Vacancy Preserved

Of all the ladies in official Washington none has had a more extraordinary career than greying, blue-eyed Josephine Roche. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (in charge of Public Health). In 1927, at 40, she inherited a sizable share of her union-hating father's Rocky Mountain Fuel Co., which dominated Colorado's northern coal fields. Josephine Roche turned the company into a laboratory for the social theories she had developed during 17 years she had spent in social work. She also ran it so efficiently that, in spite of high wages and furious competition from other Colorado mine owners who distrusted her methods, it became the most profitable coal company in the State.

Last week, Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau made an unusual announcement: "The President has accepted with the greatest reluctance the resignation of Miss Josephine Roche as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, a position that she has occupied since November 15, 1934. . .. It is my hope that Miss Roche's absence from the Treasury will not be permanent, but that she will be able to make such arrangements as will permit her to return. With this in mind I have determined with the President's approval not to recommend at this time anyone to fill the Assistant Secretaryship which she will vacate on November 1."

Reason for Josephine Roche's "absence from the Treasury": J. Paul Peabody, one-time clerk, whom she raised to the presidency of Rocky Mountain Fuel Co., died last summer and she had to go back to business.

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