THE NEW ADMINISTRATION

MARTIN P. DURKIN, 58, president of the A.F.L. Plumbers & Pipe Fitters.

Family & Early Years: Born in Chicago, son of an Irish immigrant stationary fireman (boilers) and ardent trade unionist. He went through grade school and three years of night school, at 17 started work as an apprentice steam fitter, became a journeyman, then went off to World War I as a private in the 332nd Field Artillery. .

Career: Like the A.F.L.'s new boss (see Labor), he got his start in union politics as a business agent for the Plumbers & Pipe Fitters (with Chicago's Local 597, the union's largest). He resigned in 1933, after twelve years, to take an appointment from Illinois' Governor Henry Horner as state director of labor. During the next, eight years, he successfully pushed through legislation setting up unemployment compensation, a state employment service, a state conciliation & mediation service. In 1941, he resigned, moved to Washington to become secretary-treasurer of the union (225,000 members, 829 locals), was elected president in 1943. Present salary: $20,000.

Personality: Softspoken, stocky, with white-streaked black hair and heavy eyebrows, a conservative, old-line unionist who likes a round-table conference but dislikes public speechmaking. He is the Cabinet's only Roman Catholic, is vice president of the Catholic Conference on Industrial Problems, goes to Mass every morning even when he is traveling, does not swear, drink or smoke. He has three sons, four grandchildren, lives with his wife in suburban Chevy Chase, Md. The first Secretary of Labor drawn from labor's ranks since Herbert Hoover's Railroader Bill Doak, he favors unification of the A.F.L. and C.I.O., thinks the Taft-Hartley law can "be amended to satisfy labor and no doubt satisfy employers as well." His appointment, said he, came as a "complete surprise." Reason: he is a Democrat, voted for (but did not campaign for) Adlai Stevenson.

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

SINCLAIR WEEKS, 59, Boston businessman, finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Family & Early Years: Born in the Boston suburb of West Newton in 1893 of a well-to-do family. His father, John Wingate Weeks, was a Boston broker, onetime Senator from Massachusetts, and Secretary of War under Harding and Coolidge. At Harvard, "Sinnie" Weeks was a classmate (1914) of Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall and Harvard's President James B. Conant. A World War I artillery captain in the 26th (Yankee) Division, Weeks is still a faithful member of the Dugout Club, an association of former Y.D. officers.

Career: To the money he inherited, Weeks has added a fortune he built as chairman of the board of United-Carr Fastener Corp. (metal fasteners, buckles, clips) and chairman of the board of Reed & Barton Corp. (silverware). A founder of Boston's first Young Men's Republican Club, Weeks developed an early passion for politics. "When you sit around the breakfast table as a boy and hear politics discussed daily, you are bound to develop an interest," he says. He was elected mayor of Newton in 1929, announced at his inauguration: "I want to make it plain that it is going to be my endeavor to run this city as nearly as possible along business lines." Nosed out for the Republican nomination for Senator by Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in 1936, he was appointed by old friend Leverett Saltonstall, then governor, to fill out Lodge's unexpired second term when Lodge went off to World War II in 1944. Meanwhile, he had developed a name as Massachusetts' top Republican money raiser, and in 1941 was named treasurer of the G.O.P. National Committee. In June 1952, he called upon Robert Taft to "perform a supreme act of self-denial which will electrify the nation," i.e., concede the Republican nomination to Ike. (Taft called the suggestion "ridiculous.")

Personality: Stocky (5 ft. 10 in., 183 Ibs.) and bald, with a fringe of grey hair, a cool, methodical Yankee (his favorite breakfast dish: clam broth). He is a Unitarian. He spends as much time as possible at his New Hampshire farm, where he raises dairy and beef cattle. His six children (three sons, three daughters) have presented him with twelve grandchildren. His first wife, Beatrice Dowse, died in 1945. He was married in 1948 to Mrs. Jane Tompkins Rankin of Nashville.

POSTMASTER. GENERAL

ARTHUR ELLSWORTH SUMMERFIELD, 53, automobile dealer, real-estate man, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Family & Early Years: Born March 17, 1899, in Pinconning, Mich., where his father ran a general store. At 13, after finishing the eighth grade, he went to work as a mail boy for the Weston-Mott Co. (auto axles) in Flint. During World War I, he worked as an ammunition inspector in the Flint Chevrolet plant; after the war he opened a real-estate brokerage with his father. In 1929, he opened a Chevrolet agency which he built into one of the largest auto agencies in the U.S.

Political Career: One day in 1940, Summerfield went to a Republican rally to hear Candidate Wendell Willkie. Convinced that the hostility of the audience was "a disgrace to the town," he got together with nine other Flint businessmen to organize a Republican campaign committee which gave Willkie a surprisingly large vote in Genesee County that November and helped him carry Michigan. From then on, Summerfield was wed to politics. Appointed finance director of Michigan's Republican state central committee in 1943, he proved so successful in getting contributions that other Republican leaders came to Michigan to find out how he did it. (His system: divide the state into districts, ask each donor for only one contribution and budget political expenses.) Prime mover in the campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination for Senator Arthur Vandenberg in 1948 ("I still feel that Vandenberg could have been nominated. All we needed was his active participation"), he repeatedly asserted his neutrality in the Taft-Eisenhower fight leading up to the 1952 Republican Convention. At Chicago, however, he swung 35 of Michigan's 46 votes to Ike and played a major role in lining up Pennsylvania's votes for the general. The day after Eisenhower's nomination, he was appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee, traditional stepping-stone to the postmaster generalship. Unlike most of his predecessors, however, Summerfield will resign his political job, plans to concern himself primarily with the postal service and leave the dispensing of patronage to his successor on the National Committee.

Personality: Square and husky (5 ft. 8 1/2 in., 170 Ibs.), he has not smoked in 15 years, drinks an occasional Scotch highball. He is so soft-spoken that acquaintances complain of difficulty in hearing him on the telephone. He is a Presbyterian. Married to Miriam Graim since 1918, he has one daughter, Gertrude, and one son, Arthur Jr. Though he formerly devoted much of his leisure to hunting, fishing and baseball, friends now say: "His only real hobby is politics. He adores it."

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