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The Ickes live comfortably on a ten-acre place at Winnetka where the new Secretary of Interior putters among his dahlias, drives a Packard, collects stamps. For this week's inaugural he is buying and wearing his first high silk hat in 30 years.
Secretary of Agriculture. Henry Agard Wallace, 44, got into the Cabinet because of a family grudge against Herbert Hoover. His father was Harding's Secretary of Agriculture when the outgoing President was Harding's Secretary of Commerce. The elder Wallace's plans for farm relief were frustrated by the White House influence of Secretary Hoover. Secretary Wallace, a good Republican to the end, died in office (1924), lay in state in the White House East Room. This year the younger Wallace had his revenge when he helped turn Iowa Democratic.
The new Secretary is editor of Wallace's Farmer, founded by his grandfather and now in receivership. He is one of the original sponsors of Domestic Allotment as "the most intelligent scheme yet brought forward to furnish agriculture with a program for an orderly retreat." He loudly advocates currency inflation to relieve farm debt. Said he last month: "England has played us for a bunch of suckers. The smart thing to do would be to go off the gold standard a little further than England has. The British debtor has paid off his debts 50% easier than the U. S. debtor has."
An expert on seeds but no "dirt farmer," Mr. Wallace is a gloomy, solitary man preoccupied with the farmer's woes as seen from an editorial office. Never before has he held public office. Around the Cabinet table his radicalism will probably need checking by cooler, more conservative heads.
Secretary of Commerce. Daniel Calhoun Roper, 65, was a forgotten man of the Wilson Administration until Mr. Roosevelt unexpectedly boosted him into the Cabinet. Responsible for the boost was William Gibbs McAdoo whose Madison Square Garden fight for the Presidency Mr. Roper managed. The Roper appointment infuriates the Al Smith faction of the party, for in 1928 the new Secretary of Commerce became a Hoovercrat by default when he sailed for Europe. Loose-jowled, bespectacled old "Dan" Roper is nominally from South Carolina, where he was born and where he still has two cotton plantations. But for the last 13 years he has lived in Washington as a lawyer, showing clients how to reduce their income taxes. Three years (1917-20) as Commissioner of Internal Revenue qualified him for this practice. Before that he was President Wilson's First Assistant Postmaster General. He arrived in Washington as a Congressional secretary, demonstrated a rare talent with figures, helped draft the Underwood Tariff Act (1913). Earlier in South Carolina, he had served in the State Legislature where, although an ardent Dry and devout Methodist, he offered legislation creating the notorious South Carolina liquor dispensary system. Never since has he ceased to talk of the failure of that system.
President Roosevelt expects to shrink the Department of Commerce, so greatly expanded by Herbert Hoover. Secretary Roper, no eminent commercialist, is prepared for major amputations.