Out. "There," you would hear people in Washington say when 38-year-old Assistant Secretary of War Hanford MacNider stepped by, "goes a coming man. A Roosevelt from Iowa!"
They meant not only that he was filling well the sub-Cabinet post that fell to him when Dwight Filley Davis was promoted in 1925 but that he had a good banking business back home, as much vitality as ambition, a hard head, and a multitude of friends everywhere (in 1922-23 he commanded the American Legion). The sum of these is political potency. When he resigned his post last week there instantly was talk about Col. Hanford MacNider's running for Senator from Iowa next autumn. In Iowa, he was even mentioned for the Vice Presidency.
In accepting the MacNider resignation, President Coolidge said: "... I know that you have made a great deal of sacrifice to stay on longer than you expected." And, hushing the Senate rumor, Col. MacNider said he was going to "pick up a business which of necessity has been badly neglected."
But in his native Mason City, Iowa, where he will return after a trip to Europe, they know that business does not worry Hanford MacNider. He is going to build a new house there. He is going "to bring up our two sons in their own home town." He is going, though not as a delegate, to the Republican convention at Kansas City.
Two other things President Coolidge's letter said, were: "Your personal friendship has always been exceedingly gratifying." And: "I trust that you will find your experience in Washington valuable."
Hanford MacNider may not run for office next autumn but, as Washington judges men, he will run for something, somewhere, soon. As Washington judges politicians, he will get there. In. Col. MacNider's successor, chosen at his suggestion months ago, was another Iowa banker and American Legionary, Col. Charles Burton Robbins of Cedar Rapids. Aged 50, Col. Robbins served against the Spaniards, was wounded in the head. He has an insurance business (Cedar Rapids Life). He has been a judge. As able a Big-Desk man as his young predecessor he is more the type of man who will stay at a Big Desk—directing the National Guard, organizing the Reserves, mobilizing industry, ordnance, munitions as provided by the National Defense Act. (TIME, Jan. 9). When younger men go off to put "experience in Washington" to their own good uses, a Col. Robbins may be depended on by Cabinetmakers as a permanent sort of timber for underpinning.