The Wilmington morning star., 1941-02-14
. Washington DaYbook
BY JACK sTINNETI

WASHINGTON, Feb. professionally some
person emerges on the national or interna-
tional scene who seems SO typical of a new
ORDER that every one, with the surprised
tones of a man who has just made a great
discovery, points to him and says: Here is
the very embodiment of changing times"
Such is the case of John Gilbert Winant,
recently appointed United States ambassador
to the court of st. James. Clip Winant, as
his inmates call him, has been around Wash
ington, London, and Geneva for some years,
but it was only upon his elevation to this
office that capital observers suddenly noticed
that he seemed the personification OF the
changes that are taking place in politics, labor,
social economy and diplomacy.
A glance back at some Of Ambassador
Winants immediate predecessors might help
explain this. There were the bankers and fl
nanciers, Joseph P. Kennedy (whom Winant
replaces), and former Vice President Charles
G. Dawes. There were the editors and pub
fishers, Robert W. Bingham and George Har-
vey. There was lawyer John w. Davis and
industrialist Andrew Mellon; and there was
the senator who was to become secretary of
state, Frank B. Kellogg.
NEW DEALER LONG AGO
Compare these with the New Hampshire
Lincoln -gaunt, homespun Winant, who has
been a Republican almost from birth, but
was a New Dealer before the New Deal
came into existence. AS member of the New
Hampshire legislature nearly Is years ago, he
was pounding on labor reforms before anyone
ever dreamed of the Wagner act. AS three
time governor of his state (and no one had
ever been elected twice before that, he nam
mered away at New Deal' social legislation
with such vigor that President Roosevelt
called him into the fold.
In 1884, the President named him to the
Textile Inquiry Board which was to investi-
gate the great textile strike of that year.
Within a few months, he was appointed as
sistant director of the International Labor Of
flee Can autonomous organization in the Lea
que of Nations). In that international capacity,
he Waged a war for unemployment insurance
and old-age pensions and in no time at all
President Roosevelt had him back as head OF
Social Security.
He might have strung along there forever,
but the 10 called for him again. Besides, he
had broken with his party to such an extent
that he had resigned his Social Security job
IN order to campaign against "Alf' Landon,
and the latter's contention that social security
was no more than "a fraud against the work
ing man"
He was elected director of the LILO by what
would have been a unanimous vote of 3O-to-O,
II 1t hadn't been for the failure of two directors
to vote at all.
When war came, it found Mr.. Winant pri-
marily interested in what was happening to
labor. One of his statements on the European
conflict read like this: o the outcome OF
the present struggle between Great Britain
and Nazi Germany depends the future of labor
and the labor movement in Europe. If Britain
falls, the whole of western and central Europe
will pass under totalitarian rule that will OBJ.
literate the gains made in $50 years of strug-
gle and sacrifice, and place the American
worker in the front line of defense
HE LIKES CONFERENCES
This is so much stronger a statement be-
cause Mr.. Winant is by birth a gentleman OF
means and by rearing a scholar. Before he
was anything else, he was a teacher at St.
Paul's, at which he had once been a student,
and to which he returned after Princeton. H e
had a comfortable inheritance and married
into a family of considerable wealth.
He's 81 years old, but looks a great deal