New Epithet

Harold LeClair Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and master of PWA, has established himself beyond compare as the champion name-caller of the New Deal. Last week he crossed tongues with ham-fisted Chairman Dies of the House's famed UnAmerican Committee, calling Mr. Dies "the outstanding zany* of our political history." Mr. Dies retorted that the Secretary of the Interior "literally reeks with the venom of hatred."

But it was in connection with Eugene Talmadge, Georgia's wild-eyed, wild-haired onetime Governor, that a brand-new addition to U. S. invective issued from Mr. Ickes' press conference. "The eneciable Mr. Talmadge," Mr. Ickes was reported to have called him. There is a word of Greek derivation, "enecia," meaning "constant fever." Georgia's Talmadge retorted: "Mr. Ickes' throwing away money will give any taxpayer a constant fever."

Not for nothing is Mr. Ickes called "Honest Harold." When he saw himself given credit for an accidentally erudite coinage not in his 13-lb. dictionary, he promptly disclaimed it. His listeners had misunderstood him, he said. What he had called Mr. Talmadge was not "eneciable" but "ineffable."

*Webster: A subordinate fool, clown . . . who apes ludicrously the tricks of his principal. . . .

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