The Kitchen Cabinet

It is now rumored in Washington that when Albert D. Lasker retires from the Chairmanship of the United States Shipping Board, as he plans to do in the next few weeks, he will go into the newspaper business. It is said he will buy up a number of papers and become, in journalistic importance although not in type, another Munsey, Hearst or Scripps. Be that as it may, his departure from the Shipping Board is expected to mark the passing of the leading member of what is more or less openly called the President's Kitchen Cabinet.

Mr. Lasker's influence with the President is commonly spoken of as striking and " mysterious." Recently two reliable political journalists, William Hard and Mark Sullivan, took occasion to make emphatic denial of this common conception. Mark Sullivan, indeed, went so far as to assert absolutely that President Harding himself was solely responsible for bringing up the ship subsidy proposal--that Mr. Lasker merely formulated its details and pressed it in accordance with the President's desire.

Mr. Harding has two kinds of associates: official advisers and playmates. What is more, he seems to make a sharp distinction between the two. Mr. Lasker, in his capacity of Chairman of the Shipping Board, is one of the former. Among the latter are Edward B. McLean, Washington newspaper proprietor, former Senator Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, General Dawes and, again, Mr. Lasker. It is the unusual fact that Mr. Lasker is close to the President in both capacities which has led to belief in his large influence at the White House.

Mr. Lasker's personality is responsible for the circumstance. Originally a Chicago advertising man, a remarkable business man, he broke into national politics as a supporter of Hiram Johnson. Immediately following the 1920 Convention he placed his services at the disposal of Mr. Harding. They were accepted, and led to his appointment to the Shipping Board. His social qualities did the rest. Able in conversation, brilliant at story telling and fond of golf--little wonder that he became one of the President's best friends.

William Hard adequately sums up Chairman Lasker in one rather long sentence: " A loyal and compelling personality and an acute and vehement business intelligence--these have been Mr. Lasker's virtues, not without producing in him a certain tincture of corresponding defects."

The White House is being deluged with invitations from communities and individuals that wish the President to visit them on his tour through the country this summer. The number of invitations is so embarrassing that the refusal of President Harding to state definitely that he will make the trip is attributed to his desire to avoid further invitations.