THE CABINET: Greatest Since

Andrew William Mellon was the Cabinet hero of the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era William Hartman Woodin, cheery but inactive, has not yet qualified for a similar role in the Roosevelt era. Nor have the new heads of the State, Justice, War, Navy Agriculture, Commerce or Interior departments yet achieved historic stature. The first woman Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins (Wilson) has been receiving quiet plaudits ever since her first hour in office as the most human, humane and intelligent incumbent since her post was founded in 1913. But the first phrase of praise with resonance for the ages was bestowed last week upon another Cabinet member. In a speech at Newburgh, N. Y., Second Assistant Postmaster General William Washington Howes, 46, lawyer and Democratic National Committeeman from South Dakota, saluted his chief, James Aloysius Farley, as “the greatest Postmaster General since Benjamin Franklin He predicted that “General” Farley will “rise much higher in political life.”

A Farley appointment of last week: Henry Clay Swanson, 62, onetime grocer, brother of the Secretary of the Navy, to be postmaster of Danville. Va.. on whose Main Street he lives. The distinguished Secretary brother wangled, when a Senator, a new Danville post office, now under construction.