Smith for Bell

In a headline huff, Lewis Douglas walked out on the job of director of the Budget when he decided that the New Deal would be no economy administration. That was in August 1934. Franklin Roosevelt, who perhaps did not care for another such troublesome officer, did not bother to refill the post. So Daniel W. Bell, a pudgy, self-effacing Treasury careerist, became Acting Budget Director and remained so until last week when his successor was named.

Danny Bell's stepping down will mean just one thing: he still thinks of himself as the graduate of the Gem City Business College (Quincy, Ill.) who came to Washington, aged 20, and went to work in the Treasury in 1911; he wants to keep his civil-service status; he's content with $10,000 a year as assistant to Secretary Morgenthau; he doesn't want the fleeting glory of being director of the Budget; he just wants to keep on working for the Government after another Administration comes in.

The man who will step up (April 15) is Harold Dewey Smith, budget director for the Little New Deal in Michigan of Attorney General Frank Murphy, who recommended Mr. Smith as a man "of great personal integrity, very able and very sound." Born in 1898 and middlenamed for the hero of Manila Bay, patriotic Harold Dewey Smith served in both Army and Navy, worked with the University of Chicago's reforming Professor Charles Edward Merriam before joining the Murphy brain trust. When he is not working with figures, he plays hard at riding and bowling, likes to practice barbering on his three children, aged 3 to 9.

Newshawks asked new Director Smith one thing & another about Federal financing. "The Budget Director," said the Budget Director, "does not make policy--and should not be popping off."

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