Molasses Man

"Behind the scenes flames a speculation whether debonair, urbane, Utopian Rexford Guy Tugwell will be the ace of the braintrusters in President Roosevelt's second Administration as he was in the first. Indications are that he will. . . . Tug-well's star blazes as brightly as ever. ..."

So wrote Correspondent Walker S. Buel, so published the Cleveland Plain Dealer one morning last week. No fault of theirs was it that they knew no better than every newspaper save one in the U. S., no fault of theirs that a White House stenographer had forgotten to give Secretary Stephen Early for release a letter that the President had dictated night before, a few minutes before starting for South America:

"Dear Rex:

"I fully understand the reasons that make you feel you should, for a while at least, return to private life within the next few months. You have given generously and efficiently of your services to the Government for these past four years, and I want you to know that later on I fully expect to ask you to come back to render additional service."

Only a scoop by the New York Times set newshawks on the track, caused the mislaid letter to be found next day.

Exit. The reason for Professor Tugwell's abrupt departure from the New Deal, although his leave of absence from Columbia University does not expire until next June, was not officially explained. Personal reasons might have caused it: his wife recently left Washington and returned to Manhattan. But his official position in Washington had also grown uncomfortable. He still enjoyed the Presidential favor, particularly shown in a visit to his Greenbelt satellite city (TIME, Nov. 23). However, his Resettlement Administration, with its high costs (administrative overhead 13-c- on the dollar) and record of questionable success, faced difficulty in getting new appropriations from Congress. In parts of the South many a no-good farmer who has been "rehabilitated" now drives along the road with his new mule, new wagon, new harness grinning down at the "leading citizen" of the community sweating in his lower 40 to pay the interest on his mortgage, with an old mule, spliced harness and last year's ploughlines. All this Dr. Tugwell classifies as prejudice and dismisses, but Congressmen at home among their constituents do not like it. In order to get more money out of Congress and to launch a new plan for lending $50,000,000 a year to help tenant farmers buy their homes, Dr. Tugwell hoped to get RA transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Only flaw in the plan was that Secretary of Agriculture Wallace did not want to take the responsibility of turning Dreamer Tugwell loose with so much money.

Last week when the news of Dr. Tugwell's resignation broke, he and Secretary Wallace were making a tour of Resettlement projects--a tour originally planned to stir Mr. Wallace's enthusiasm for them. Before it began, however, it had turned into a farewell tour. When newshawks caught up with them at Memphis, Henry Wallace loyally declared: "You know. Rex has been one of the most vigorous fighters for the capitalistic system that I know of. ... Men of Tugwell's courage and insight are rare. We shall all regret that he is no longer in Government."

By the time the travelers reached Mississippi it was evident that Rex Tugwell had done well to resign before the trip. Mr. Wallace looked over the Tugwell projects with definite gloom, showed himself far from impressed by the ambiguous reports given by farmers whom RA had "rehabilitated," intimated that the Government's plans for making tenants into farm-owners would have to proceed cautiously rather than idealistically. They also saw the Rust cotton picker in action. Said Mr. Wallace pessimistically, "It's too bad that so much of the cotton fell to the ground." Dr. Tugwell, more hopeful, thought the mechanical picker had come to stay. "But," he hastened to add, "don't ask me about cotton. I'm a molasses man."

Treacle. Next January when Dr. Tugwell returns to private life, he will walk down Wall Street, through throngs of hurrying brokers who have never liked him, past the Stock Exchange, past J. P. Morgan & Co., past Manhattan's National City Bank, down to the far end of the street at the East River docks where the odor of coffee and spices fills the air. There, on the 19th floor of No. 120 Wall Street, he will enter a wainscoted office with large sepia murals, depicting underprivileged Cuban peasants growing, milling and loading sugar. There he will sit down behind a desk as executive vice president of an old and profitable business, American Molasses Co., which is part holding company and which makes public no data about its financial condition.

President of American Molasses is Charles William Taussig, colleague of Dr. Tugwell in Franklin Roosevelt's original braintrust. The firm was founded by Grandfather William Taussig 75 years ago, is still owned almost entirely by Taus-sigs, has another ex-braintruster, Adolf A. Berle Jr., on its board of directors.* It has plants in New Orleans, Montreal, Boston, Wilmington, N. C., and a brand-new sugar refinery in Brooklyn. It deals in no rum or blackstrap molasses. Its subsidiary Sucrest Corp. refines and sells sugar. Its subsidiary Nulomoline Co. sells cane syrup preparations to bakers. Its most famous product is "Grandma's Old Fashioned Molasses" which in winter is sledded in hogsheads into Maine's lumber camps. So financially conservative is the firm that it has almost no debts and its net worth is estimated well over $2,000,000. Said Mr. Taussig last week: "Dr. Tugwell is joining American Molasses on a permanent basis in a full-time job. I regard him not merely as a capable economist but also as an able executive."

Methodist. In April 1935, handsome Dr. Tugwell stopped in Atlanta and conferred with a chunky, baldish man seven years his senior. Will Winton Alexander had become a minister of the Methodist church in 1901, when he was only 17. He was a preacher for several years, during the War an executive secretary in the Y. M. C. A., later a member of the Race Relations committee of the Federal Council of Churches, a board member of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, a student of farm tenancy, an acting president of Dillard University in New Orleans, and a lover of dachshunds. He and Dr. Tugwell agreed perfectly about what the still unborn Resettlement Administration should do and he soon became Assistant RAdministrator. More conservative in ideas, more practical in action, he became Dr. Tugwell's work horse. Last week when Dr. Tugwell departed, he was left standing in the Professor's boots. Said he in his drawling, Georgia-cracker voice: "Dr. Tugwell is the sanest, clearest-thinking man in the Government."

*Mr. Berle was last week on his way to Buenos Aires in the train of Secretary of State Hull. In President Taussig's office hangs a photograph inscribed: "To Charles William Taussig, with best regards, Cordell Hull."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.