Monday, Sep. 02, 1940

Hopkins Out

Harry Hopkins, who rose from social worker to WPAdministrator to Secretary of Commerce and No. 1 confidant of the President of the U. S., once marveled to a friend: "I have to pinch myself to be sure I am not dreaming. Think of it, a son of an Iowa harness maker in the Cabinet." Harry Hopkins said then that he had entered the Cabinet on a "shoe string" and would go out the same way. Last week came the shoestring marked "Out."

When Franklin Roosevelt let "Uncle Dan" Roper drowse on at Commerce for almost six years, it was apparent that he did not take very seriously the job which Herbert Hoover made one of the biggest in the Government. When the scandals of the 1938 Congressional campaign made Friend Harry's WPA job uncomfortably hot, Uncle Dan was moved out to make room for him. For the last year and a half, Hopkins' health has kept him away from his desk most of the time. Recently his health has improved slightly, but last week this was the excuse he used in submitting his resignation to Franklin Roosevelt. According to Wasington observers, the untied shoestring he tripped on was his tactless handling of Democratic bigwigs at the Convention in Chicago. Harry Hopkins, it was said, would be more useful promoting Term III from a less conspicuous place; the resignation of Under Secretary Ed Noble (to follow Willkie's banner) precipitated the need for an overhauling in the Commerce Department. Nobody, in or out of Washington, supposed that Mr. Hopkins' resignation was a surprise to the President. Franklin Roosevelt warmly wrote back to his Dear Harry:

". . . You may resign the office--only the office--and nothing else. Our friendship will and must go on as always."

Dear Harry said nothing about moving out of the White House, where he has lived since last May. Washington thought he would almost certainly help in the campaign, thought he might accept the post of librarian of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park.

As the Hopkins successor for Secretary of Commerce, Franklin Roosevelt's choice was the New Deal's No. 1 businessman, Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones, hard-featured, big-boned, white-haired Texan. En route to Harbor Springs, Mich, for a vacation when this news broke, Jesse Jones had nothing to say. This week the President will see Louis Johnson--who, after being ushered out of the War Department, failed to nibble at a post as one of the anonymous Presidential assistants--to ask him whether he wants to be Under Secretary of Commerce.

Well-informed friends guessed that Jesse Jones would keep his place as official U. S. moneylender, and take the Cabinet post too. Early this week word sprang from the White House that the President would ask for a Congressional joint resolution to permit the exceptional Mr. Jones to hold two Federal jobs. But his salary would not exceed the $15,000 a year a Cabinet member gets. Mr. Jones is many times a millionaire. His present wage as Loan Administrator: $12,000.

Mr. Roosevelt's warm smile for Mr. Jones was coincidentally a warm smile for sulking Democrats in Texas.

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