Evening star., 1936-11-18

you yONA @NeAeANs@S>S-A w. ~
effective.
with all regards. as ever yours,
"FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT"
Desired to Resign Before.
White House attaches said it had
been known for some time that Tug
well desired to leave his posts with
the Government. but that his formal
resignation came earlier than gen.
orally expected.
1t was disclosed also that Tugwell
had sought to resign on numerous
other occasions in the past. but that
the President had prevailed upon him
to remain.
President Roosevelt took more than
three hours time from a crowded
schedule recently to drive with Tug
well and Alexander to model low
rental suburban community in nearby
Maryland which the resettlement
agency is building.
Surrounded by reporters and cam
eramen, the President had high praise
for that pet project of Tugwell.
Tugwell took virtually no part in
Mr.. Roosevelt's reelection campaign.
All during the campaign, however, he
was attacked by Republican orators
who criticized his resettlement objec-
tives.
In entering the molasses company,
Tugwell will be reunited with two other
men formerly rated as members OF the
original Roosevelt brain trust
Charles w. Taussig. president Of the
company, and A. A. Berle, jr., direc-
tor.
Tugwell also follows Raymond A.
Moley, another professor and member
of the brain trust" out of little cab
met post into private business. Moley
resigned as Assistant Secretary of
State.
Gave Up Home Here.
Only recently Tugwell gave up his
rented house in Washington and moved
his family to New York. where he was
professor at Columbia University be-
fore Joining the New Deal and be-
coming the target of anti-administra-
tion criticism.
To many Tugwell has long been an
enigma: A Beau Brummel who all his
life has Stunned parties and STEPPED
himself in economic lore; an academi-
clan dealing in big abstruse words who
founo himself the storm center OF po-
litical fighting; man described vari-
ously as a knight in shining armor
battling for a better civilization ana
a radical plotting red revolt.
Tugwell, at first slightly bewildered
bv the fury of the anti-New Dealers
attacks, has rarely answered them,
and then only to say that he was
conservative, q constitutionalist and
a democrat.
Called Front" Man.
Friends have said that one Of his
roles was that of front man." or sort
of whipping boy, who could absorb
smilingly and silently critical punish
ment that might otherwise be directed
against others.
He might have remained all his life
among his economic treatises at Co
lumbia had not Raymond Moley in
troduced him to President Roosevelt
in 1892. As Assistant Secretary OF
Agriculture, he soon was riding the
crest of the tide, recognized as most
influential man In the inner circles.
He helped draft N. I. r. A., promoted
the purchase of submarginal land and
was active in many lines.
The year 1884 seemed to find the
wheel of his political fortunes turn
ing. There was fight-and a stormy
hearing-before the Senate confirmed
him to the new post of undersecretary.
His food and drug bill died in COM
mittee. Many observers were willing
to bet he was through"
But they were wrong. He was
put in charge of the multi-million-
dollar program of resettling farmers
on better land. And he continued
his drive for his social ideas, arousing
his critics especially by an appeal
to farmers and labor to surge forward
together to help remake America.
Sought Permanent Program.
More recently he has been engaged
in a drive to make his Resettlement
Administration permanent part Of
the Government, perhaps under the
Agriculture Department. On his pres
ent trip in the South he expects to
show his chief, Secretary Wallace,
what the agency is doing there.
A new indication of presidential
confidence in Tugwell was given yes
terday when he was named on a
committee to attack the problem Of
converting farm tenants into land
owners.
Alexander is executive director Of