Evening star., 1932-02-04
MELLON ACCEPTS
ASLONDON ENVOY;
MILLS APPOINTED
Hoover Formally Announces
Promotion of Treasury
Undersecretary.
ARTHUR A. BALLANTINE
STEPS UP IN DEPARTMENT
Choice of Veteran Financier Is
Attributed to Tense
World Relations.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
Ogden l.. Mills, UnderSecretary of the
Treasury, was chosen today by Presi-
dent Hoover to succeed Andrew w. Mel
lon as head of the Nations financial
department.
little later it was said authorita-
lively Arthur A Ballantine, now As
S:stant Secretary Of the Treasury, would
succeed Mills as Undersecretary.
Mellon Made Envoy.
The rapid shift in the Treasury per-
Sonnel was due to the appointment last
night of Mellon who had been Secre-
tary Of the Treasury under three Pres
identS, to the important post OF Ambas-
sador to Great Britain. He succeeds
Charles G. Dawes.
Just when the changes will become
effective has not been announced, but
there probably will be little delay, on
account of the swiftly moving financial
developments in Europe
Ballentlne resumed his connection
with the Treasury about a year ago,
returning as Assistant Secretary from a
law practice in New York Previously
ne had been connected with the In
ternal Revenue Bureau. He has been
active in handling fiscal affairs and has
been regarded as Mills right-hand
man.
Confers With Hoover
The announcement of Mills appoint
ment came after he had visited the
White House this morning. He was
cr,1ilipp nd iyo h in|,
left the Executive Mansion. Newspaper
men, with whom he has been in fre.
quent contact recently, circled around
him to offer congratulations upon his
accession to the Treasury Secretary.
ship.
Mills was noncommittal, however, as
TO when there would be legal changs
in his position. Asked when he woulo
assume his new duties, he smiled ano
said: Frankly, 7 don't know"
He replied Iokingly to a query as to
when Mellon formally would submit his
resignation, saying:
I suppose he will take the reasonable
precaution to wait until he is confirmed
as Ambassador by the Senate
Mills conferred with the President
for nearly three-quarters of an hour.
It was assumed details of his taking
office had been discussed.
The formal announcement that he
would become Secretary of the Treas.
ury was not made in the usual man.
ner. 1t has become White House Gus
tom that such major appointments are
either announced in written form or bv
an oral statement from the President.
Today, however one of his secretaries
announced simply that Mr.. Mills will
be the next Secretary of the Treasury"
Mellon is II. He left career Of
banking and industry to enter the
cabinet in March, 1921. Through the
postwar readjustment and the ensuing
halcyon days of booming prosperity.
into the present period, he laid out and
executed firm policies which won for
him unSt1nted applause and also vitri-
olic denunciation. Through the years
he has WithStood unShaken congress
sional efforts to oust him, but even now
House committee has under consider
alton an impeachment proposal.
His personal fortune, which has been
ranked among the country's largest,
caused much of the opposition.
Praised by Hoover
In announcing Melons acceptance,
the President called him "one of our
WiSeSt and most distinguished public
servants"
Mellon was the man who insisted
that this country's budget be balanced,
who reduced the National debt in ten
years from tWenty-siX to seventeen
billion dollars, who directed the nego-
tiationS which led to the funding of
the war debts owed the United States
by its allies. He is intimately familiar
with these war debt and reparation
questions, which now loom so large in
the American foreign relations. Only
last Summer his European vacation was
interrupted to represent the Government
in the conferences which led up to the
cne-year moratorium.
He has lived in Washington very quiet
ly all these years, alone in a handsome
apartment on Massachusetts avenue
which is filled with art treasures. Most
WaShingtonianS have seen him walking
to work mornings, hardly noticing the
slight, -mustached man until they
gave him second look.
A Marked Man.
The man who succeeds him is 80
years his Junior, Dynamic Ogden Mills
has been marked man in Washington
since early in the Hoover administra-
ton it was realized that here was the
Presidents closest adviser on economic
matters.
He has shouldered the heaviest bur-
den of Treasury work the past two
years going to Mellon FOR approval of
policies he himself worked out The
present administration program for
national economic recovery bears his
stamp at many a point He has long
been in public life, beginning with the
Continued on Page Q, Column a.
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