Appointments

Cautious to avoid political burns, President Hoover last week dipped into the seething caldron of ambitions which Washington has lately become, and flipped out several well-done new appointees. Chief of these were:

Ernest Lee Jahncke Jr., 49. of New Orleans, to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The yachting instinct is now strong in the U. S. sea service, for, like Secretary Adams, Mr. Jahncke is a potent amateur sailor, commodore of the Southern Yacht Club of New Orleans, a member of the New York Yacht Club. In technical qualification for his post he operates one of the largest dry docks in the South; he is a civil and mechanical engineer, a naval architect. He directs large Louisiana banks, is a member of the International Olympic Games Committee. Mr. Jahncke's wife is a granddaughter of Edward M. Stanton, the Lincoln Secretary of War.

Mr. Jahncke's position in the Navy Department had developed into an almost hereditary public office for the Roosevelt family. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. occupied it for a year (1897-98). Then came his cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, now New York's Governor, to hold it for seven years (1913-20). After a brief interregnum under Gordon Woodbury, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. stepped in, in 1921, turning the position over in 1924 to his cousin, Theodore Douglas Robinson, nephew of the elder Roosevelt.

Patrick Jay Hurley of Tulsa, Okla., to be Assistant Secretary of War. Mr. Hurley, dapper, trim, cheerful, born in the old Indian Territory 46 years ago, began his military career as a captain in the Indian Territorial Volunteer Militia. During the War he fought through three major offensives, was cited for gallantry at Louppy, won the D. S. M. A trained lawyer, he has enriched himself in Oklahoma real estate, Tulsa banking. He is married to the daughter of Admiral Henry Braid Wilson, U. S. N.

Joseph Moore Dixon of Missoula, Mont., to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior. Born of Quaker parents in North Carolina and educated at Quaker colleges, Mr. Dixon, as a lawyer, went west, became U. S. Senator from Montana, later its Governor. He went off Bull Moosing in 1912, remained a Progressive, dabbled in many an insurgent movement. However he was not sufficiently irregular to defeat Democratic Burton Kendall Wheeler for the U. S. Senate last year.

The Dixon appointment caused job-shuffling in Secretary Ray Lyman Wilbur's department. Edward Clingan Finney, chief (though passive) subordinate of Albert Bacon Fall and Hubert Work in the leasing and releasing of Teapot Dome, Elk Hills and Salt Creek oil fields, was demoted to the post of Solicitor. Ernest Odell Patterson, who as Solicitor wrote the opinions upholding the Salt Creek contracts with Oilman Sinclair, was removed.

Walter Hughes Newton of Minneapolis, to be a $10,000 Presidential secretary. Ten years a Minnesota member of Congress, Mr. Newton will now leave the Capitol to serve as White House contact-man with the many scattered independent executive bureaus and commissions.* Big, burly, strong-voiced, he directed the Speakers' Bureau in Chicago for the Hoover campaign.

Stirring the patronage kettle, -- Mr. Hoover was beset by many a troublous problem. Some he met, others he deferred.

G. O. P., South. Col. Horace Mann, undercover Hooverizer in the South, was allowed to withdraw last fortnight from further political operations when he failed to win the support of the Republican National Committee for his "lily white" movement (TIME, Feb. 18). He went out the same mystery man he had come in. The appointments of Messrs. Jahncke and Hurley to the sub-Cabinet were designed to relieve the South's disappointment at not being represented in the Cabinet. Mr. Jahncke, in particular, was a "lily white" appointment, as he had striven manfully against the rule of Walter Cohen, dictator of Louisiana's Old Black Guard.

Southern interest was further excited by reports that President Hoover was going to appoint, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Democrat who held that post under President Wilson--Cato Sells of Texas. Mr. Sells now represents that considerable body of Democrats who deserted their party last year to support Herbert Hoover.

Resignations. Alive to the need for reorganizing the Government, President Hoover touched the centre of resistance to this long-delayed program when he called last week for the resignations of all executive officeholders from sub-Cabinet members down to the unchanging, merit-system Civil Service. Obscure bureau chiefs, chief clerks, directors of their deputies, holders of jobs which are virtually permanent so long as their party stays in power, these underlings have exercised great influence over Cabinet officers in inducing them to block organization plans. But a bureaucrat ceases to be a bureaucrat once his resignation is in the President's hands. President Hoover explained that he did not purpose to accept these resignations--except where a minor official might be. deemed inessential or might attempt to stand in Efficiency's way. Aside from post masters, a President has about 3,000 appointive offices he may fill. President Hoover said he expected to make only "20 or 30'" changes.

Retentions. President Hoover last week retained in office: Brig. Gen. Frank T. Hines, retired director of the U. S. Veterans Bureau; Brig. Gen. Herbert M. Lord, retired Director of the Budget; Rear Admiral William Adger Moffett, since 1921 Chief of the Bureau of Naval Aeronautics.

*Examples: Interstate Commerce Commission, U. S. Bureau of Efficiency, U. S. Board of Mediation, National Screw Thread Commission, Board of Surveys & Maps of the Federal Government, War Claims Arbiter, Pan American Sanitary Bureau.