NEW MAN IN THE CABINET

Named last week by President Eisenhower to be the second U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare: MARION BAYARD FOLSOM, 61, welfare-minded businessman.

Family and Early Years: Born in McRae, Ga. (pop. 1,900), where his father ran the general store. As a boy he clerked in the store, took charge of the accounts when he was only 14. Graduated from the University of Georgia with honors in 1912 at 18, won a scholarship to Harvard's Graduate School of Business Administration, graduated there with distinction in 1914, earned enough money tutoring to travel in Europe. Served overseas as a captain in the Yankee Division in World War I, came home to marry Mary Davenport of Americus, Ga. in 1918. They have a son, Marion B. Jr., 29, a graduate student, and a daughter, Frances, 25, a teacher.

Business Career: Joined Eastman Kodak Co. in 1914, became a special assistant to President George Eastman in 1921, rose to treasurer in 1935, director in 1947. As Eastman's assistant, he began working on private-enterprise social security before 1929, started a "guaranteed annual wage" plan 25 years before Ford and General Motors did. He worked out a retirement plan for Kodak in 1928, an unemployment benefit plan in 1930, which included 13 other Rochester companies, became famous as the Rochester Unemployment Benefit Plan. It called for payment of 60% of salary to unemployed workers for thirteen weeks. In 1942 he helped organize the Committee for Economic Development, an influential organization of businessmen and educators devoted to maintaining a healthy economy.

Government Career: At the Call of President Roosevelt, he helped draft the Social Security Act in 1934, has served the U.S. ever since as an economic and welfare adviser. He knows more about the U.S. social-security system than anyone else. Named Under Secretary of the Treasury in 1953, he was the key man in the first total revision of U.S. tax laws in 79 years (TIME, Aug. 16).

Personality: Greying, slight (5 ft. 8 in., 150 lbs.), he is shy, quiet, retiring. A nonsmoker and nondrinker, he likes to raise vegetables, walk Civil War battlefields, and take pictures with a prewar Kodak Bantam special ("Best camera Eastman ever made"). His soft Georgia voice takes on a rare commanding ring when he mentions the liberal social policies he has been writing about, arguing for, and putting to work for more than a quarter of a century. He constantly seeks a practical, private-enterprise solution to social problems, e.g., when he found in 1953 that federal employees had no group life-insurance plan, he talked 160 insurance companies into writing policies for 2,000,000 federal employees without charging commissions. Said one associate: "He is the kind of fellow who may never get to know the elevator operator personally, but he'll have the elevator man's interest at heart every minute."

Plans: To organize his department "the way George Humphrey has organized the Treasury, delegating a lot of responsibility to assistants, leaving the Secretary free for policy matters." He thinks U.S. social-security laws are "in pretty good shape now," but would like to see more professional people covered, feels that his biggest job will be in health and education rather than welfare. Convinced that private insurance companies should and could extend voluntary health insurance without Government help, he suggests a partial insurance plan similar to $50 deductible auto collision insurance to cover "catastrophic" long-term illness.

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