Another Roosevelt

Talk that President Roosevelt's slim friend Vincent Astor would be made Assistant Secretary of the Navy was very natural. The master of the glossy white yacht Nourmahal, on which the President-elect cruised in February, used to be Commodore of the New York Yacht Club. He donated at least $25,000 to the Roosevelt campaign. But there is a Navy tradition about having Roosevelts for Assistant Secretary.

Last week Secretary of the Navy Swanson marched into the White House and announced that he had found another worthy Roosevelt for the Assistant Secretaryship that was held by Theodore Sr. (1897-98), by Franklin D. (1913-20), by Theodore Jr. (1921-24), and by T. R. Sr.'s nephew Theodore Douglas Robinson (1924-29). President Roosevelt was said to have had no hand in the selection of Secretary Swanson's "find": Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, 53, a burly, round-faced onetime Marine Corps colonel. The President promptly made the appointment and just as promptly the Senate confirmed it. The Marine Corps will be in his province.

The President and the new Assistant Secretary of the Navy are fifth cousins. Nicholas Roosevelt (1658-1742) was their common great-great-great-great-grandfather. Henry Roosevelt is a third cousin of Theodore Roosevelt Sr., their common great-great-grandfather having been Jacobus Roosevelt, grandson of Nicholas. Though closer kin to the Republican wing of the family, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt is a Democrat, has been acquainted with the President for years. After three years at the U. S. Naval Academy, he resigned to take a commission in the Marine Corps, saw service in the Philippines, Panama, Cuba, Haiti. During the War he was assistant quartermaster at Marine Barracks, Quantico. Va. Resigning in 1920, he became European representative for Radio Corp. of America with headquarters at Paris. His wife was well-to-do Eleanor Morrow of San Francisco, daughter of a Federal Judge (no kin of the Englewood, N. J. Morrows and their Anne Morrow Lindbergh).

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