President Truman set out last week to mold his own administration and streamline Washington bureaucracy once & for all. Within 48 hours, he made three cabinet changes and asked Congress for permanent authority to untangle overlapping bureaus and agencies.
His appointments were generally applauded. He rid himself of the three weakest members of the existing cabinet: Wickard, Biddle and Madam Perkins. Into their places moved New Mexico's Congressman Clinton P. Anderson, 49, as Secretary of Agriculture; Texas' Tom Clark, 45, as Attorney General; and Washington's onetime Senator Lewis B. Schwellenbach, 50, as Secretary of Labor.
In one sweep, Harry Truman thus: 1) lowered the average age of cabinet members from 59 to 54; 2) gave the cabinet a total of five members from west of the Mississippi; 3) further strengthened the bond between himself and Congress; and 4) put into important Government positions three double-dyed Democrats whose personal loyalty to him was unquestioned (all had worked hard for his nomination as Vice President at Chicago last summer).
While the three new Cabinet members were generally unknown, they had no known disqualifications. Harry Truman, who does not believe in one-man government, told them that they would have unquestioned authority in their fields. Clint Anderson, for instance, also becomes War Food Administrator and will thus be the nation's absolute food czar in fact as well as in name. Washington dopesters thought it only a matter of time until WLB, NLRB and the National Mediation Board would be put under the new Secretary of Labor.
Along with the new Postmaster General, Bob Hannegan, the new members will take office with the start of the new fiscal year, July 1—except Clint Anderson, who will assume his new job as soon as Claude Wickard can be confirmed as Rural Electrification Administrator.
Man with a Method. Of the new appointees, Clinton Presba Anderson had been most recently in the news. As chairman of a special House food investigating committee, he had roared about the country, blasting the ineptitude and red tape which had given the U.S. its greatest food shortage. Only last week, two days before his appointment, he had released a blistering report on the sugar scandal (see BUSINESS).
Next day he was summoned to lunch at the White House. Clint Anderson, who has sat in many a stud poker hand with Harry Truman, expected a friendly dressing down for going too far. Instead, the President said: "Clint, how would you like to be Secretary of Agriculture?" Said Anderson, later: "I almost swallowed my grapefruit."
Tall, dark and square of chin, Clint Anderson came to Congress four years ago after a career that included newspapering (Albuquerque Journal), selling insurance (Mountain States Casualty Co.), the presidency of Rotary International (1932), and administration of New Mexico's relief (1935). He is a gentleman farmer. Three years ago he bought the 935-acre Lazy V Cross ranch, five miles outside Albuquerque. There he has 450 acres of alfalfa, 135 milch cows, and 300 head of Rambouillet sheep.