Evening star., 1933-02-24
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE

1t detracts in no respect from the
merits of the Roosevelt cabinet, either
IN whole or in any of it's constituent
parts, to chronicle the fact that it is
probably by 60 per cent a second-choice
cabinet. With the three exceptions of
Senator Walsh for Attorney General,
Jim Farley for Postmaster General and
Miss Perkins for Secretary of Labor,
there's much reason to believe that the
seven good men and true who are to fill
the other portfolios are not the ones
who originally engaged the President
| elects fancy. Possibly former Gov.
Dern Of Utah, who is to be Secretary of
War, was a flrst-choice cabineteer,
though until this week he figured in
the Roosevelt news only for Secretary
OF the Interior. Dan" Roper for Secs
retary of Commerce and Harold Ickes
for the Interior Department are the big
| surprise packages. Both have Cali
fornia to thank for the honors which
have come to them. Roper'S appoint
ment is token of F. D. RS gratitude
to william c. McAdoo, and Ickes' Sc
lection is Hiram Johnson's reward for
supporting the Democratic ticket in
1882.
Reasons why Gov Roosevelt will not
Of Democratic luminaries are not far
to seek. In the first place, "big" men of
the Owen D. Young, Newton D. Baker,
Bernard NJ Baruch and John w. Davis
caliber, to name an outstanding quar-
tet of the type, hesitate in times like
these either to desert private response
bilitieS in the business world or to re-
nounce the incomes therefrom derived.
In the second place-and with many
eminent Americans this is a paramount
| reason-citizenS who have spent their
lives building up regulations in COM
merce or the professions are becoming
less and less minded to accept public
service at Washington at the price of
becoming targets for the mud batteries
set up on the Potomac. There is a
third contingency that undoubtedly kept
| more than one man on whom Gov.
Roosevelt had his eye from yielding to
the lure of cabinet life-disinclination to
enter the administration under existing
economic conditions. Such emotions
may not be patriotic, but they are
human and understandable.
Immediate reaction in Congress to
the general makeup of the new cabi-
| net Is not enthusiastic, although there
Is unstinted approval of Senators Hull
Walsh and Swanson. The thought
finds expression that, though the
Roosevelt list does not glitter from top
to bottom with shining names the
country has little to worry about on
that score. Men are saying that the
shining names which America boasts
haven't, after all, given such smashing,
1929 that Uncle Sam need bemoan
their absence from Gov. Roosevelt's
first cabinet. On the contrary, the
opinion widely prevails that the Ship of
| State can safely afford to take chance
with crew which was mute, inglori-
Gus, unheralded and unsung while the
strong men" were failing to come up
to national expectations at an hour of
supreme need.
If Harold L. Ickes turns out to be
as good a Secretary of the Interior as
he was reported out in Chicago at
the turn of the century, he'll do a 100
per cent job of it. Ickes and this OBJ
server pursued the nimble item to-
gether on the local staff of the late
Victor F. Lawson's Chicago Record in
that dim and distant past as cub news
sleuths. Ickes, freshly graduated from
the University of Chicago, was a re-
former in politics from his earliest days.
Like the incoming Secretary of the
Treasury, William H. Woodin, Ickes is
a Pennsylvania by birth. Incidentally,
he becomes the fourth Chicagoan within
a quarter of a century to head the
Interior Department. Walter L. Fisher,
who served under Taft John Barton
Payne, who served under Wilson, and
Roy o. West, who served under Cool
| idge, all hailed from the Windy City.
\
How the new first lady Of Labor, Miss
Frances Perkins, Is going to weather
the rigors Of truly mans size Job u