Dishonored Tradition

ARMY & NAVY

One of her ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. Her paternal grandmother's family, she believes, sold the Federal Government the Hudson River bluff on which the U. S. Military Academy stands at West Point, N. Y. Her great-aunt was appointed West Point postmistress by President Polk, served for 49 years. Her mother was born at West Point. Her father, Lieut. Henry Moore Harrington, graduated from the Academy in 1872, was killed with General George Armstrong Custer at the Little Big Horn. For kindly, plain-faced Spinster Grace Aileen Harrington this distinguished ancestry brought its reward: appointment as West Point postmistress in 1927.

Last December Postmaster General Farley learned that Postmistress Harrington's term was due to expire in January, listened sympathetically to a Highland Falls, N. Y. bigwig who wished to appoint a deserving female Democrat in her stead. The news leaked out. Opposition from all quarters, especially from U. S. Army officials, who considered her post inviolate from patronage, forced "General" Farley to drop his candidate. Last fortnight the Army and Navy Journal charged that James A. Farley was still out to oust Postmistress Harrington.

Two days before President Roosevelt put all first, second and third-class postmasterships under the Civil Service (TIME, Aug. 3), declared the Journal, Postmaster General Farley called for an examination of new applicants for the West Point job under the old rules, which permitted appointment of anyone of the three top candidates. Hopping mad, the Journal editorialized thus about Miss Harrington:

"Hers was a service appointment. In accordance with tradition she was selected as an Army woman to fill an Army post. She has done her work well and to the satisfaction of all those who had business with her. She has been the custodian of important, confidential papers. . . . The creature of a boss named --s her successor would have no understanding of Service affairs. We submit to the President that it is far better to disappoint a political henchman than to violate an honored tradition, and to cast odium upon a system which enables the ousting of a thoroughly competent official. . . ."

On her $2,700-a-year salary and a schoolteacher's pension of some $1,200 a year, Postmistress Harrington supports two elderly female cousins. Last week from her West Point desk, over which hangs a photograph of Mr. Farley, she sent in her application for examination. Said she: "I've always loved the Army and wanted to be where the Army was. ... All those on the post are my friends. . . . But I'll have to get another job somehow. I don't know just where."

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