All Ashore!

The good ship Coolidge is approaching its final port. Soon there will be a general debarkation of officeholders, a great sifting of and searching for new berths. Wise political mariners quit their vessel just before she docks and thus avoid the gangplank congestion around March 4.

Two such wise ones already are Brig. Gen. Albert Clayton Dalton, vice president and general manager of the U. S. Merchant Fleet Corporation, and Samuel Pickard, Federal Radio Commissioner.

Mr. Pickard seized his chance to join the expanding Columbia Broadcasting System as vice president. Friction within the Radio Commission and uncertainty of its continuance as an administrative body have depreciated the value of his old job, which paid him $10,000 per annum.

General Dalton, second-highest-paid executive official,* will join a private shipping enterprise. Since 1926 he has directed the Government's fleet of 250 vessels. He rose from an Army private to Assistant Quarter-Master-General in charge of transportation. A year ago the Dalton brow darkened unhappily when a Fleet Corporation reorganization clipped his authority. Now the prospect of the sale of the Government's ships, with the consequent evaporation of his good job, was doubtless what tempted him to desert the Coolidge barkentine.

*The Dalton salary of $18,000 was second only to the President's $75,000. In the Judicial branch of the Government, the Chief Justice of the U. S. receives $20,500; Associate Justices, $20,000.