Two Appointments

Last week the home thoughts of the U. S. had concentrated on the Republican National Convention (see p. 16). Its foreign thoughts were fixed on the partitioning of France and the fate of the French Fleet. The thoughts of its Congress (see p. 18} were on preventing the transfer of 20 "mosquito" boats to Britain (which the President finally and abruptly canceled), on approving a $4,000,000,000 authorization increasing the U. S. Navy by 70%. But the thoughts of its President were on an idea all his own.

When he let his idea out of the bag the rest of the U. S. had something different to think about: the appointment of two members of the opposition party to his Cabinet. To one of these political outsiders he gave the job of Secretary of War, to the other the equally key post of Secretary of the Navy--boss of the ships which are the apple of Franklin Roosevelt's eye.

Stimson and Knox. In New Haven one night last week Henry Stimson, Secretary of War under President Taft. Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, laid down a line for U. S. foreign policy and defense: military conscription, shipments of planes and munitions to Great Britain, the use of the U. S. Navy to convoy shipments if necessary. It was an effective speech.

One man who thought so was Franklin Roosevelt. Next afternoon a White House messenger carried a note to stubborn Harry Hines Woodring, Secretary of War, long engaged in a deadly, morale-destroying feud with Assistant Secretary Louis Johnson, and long rumored to be under pressure to resign. The note requested his resignation.

What Secretary Woodring's answer contained, only the Secretary and the President knew: it was too "personal" to be released. Next day the Senate clerk read out the names of President Roosevelt's two nominations for his Cabinet--for Secretary of the Navy: William Franklin Knox of Chicago. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate in 1936, supporter of the President's foreign policy; for Secretary of War: Henry Lewis Stimson.

There was a moment of stunned silence after the names were read: Isolationist Senator Clark of Missouri leaped up and cried. "Who?" If there was an opportunity to debate calmly the merits of Republicans Stimson and Knox in a Democratic Cabinet, the opportunity disappeared in the feverish political atmosphere of Convention Week. Senatorial debate grew bitter, reached a new low in wild charges and venomous insinuations, punctuated with cries of warmongering from Isolationists, and virtual accusations of treason from West Virginia's lame-duck Rush Holt. Both the Naval Affairs Cormmittee and the Committee on Military Affairs decided to hold public hearings, quiz Republicans Knox and Stimson after the Convention recess.

The merits of the nominees were another matter. Along with Chief Justice Hughes, Mr. Stimson ranks as a leading contender among U. S. Elder Statesmen: a Yaleman, Skull and Bonester, Harvard lawyer, understudy of the late, great Elihu Root, he had not only had a lucrative law practice but had found time to be a colonel of artillery in World War I. Although he did not love the President's domestic issues, he approved his foreign policy. became a croquet-playing crony of Secretary Hull. But at his age, 72, it was dubious whether he had the stamina and vigor, for the tough, hard-driving job of arming the unarmed U. S. in record time. Unlike him, Frank Knox (66) came up the hard way: grocery clerk, gym teacher, sign painter, reporter to publisher of the

Chicago Daily News, warrior under Theodore Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, with the 78th Division overseas in World War I.

But only a political innocent could have assumed, last week of all weeks, that the appointments of Republicans Knox and Stimson would be debated on their merits. And few were likely to accuse Franklin Roosevelt of political innocence.

He issued one statement: "The appointments to the Cabinet are in line with the overwhelming sentiment of the nation for national solidarity in a time of world crisis and in behalf of our national defense --and nothing else." Aside from the thoughts of Republicans and Democrats who viewed the appointments only as a smart device for affecting the political campaign, the President may well have viewed them as useful for less partisan purposes--useful perhaps to lend new hope to Britain, whose immediate collapse would place the U. S. in an even more dangerous position, useful possibly to lift the desperate efforts of the U. S. to a non-partisan plane, where they could command the united efforts of the U. S.

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