason was
that because, or In spite Of, or along
with, Harvard and Groton, he was a
flrst-rate policeman. He surrounded
the radicals" with lines of his fellow
policemen, who screened them from
interruption and from riot, and he let
them talk at large and at length until
at last they were ready TO go home, and
he then let them go home, thus saw
ing the police stations from q lot Of
inmates and troubles and expenses and
equally saving the republic from ruin.
The colonel was perhaps the first nota-
BILE American police commissioner to OBJ
serve that letting the disconnected go
home created less additional discomfort
than breaking their heads.
This powerful discernment OF the
colonels resulted partly from humane
ness, partly from fearlessness, partly
from sophistication. The colonel was
tn fnI r. ha
venting wild ideas he had read thou
sand times in books which had left the
world still standing.
AItruism and Business Blend.
At that time, however, the colonel
had already supplemented education,
technically so called, with business. He
had been q lumber business man IN the
West, q cotton business man In the
East. He was on his way to being
competent to be, as he is now, director
of the Consolidated Coal Co., the Col
orado Fuel & Iron Co., the Bankers
Trust Co. He was on his way to know
ing that money makes money, like
snow ball, with the bigger roll the big
ger the pickup.
He nevertheless could not keep away
from the philanthropie and benefac-
tional uses of money. He could have
made much more money for himself II
people had not always been asking him,
Is a public service, TO supervise the
expenditure of vast volumes of money
for altrustic purposes. He ultimately
was giving most of this time to being
Q trustee OF the Rockefeller Foundation
and of the General Education Board for
iudicious and regulated grants OF money
to worthy humanitarian causes. he
recently has even undertaken deep
antiquarian cause. He has been the
chairman of the company which az an
expense OF many millions OF ooLtars
has been Transforming a large part OF
Williamsburg, Va, back to precisely the
appearance 1t bore when 1t was the
capital of the colony OF Virginia In
the eighteenth century.
He also has been the chairman OF
that partly civic and partly commercial
enterprise which at cost OF approx
mately Q hundred million dollars VIII
accomplish the erection on Fifth avenue
In New York of a building. an inter-
connected set of buildings, OF theaters,
laboratories, studios, dedicated to all
the manifestations of the radio art, OF
dlstantly projected sound, Of distantly
projected vision, non-antiquarian, ultra
contemporary, futuristic.
Comes to Capital Third Time.
1t vas from such absorbing endeavors
that President Hoover extricated Col,
Woods TO bring him for the second time,
Or really. for the third time, to Wash
ington, to fill the paylesS job Of finding
paying jobs for fellow citizens out Of
work. The first time was under Secre-
tary Of War Baker on behalf of ex-
service men needing employment. The
second tiRle was under Secretary Of
Commerce Hoover on behalf of all men
needing employment. 1t is to be noted
that this third time has brought the
colonel TO us much grayer, much more
deeply lined and furrowedly featured.