The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-03-23
NEA Service Writer

washington-There is no secre- tarial job as big as that of being secretary to the president of the United States. There is so much im- portance and responsibility to the work that MT Hoover has made four secretaryships out of it, the most conspicuous one being that soon to be taken over by Theodore G. Jos lin, correspondent of the Boston Transcript.
 MT Joslin falls heir to the big main outside office vacated when George Akerson left to join a mo- ton picture concern. And to huge monogrammed limousine.
 he will have to handle at the same time the great numbers of people who are always trying to get in to see the president and the squad of correspondents which parks at the White House, always demanding news.
 To Greet Visitors
 He will have to tell lot of call- CTS why they can't see MT Hoover and he will have to tell the report CTS what his chief is doing and think ing. Both tasks are very important, call for a great deal of tactful skill and often turn out to be thankless jobs.
 To sort the visitors. day in and day out, and see that no one of im- portance is disappointed is almost impossible, but the president must be protected and his time is valu- able.
 As a press contact man. the secre- retary in the outside office must att tempt to see to it that publicity ad- vantageous to his boss goes out of the White House and over the coun. try. He has a great opportunity to do the president a lot of good and also the capacity for considerable harm if he makes a mistake at any of his twice-daily conferences with the correspondents.
 Callers who aren't important enough to see Hoover himself are often important enough to see sec- retary and in such cases the secre- tary frequently acts as direct spokesman. Correspondence, 1t goes without saying, also falls to the sec- retaries in large gobs.
 Secretaries Advise Hoover To some extent Hoover's secretar- ies are also his advisers. Lawrence Richey is the most trusted and has more confidential and personal re- lationship to the president and his affairs than any of the others. Wall ter Newton, the former congress-
 man from Minnesota. has most to do with politics, patronage and de- partmental matters. French Strother is the presidents literary secretary and is supposed to write most of his speeches.
 As in any appointment, there is considerable guessing as to the po- litical implications of Joslins ap- pointment and the most common guess is that MT Hoover didn't for get Joslin's long associations with republican politicians in New Eng. land, who will be expected to deliver plenty of Hoover delegates at the next G. o. P. convention. Joslin is good friend of Senator Walcott of Connecticut, an intimate of the president, and also of Execu- tive Director Robert V. Lucas of the republican national committee. But Joslin's most important job, whether or not the thought of it fig- ured in his selection, will be to keep selling" Hoover to the country in anticipation of the 1892 election However, incidentally, has always had a newspaperman close by in his entourage since he entered public life. Akerson had been managing editor and Washington correspond ent of the Minneapolis Tribune, and
 before him there were other jour- nalists.
 JOslin Is Al
 The new secretary is Al years old.
 short, stocky and pleasant. He graduated from his home town high
 school at Leominster, Mass, in 1908,
 and at once went to work as copy boy at the Associated Press bureau
 in Boston, rising into editorial work
 and later covering some of the big New England stories of the period
 In 1913 he joined the staff of the | Boston Transcript, sometimes called
 'the New England Bible" The
 Transcript is read by--and primarily printed for-conservative New Eng. land republicans. It sent Joslin uI on Beacon Hill to cover the legisla. | ture at about the time Calvin Cool.
 idge was president of the Massachu. setts senate.
 In 1916 Joslin was assigned tt Washington and in 1921 he found his old friend Coolidge vice-presi' dent of the United States and presi' dent of a more important senate Few other correspondents paid much
 attention to Coolidge then and aftel Harding died Joslin had a readiel entree to the White House than al
 most any other Washington reporter