Tin Can

Last week the Government's foremost expert on joblessness found himself jobless. President Hoover turned 75-year-old Ethelbert Stewart out of the Labor Department as Commissioner of Labor Statistics. Technically, Commissioner Stewart was retired for age under the new Economy Law after the White House failed to include him in its list of overage employes whose professional services were indispensable to the Administration. But many a Washington observer thought there was another reason for dropping this forthright official who had served his Government continuously for 45 years.

Last spring Secretary of Labor Doak told newsmen that he had been supplied departmental data which showed that employment was increasing throughout the land. Fooled before by such cheery statements from politically-minded Secretaries, the reporters went to see Commissioner Stewart to check up. The white-crowned, white-whiskered old man telephoned Secretary Doak that the statistics given him warranted no such declaration. Thereupon Secretary Doak recalled the newsmen, told them to disregard his earlier statement and then, in front of them, gave Statistician Stewart a tongue-lashing for daring to contradict his chief. It was Secretary Doak who refused to certify Mr. Stewart's indispensability to the President, thereby depriving him of his job.

"I've still a lot of pay dirt left in me," declared Mr. Stewart. "I've a number of matters up my sleeve and I'm a long way from being through. I have a contract with the Government and it has been broken. Retired? Don't put it that way. I've had a tin can tied to the end of my coat tail."

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