Peaceful Penetration

Postmaster General Farley, principal patronage dispenser for the Administration, last week completed his peaceful penetration of the most non-political citadel in Washington when his man Emil Hurja (pronounced Hur-ya.) took over a desk in the Public Works Administration. It was all done so smoothly and tactfully that Public Works Administrator Ickes, who is also Secretary of the Interior, thought that he had taken Mr. Hurja in on his own motion. Smart Jim Farley sat back and let him continue to think so.

Emil Hurja was born of Finnish parents some 40 years ago in upper Michigan. He went to Alaska, got a job sweeping out the office of the Fairbanks Daily Times, later earned enough to put himself through the University of Washington. He first turned up in Washington, D.C. as secretary to Frank Sulzer, onetime delegate from Alaska. Last year he was an early rider on the Roosevelt bandwagon, got himself chosen to the Chicago convention as an Alaskan delegate. Manager Farley, impressed with his ability to forecast political trends, to find out what voters were thinking, took him under his wing. Most of last year's Farley predictions were based on Hurja calculations. After March 4 Postmaster General Farley took Mr. Hurja to Washington with him, made him his righthand man on patronage. Tall, stout, full-faced, Democrat Hurja quickly became a power among job-seekers. Following Jim Farley's formula ("For Roosevelt Before Chicago") he did most of the picking and choosing. Lately he was put into R. F. C. as personnel officer to weed out Republicans, replant Democrats.

"General" Farley's toughest job has been to get Secretary Ickes to see reason in the matter of Democratic appointments. Again & again has Mr. Ickes loudly declared that there would be no politics in his Public Works Administration. Time & again Democrats have been ruthlessly brushed aside from his office. Adroitly Mr. Hurja was steered back & forth across Secretary Ickes' path. Like Jim Farley, Mr. Ickes was impressed with the man's dynamic ability, his easy manners, his poise. Last week he made Mr. Hurja his Public Works administrative assistant, gave him a cubby-hole office in which he began to interview job-seekers.

Well aware that he had apparently surrendered on patronage Secretary Ickes declared: "Mr. Hurja had not applied for a position here and he was not suggested by anyone. ... I am confident he will be useful. As Secretary of the Interior I have passed on personnel matters myself. I have done the same as Administrator of Public Works. I shall continue to be my own personnel officer."

Grinned Plum-Picker Hurja: "That sort of leaves me out in the cold as far as personnel is concerned."

"General" Farley used about the same oblique strategy when week before he got Madam Secretary of Labor Perkins to accept American Federation of Labor's Edward Francis McGrady as her No. 1 assistant. When Miss Perkins was appointed, the A. F. of L. was outraged because she had no union card. Jim Farley tried to smooth the A. F. of L. down by putting Mr. McGrady into the sub-Cabinet. But Madam Secretary Perkins, no politician, balked, refused to have him or any other Farley candidate. Months passed during which she met Mr. McGrady repeatedly at NRA headquarters where he held a high labor job under General Johnson. The more she saw of him, the better she liked him. By last fortnight she was ready to have him as her Assistant Secretary of Labor.

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