Pinky over Aubrey

Into the White House one day last week scurried Franklin Roosevelt's devoted admirer, Aubrey Williams. Inasmuch as their mutual friend, WPAdministrator Harry Hopkins, was billed to be Secretary of Commerce (see p. 5), the appearance of his Deputy Administrator Williams was deemed significant.

Joyless was the face of Aubrey Williams when he emerged. He shut himself away from the press. As happy and rosy as ever was the face of one of the President's next callers. Trig and trim Colonel Francis Clark ("Pinky") Harrington, U. S. Army Engineer Corps, has been on detached duty with WPA since 1935 as assistant administrator in charge of construction projects. He, too, was properly reticent when he departed. But when he returned for a second call that evening, the press knew that Pinky (for complexion) Harrington was to get the No. 1 Relief job. Two days later the President formally named Colonel Harrington as Acting Relief Administrator, and Aubrey Williams to head the National Youth Administration.

Born at Bristol, Va., of a Vermont father and a French Canadian mother, Pinky Harrington graduated second in the class of 1909 at West Point, has since proved himself an able engineer and administrator. Outside his office, he is an ornament of social Washington. Inside his office hangs a quotation from George Washington: "Do not suffer your good nature, when application is made, to say yes when you ought to say no. . . ."

A coterie of columnists who often try to salve personal wounds among New Dealers wrote that Aubrey Williams had long been willing to step out of WPA in order to devote himself to his job as head of the National Youth Administration, that Colonel Harrington was reasonably liberal in outlook (considering his distinguished record as an Army engineer, his background, his association with "the best people").

To all appearances, Harry Hopkins had indeed recommended Pinky over Aubrey. The choice in fact represented no great change in policy, but a concession to political expediency. Pinky Harrington is a first-rate politician. Particularly does he know how to coddle Congressmen --a talent which single-minded Aubrey Williams lacks. Since Relief is headed for a good going-over in the next Congress, Franklin Roosevelt needs such a man at the top of WPA. Even 100% New Dealers concede that Aubrey Williams is not the man, after his public talk about class war and the political privileges of Reliefers.

President David Lasser of the Workers Alliance said: "We have nothing against Colonel Harrington personally. He is a fine gentleman. But ... he represents the Army type of mind which does not, in our opinion, embody the qualifications necessary to administer a civilian undertaking involving so many social and labor relations."

Uppermost in the minds of David Lasser, Pinky Harrington and Congress is the fact that WPA's appropriation of $1,425,000,000 will be spent by February 7 (3 weeks ahead of schedule). The inevitable request for a deficiency appropriation to carry Relief until June 30 will give the 76th Congress its first big battle, give WPA's critics their chance to try for amendments to end Relief-in-politics, to cancel the blank-check system of allotting funds to the Administration.

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