Hurley of War

Out of a State, War & Navy building office labelled "Assistant Secretary of War" strode a tall, straight, handsome man from Tulsa, Okla. Briskly he paced a hundred feet along the stone-flagged corridor, turned sharply into another office labelled "Secretary of War." There, surrounded by flowers, furled flags, miniature airplanes, trench equipment, antique cannon and the portraits of former War Secretaries, many hands wrung his, many voices babbled congratulations.

Such last week was the promotion of Patrick Jay Hurley from the sub-Cabinet to the Cabinet, to replace Iowa's James William Good, deceased. His appointment by President Hoover approximated cabinet recognition for the no longer Solid-South, First Oklahoman to sit in a cabinet, Secretary Hurley is a Roman Catholic. Washington, familiar with him for less than a year, predicted two things of his incumbency at the War Department: 1) Though the youngest of the Cabinet (46), he will not be a mere Yes-Man. He brims with ideas of his own, will keep his chief busier considering suggestions than issuing orders. 2) Not for many a year will the rank & file of the Army have known a Secretary so much of their own kind.

Friday is the prime day of the Hurley week. He was born on Friday in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). He denies having Indian blood.* At 11 he was driving "Kicking Pete," a mule, in shaft 6 of the Atoka Coal & Mining Co. At 15 he was punching cows on "Lazy S" ranch and feeling aggrieved that Theodore Roosevelt had rejected him as a rough rider. At 19 he was a captain of the Indian Territorial Militia warring against Chief Crazy Snake. On a Friday he was graduated from law school, and on a Friday became a practicing attorney in Tulsa, making money and a reputation. In the War he joined the Army on Friday, was commissioned a Major and sent over seas as a staff officer (Judge Advocate Sixth Army).

On one occasion, near the front, Major Hurley failed to salute General Pershing. The A. E. F. commander ordered him back, berated him. Six years later Mr. Hurley, civilian, burst jovially in upon General Pershing in his Washington office, defied being made to salute again. Gen eral Pershing was amused.

On Armistice Day Major Hurley did some voluntary reconnaissance near Louppy under heavy enemy fire which won him a silver star citation.

Before going off to War, Major Hurley asked the beauteous and accomplished Ruth Wilson to marry him. She sent him to her father, Rear Admiral Henry B. Wilson, commander of the Atlantic fleet, then lying in the Hudson River. Thither the love-struck Major hastened. He says life's greatest thrill came when the Admiral's barge took him off to the flagship where he was ceremoniously piped over the rail. Formally, as one U. S. officer to another, he presented his compliments to the Admiral, requested his daughter's hand in marriage. After the War they were married, on a Friday; became the parents of three. On Friday he became Assistant Secretary of War, on another Friday Secretary of War.

As a lawyer-businessman Secretary Hurley has made money. He pulled the wildcatting Gililland Oil Co. out of bankruptcy, sold it to Standard Oil for a $3,500,000 profit. He is part owner of the Hurley-Wright Building (U. S. Railroad Administration) in Washington, of apartment houses in Tulsa.

An active politician, he worked hard through the American Legion for the Hoover nomination, campaigned through the Southwest, was the Hoovers' house guest at Inauguration. Favorite Hurley campaign expression: "A greater number of people have been happier under the American flag for a greater length of time than under the flag of any other nation." This phrase was ghost-written for him but, with characteristic onrushingness and vitality, he made it his own.

Instinctively dramatic, he carefully gauges every public act, can still make even his wife cry with his play of words, voice and gesture when addressing a crowd. Ambitious, sincere, he is not altogether popular in Tulsa where small minds cavil that it is his personality, not real ability, which has carried him so far. The Tulsa World once openly charged that Col. Hurley was trying to rise to political heights purely on his good looks. Fairer observers, however, recall how he won a famed murder trial for a Tulsa friend simply by the intonation of his "Yesses" and "Noes" on the witness stand.

*Unlike Negro blood, Indian blood carries no social stigma in the Southwest, provided it is from one of the five civilized tribes: Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, Seminole.

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