Guide to Relief

Back in 1930, four men contributed $10,000 apiece to Franklin Roosevelt's campaign fund. They were Jesse Isidor Straus, William Woodin, Col. Edward Mandell House and Frank Comerford Walker. Mr. Straus has been made Ambassador to France. Mr. Woodin was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Col. House, who could not stand Washington's summer heat even when Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, wanted no job for his contribution to the Roosevelt war chest. Neither, according to report, did rich, affable, unassuming Manhattan Lawyer Frank Walker, Anaconda Copper's lawyer. But because Mr. Walker is smart and useful President Roosevelt gave him two anyway, first as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, and, in July, as secretary of something called the Council of Recovery. This body, composed of key men in the recovery program, meets Tuesdays in place of the Cabinet to iron out administrative kinks. In the rising tide of new agencies and more administrations it soon sank into obscurity.

Last week President Roosevelt plucked Mr. Walker back into the limelight by making him Acting Executive Director of the National Emergency Council. To outsiders this looked like a new title for an old job.

According to the Presidential order, Director Walker's duties would be: "Consolidating, coordinating and making more efficient and productive the emergency activities of the Government." He was to start by "conveying to the general public all factual information with reference to the various Governmental agencies." On a nation-wide scale his Council's representatives were to steer befuddled citizens through the fog of new Washington agencies to the particular bureau that could supply the relief needed. As a starter $10,000-per-year-man Walker hired for his headquarters assistant Eugene Sheldon Leggett, redheaded young Washington correspondent for the Detroit Free Press.

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