Cabinet Making

Attorney General in President Coolidge's cabinet is John Garibaldi Sargent, huge, rustic, wise friend and onetime neighbor of Mr. Coolidge in Vermont. His first assistant is kinetic Col. William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan, who last week whisked away from magic Washington to New Mexico, there to wrestle with the Mexican boundary problem. He went happy, gay and debonair because a little bird had told him he would be Attorney General when, soon, Vermonters Coolidge and Sargent had retired into history. Though nothing more than a bird would stand sponsor for this piquant prediction, it was one of two things which may definitely be put down as sure about the Hoover cabinet.

The other sure thing is Secretary of the Treasury: Andrew William Mellon. Long exploded is the nonsense that businessmen sacrifice themselves when they take public office. Mr. Mellon has enjoyed being Number One finance man of the world's richest country. After one year under President Hoover, he will be 75, and may retire with the record of having graced three administrations. There are eight other cabinet positions. At least eight men were last week recommended for each of them. Mr. Hoover enjoyed listening to the fine things that were said about all of them. Mr. Hoover was neither stiff nor irregular. Even small-eyed Senator Watson, who loudly denounced Mr. Hoover before the nomination, was invited to appear. The people who saw him were glad to talk discreetly to the press--it was invaluable publicity. When Mr. Hoover arrived in Florida, the prevailing opinion as to the rest of the Cabinet was:

P: Not to be Secretary of State: Calvin Coolidge (but he might like eventually to be Chief Justice, succeeding William Howard Taft); Charles Evans Hughes (but ditto and he needs to make money). Possibly to be: Dwight Whitney Morrow (although Mr. Hoover seemed to have difficulty in coming to this conclusion).

P: Not to be anything: any woman. Reason : Mr. Hoover wants in his cabinet persons of wide political experience, which no woman has.

P: Not to be retained: Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, Secretary of Labor Davis;

P: Perhaps to be Secretary of Labor: William N. Doak, not because he is a Virginian but because, as vice president of the Brotherhood of Railway Engineers, he is an able representative of union labor.

P: Probably to be retained as Secretary of Agriculture: famed Kansan agronomist, William M. Jardine.

P: Possibly to be Secretary of Navy or War, Mr. Hoover's good friend Hugh Gibson, now Ambassador to Belgium, who began life in California. Also powerfully pondered were the great ambassadorships. Leading candidate for something good, possibly London: handsome, able Henry Prather Fletcher who escorted the Hoovers to and around and back from South America, and who, like Mr. Gibson, is a distinguished diplomatic career man.