Seven for a Job

If anything in Washington was clear last week, it was that Franklin Roosevelt proposes to superintend the harnessing of U. S. industry to Rearmament (see above). To help him in that job, he chose six men and a woman teacher whose backgrounds are as varied as their task is huge. To a business-conscious U. S., businessmen are reassuring, and the President had named three first-rate captains of industry: i) huge, grey-blond Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen, 61, Danish immigrant boy who graduated from shipyard riveting to the presidency of General Motors Corp., a ponderous, accented, self-made man, a production genius; 2) white-haired, handsome young Edward Reilly Stettinius Jr., 39, chairman of the board of U. S. Steel, able, good-natured, a man with some flair for management, with a deep sense of social responsibility; 3) roundheaded, modest, clear-minded Ralph Budd, 60, an Iowa farm boy who became the most conspicuously able railroad executive who thinks of national transportation.

Mr. Stettinius is to find raw materials, Mr. Budd to deliver them, Mr. Knudsen to process them. To these three the President added Sidney Hillman, pink-cheeked, blond, curly-haired, 53, chief of Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, vice president of C. I.O., a "labor statesman," no bumbler, coldly intellectual. Mr. Hillman will coordinate employment, supervise apprentice training.

To align agricultural policy with the defense program: Chester Davis, 52, grey, astute member of the Federal Reserve Board. To direct price stabilization in raw materials: terrible-tempered, fat, prophetic Leon Henderson, 45, member of the Securities and Exchange Commission. To advise on consumer protection: short, dynamic Harriet Elliott, 56, dean of women, University of North Carolina's Woman's College.

To direct procurement through the Treasury: Donald Marr Nelson, 51, whose spectacles and rabbity air mask tremendous keenness and big-league ability. Mr. Nelson, executive vice president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., will be the Government's purchasing agent, will be the knuckles and fist of the entire coordinating committee. To organize the Government invasion of industry, by aligning the 240-odd Federal bureaus with the committee's efforts: William H. McReynolds, 61, dry, withery, counsel-keeping White House assistant who knows better than any living man the labyrinthine network of agencies within the Government.

The capabilities of these seven citizens were plain on their records. They can do exactly as much for the President, the U. S. and Rearmament as they are allowed to do.

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