Ins & Outs

This week half of the Cabinet which Harry S. Truman inherited from Franklin Delano Roosevelt was remodeled. In a flurry of handshakes, cocktail and tea parties, five Secretaries went out of office.

Retiring Secretary of State Ed Stettinius seemed satisfied with his new job (see Foreign Relations). Labor Secretary Frances Perkins put aside her black tricorn, unveiled two "private hats": 1) a broad, black-on-white sailor straw; 2) a trim white Panama with black veil. She seemed to enjoy the leavetaking. At a farewell party at the Statler Hotel she gave Senator Robert F. Wagner an astonishing kiss on the cheek; at another party she shook the hands of 1,800 Labor Department employes (see cut). Her plans: a month in Maine with her ailing husband Paul Wilson; beyond that she would not say. The other departing Cabinet officers were more definite about their futures. Francis Biddle would take up lawyering in Philadelphia. Frank Walker would go back to his chain of Pennsylvania and New York movie theaters. Claude Wickard took on at once his ten-year plum as Rural Electrification Administrator.

Meanwhile, on a flood of laudatory oratory, in rode Attorney General Thomas Campbell Clark, Postmaster General Robert Emmett Hannegan, Labor Secretary Lewis Baxter Schwellenbach, Agriculture Secretary Clinton Presba Anderson. This week's plans called for James Francis Byrnes to be sworn in as Secretary of State (see above). Washington gossips buzzed of further changes and more shake-ups to come.

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