Evening star., 1941-02-09
Friends Label John G. Winant
An Advocate Of Social Justice
New Ambassador Does Not Fit Pattern of Recent
ENJOYS Who Have Served l.. S.
at Court of St. James
Ry Rorm Rr1ud
By Raymond p. Brandt.

will be free from this fault. He Is q
good listener and when he finally does
say something he usually disappoints
those looking for an expression of deep
insight or a quotable phrase. In his
public speeches he has Herbert Hoover's
habit of speaking to his own vest and
not to his audience.
He Can Afford the Job.
There was a practical reason for his
selection. He is moderately wealthy and
his wife, the former Miss Constance
Rivington Russell of Princeton, N. j., is
in the upper income bracket They will
be able to maintain the large embassy
in London in the style set by long
line of rich Americans. An ambaSsa-
doris salary is S17500 year, and in the
lush, prosperous days of the late 20s,
Ambassador Dawes is said to have
spent that amount on his first formal
reception. Entertainment is at a mini
mum in beleaguered London these days,
but the $4,000 the State Department al
lows for this purpose even now must be
supplemented heavily with private funds.
The post is not for poor man.
Mr.. Winant has had no special train
ing for his new position if one accepts
the classic definition of diplomacy as
exalted haggling, conducted with an
amazing disregard for the ordinary
standards of morality but with the most
exquisite politeness and in accordance
with ever more and more elaborate rules"
President Roosevelt called him TO ma
tional service in 1884 by appointing him
chairman of the Textile Inquiry Board
which investigated the great textile
strike. He was in Washington much
of his time, and came under the in
f1uence of such ardent New Dealers
as Secretary of Labor Perkins, Senator
Wagner of New York Commissioner Of
Labor Statistics Lubin and other officials
who, like himself, were devoting their
lives to the betterment of labor con-
dltlonS. The same year ne accepted
appointment as assistant director of the
International Labor Office at Geneva, an
autonomous group in the now defunct
League of Nations. At Geneva he made
unemployment insurance and old-age
pensions his special province, and when
the Social Security Board was author
lied by Congress, President Roosevelt
insisted that he return to this countrv
to become the first chairman of the board
to organize this vast establishment,
Defended New Deal.
BY this time he had become a Roose-
velt supporter and when Gov. Landon,
1895 presidential candidate, publicly de-
clared that the social security system was
"a fraud on the working man" he re-
signed his chairmansnip so he could
answer the Republican.
He returned to the I. L. o. at Geneva
as assistant director after the presiden-
tial campaign and in 1889 he was elected
director by % of the 80 votes, two dele
gates not voting
Mr.. Winant succeeded Harold Butler
of England, the active founder of the
l, L. o. AS director of the l. L. O., Mr..
Winant concentrated on getting agree
ments on wages and hours and other
more realistic Improvements for labor
ing people. His annual reports expressed
great concern on the adverse effect of
armament expenditures. His 1899 re-
port, written before the invasion of Po-
land said:
I'VE know diversion of substantial
part of the total income of any nation
from the usual production and services
to armaments reduces standards of liv-
ing.
We know these costs are added to
each loaf of bread we buy, to every acre
of land we cultivate and to the length
of the day we labor to earn living
When war finally came. Mr.. Winant
was primarily concerned about its effect
on workers. In a Labor Day message
last year he declared:
"On the outcome of the present strug-
gle between Great Britain and NaI Ger
many depends the future of labor and
the labor movement in Europe. If Brit
ain falls the whole of Western and Gen.
trail Europe will pass under totalitarian
rule that will obliterate the gains made
in $50 years of struggle and sacrifice. and
place the American worker in the front
line of defense"