Everybody Loves a Fat Man

Roly-poly (219 Ibs.) George Allen is a regular card. One of his favorite stories is about the time he was captain of a Cumberland University football team, beaten 222-to-0 by Georgia Tech. George likes to say that he made Cumberland's best run --"I only got thrown for a five-yard loss."

George, who had been a lawyer in Okolona, Miss., landed in Washington in 1929, to handle the real-estate affairs of a Chicago banking firm. One day he laughingly suggested a personal publicity gag to Mississippi's amiable Senator Pat Harrison: "Why not mention my name where it will be heard, as a dark-horse candidate for a District of Columbia commissionership?" Pat did. Somewhat to his horror, the dark horse was chosen.

That was the beginning of George's rise. He made himself useful in small political ways. He espoused the New Deal, helped work out WPA with Harry Hopkins, helped think up the Roosevelt Birthday Balls. His circle of friends grew. The Home Insurance Co. made him a vice president in charge of public relations, and corporations began putting him on their boards.

In April 1945 he flew from California to Washington. Franklin Roosevelt had died. George walked into the presence of a stricken Harry Truman, bowed and said solemnly: "Mr. President." Since that moment, the lawyer of Okolona has sat at Harry Truman's right hand.

Personality Kid. Such was the man who appeared last week before the Senate Banking & Currency Committee, holding hearings on his appointment by Harry Truman as a director in the powerful Reconstruction Finance Corp.

In double-breasted blue suit and zebra-striped tie, George waved to those he knew, graciously passed around a typed list of all his business connections, and sat down. He was on the board of Victor Emanuel's Aviation Corp., Tom Girdler's Republic Steel, altogether more than a score of corporations. His annual income: "Call it about $50,000 a year." He also belonged to the American Red Cross and the Boy Scouts of America and was an honorary deacon in Elder Solomon Lightfoot Michaux's Negro Church.

Senators began to grin. Was he a trustee of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co.? "Oh, yes, sir," George drawled, "that's a great company. I get very little from them. I ought to get more. I get $40 when I attend a meeting and yet they have assets of over a billion." How come he was dropped from the General Chemical Co. of New 'York? "Hmm--" George's eyes searched the ceiling, "I wasn't exactly fired. How can I put it nicely? There wasn't any enthusiasm for me to stay."

Drowned in Giggles. Spectators were convulsed. George's own high-pitched chuckle frequently rang out. Even dour Senator Robert Taft occasionally rubbed his balding pate and smiled.

By a vote of 14-5, the committee decided that George was all right. Senator Taft and four other Republicans held out, but Administration aids expected the Senate to confirm George without much trouble. In the offing is the chairmanship of RFC--at least, George confided, Harry Truman had made a "thin hint" to that effect.

Drowned in the giggles was any thought of happy George Allen's qualifications for the RFC job. He had proved a great capacity to crack jokes about himself, a pleasant candor about his own ambitions and finances. He had demonstrated that a good many companies--most of whom find it convenient to be on good terms with Washington--considered him a useful man to have on the payroll. But there was no hint that any of his many previous employers had ever dreamed of making him board chairman of a corporation-- much less of a $10 1/2 billion empire such as RFC has become.

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