"New Patriots"

Often of late in Washington has been heard the phrase, "New Patriots." President Hoover coined it himself to apply to the potent citizens he was drawing into Federal service. To these men he explains that they are patriots because each of them makes a "personal sacrifice" to accept appointment. The "sacrifice" meant by the President in most cases is a heavy loss of income, plus the presumptive inconvenience if not discomfort of leaving home to visit or live in Washington.

The President is extremely proud of his "New Patriots" and of his ability to win their services for the U. S. In nearly every case his appeal to them is patriotic: they would make any sacrifice for their country at war; they should feel the same in peacetime.

Chief among the "New Patriots" are:

Earl D. Church, who gave up a $50,000 per year insurance job to become Commissioner of Pensions at $9,000.

Julius Klein, who refused handsome salary offers from private companies to serve as Assistant Secretary of Commerce at $9,000.

Joseph Potter Cotton, who gave up a $100,000 per year Manhattan law practice to be Under-Secretary of State at $10,000.

Charles James Rhoads, who shelved his lucrative partnership in Brown Bros. & Co. to take the $8,000 Commissionership of Indian Affairs.

Ernest Lee Jahncke, who left a remunerative ship-building and drydock business to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Navy at $9,000.

Also: David Sinton Ingalls, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aeronautics; Patrick Jay Hurley, Assistant Secretary of War; Frederic A. Tilton, Third Assistant Postmaster General; Charles Evans Hughes Jr., Solicitor-General, et al.

To a type of newspaper feature-writers in Washington known to other newsmen as "the butter brigade," the "New Patriots" are food and drink. Upon "New Patriot" careers these journalistic biographers seize to produce Sunday "human interest" articles, in which the "New Patriot" is extolled out of all bounds, his "sacrifice" overemphasized, his Federal service gilded with excessive promise.

Last fortnight President Hoover persuaded Alexander H. Legge to leave the $100,000 presidency of International Harvester Co. and serve as chairman of the Federal Farm Board at $12,000. Before the "butter brigade" could have at Mr. Legge's "sacrifice" and career, trenchant Frank R. Kent of the Baltimore Sun, an arch-Democrat except where President Hoover is concerned, wrote in "The Great Game of Politics," his daily column, as follows:

"Having beautifully buttered on successive Sundays the members of the Hoover Cabinet and practically all the assistant secretaries, they [the 'butter brigade'] are now down to the lower levels reduced to dramatizing the wives of the more conspicuous official figures. Soon, if something does not happen, they will get to their sweethearts. In this critical situation the new Farm Board is a great help. It will bring to Washington a group of new men, each of whom will be available for a nice buttery article.

"Particularly will the selection of Alexander H. Legge . . . be a help. . . .

"Without in any way disparaging Mr. Legge . . . talk of his unselfishness and patriotism . . . is enough to make you sick. It is just as silly as the idea that Mr. Mellon 'sacrificed' himself to become Secretary of the Treasury, to which job he clings more tightly than the well-known leech. . . .

"As a matter of fact it might be said Mr. Hoover 'sacrificed' himself in becoming President. . . . This talk of the 'sacrifices' rich men make to accept public office is humbug and hypocrisy, one hundred per cent. . . . It is only the shoddy-grade rich man who pretends to regard himself as conferring a favor on his Government by becoming a part of it and it is the butter brigade biographers who do most to promote this idea.

". . . Mr. Legge . . . has too fine a mind to spend the rest of his life in play. There obviously isn't anything for him in making more money when he has enough. . . . He . . . is merely one of the relatively obscure rich men with whom the whole country is cluttered up. . . . What Mr. Hoover offers to Mr. Legge is a chance to be something else. . . . It's the chance that counts and no red-blooded man would refuse to take the chance.

". . . It probably is a jolt [to Mr. Legge] to have to sever his business connections and temporarily uncomfortable to give up his home and come to Washington to live. But the compensations far outweigh the inconveniences and the chance is a noble one. . . . Mr. Hoover isn't asking him to make a sacrifice--he is doing him a favor. But that isn't the way the butter brigade will view it."

The New York World, in an editorial, echoing Writer Kent (without acknowledgment), added:

"If we are to measure sacrifice in terms of financial renunciation, the palm should go to those bureau heads who, never having stopped to make money, served Administration after Administration for a pinched salary when they know that in private employ they could multiply it several times over. Of these men there are not a few."