Affairs Internal

The cornerstone of the new Internal Revenue Building was laid last week. Secretary Mellon, of course, was the official mason. It was raining, and he had to lean out from under a canopy to make the historic trowel strokes. Cameramen liked the pose and begged him, stooped over and splashed by the downpour, to "hold it." Always obliging, Mr. Mellon "held it" while the photographers jostled and squirmed for good positions.

They were very slow. The rain took no notice and kept pouring down. At length Mr. Mellon, still bent over with trowel poised, said patiently: ''Please hurry, won't you? You know, I'm not laying the whole building."

Going back to his office, Mr. Mellon had still to ponder the problem of who should be appointed as the new chief of the Internal Revenue Bureau. The incumbent, David H. Blair, had resigned. Among candidates for the vacancy were Charles R. Nash of Pennsylvania, Mr. Mellon's State; E. C. Alvord, Mr. Mellon's legislative adviser; Chairman Benjamin H.

Littleton of the Board of Tax Appeals. Mr. Mellon knew which of these three he would prefer; but when, at the end of the week, President Hoover made the appointment, no one of the three was chosen. The Kentucky G. O. P. had proposed, and President Hoover accepted, Robert Hendry Lucas of Louisville, for eight years

Collector of Internal Revenue for western Kentucky.

It was a patently political appointment, but far from scandalous. A product of Louisville, Commissioner Lucas, now 41, was elected city police court prosecutor in 1917, his first public office. Blackhaired, handsome, alert, the young man managed to outshine the higher court officials of the time.

This year, many have been the tribulations of Kentucky Republicans in trying to collect what they consider their just patronage reward for carrying their State for the Hoover-Curtis ticket. They tried and failed to squeeze Mrs. Alvin T. Hert, Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee, into the Hoover Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. Kentucky's Republican Senator Frederic Moseley Sackett Jr. produced a candidate for Solicitor General, then one for Assistant Attorney General, but both offices went to other men. Kentucky's patronage demands de-scended to an appeal to President Hoover to appoint a Negro physician of Lexington as Minister to Liberia.

The President was told that the very life-breath of Republicanism in Kentucky depended upon the Lucas appointment as Commissioner of Internal Revenue. President Hoover reluctantly acquiesced. Good man though Kentucky's Lucas might prove to be, he did not, at face value, represent the big-bore, experienced businessman that had been prescribed by Treasury chiefs and first-class Senators to administer the vital tax-collecting branch of the Government.