(See Cover)
The sixth-grade teacher in the public school in little (pop. 750) Killeen, Texas had an announcement for her class: the prize for the best speller at the end of the term would be a handsome Bible. The dismissal bell was still resounding when a self-assured little girl came forward from her desk, and in a firm, quiet voice told the teacher she might as well go right ahead and inscribe the Bible. It ought to be inscribed to Oveta Culp. Pig-tailed Oveta Culp wasn't being brash or smart-alecky ; she knew she was the best speller, and was merely stating what she regarded as inevitable. At term's end, Oveta won the Bible.
Last week another inscription was hung up on a signpost on the fifth floor of
Washington's vast Federal Security Building. "Office of the Secretary," it read, in shiny new gilt letters. Beyond the door, in a mulberry-and-cream office, Oveta Culp Hobby, the nation's first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was beginning the biggest spelldown of her career. She looked small and feminine behind her broad mahogany desk, but she moved with the poise and confidence of a successful business executive, as she checked "yes" and "no" on a long list of requests for appointments and telephone priorities. Now & then she paused reflectively and puffed on a Parliament, then turned back to work. Outside, down through the mazes, corridors and channels of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), the news was spreading that Oveta Hobby was a lady in complete command.
A Theme of Unity. Oveta Hobby's new job brings her into direct contact with more U.S. citizens than anyone else in
Government. As supervisor of the Social Security Administration, she is custodian of old-age funds for 67 million people ($17.7 billion gathering interest), disburser of pensions and welfare funds amounting to $4 billion a year, the protector of the nation's disabled and needy, orphans and old folks. In the name of the President and the Public Health Service, she manages one of the world's greatest medical research centers, provides operations for harelipped children and blue babies, maintains hospitals for merchant seamen and dope addicts, an insane asylum and a leprosarium. Through the Office of Education, she distributes funds to land-grant colleges and administers the teacher-student exchange program with foreign countries. She is legally concerned with the problem of tapeworm control among Alaskan caribou, with cancer research, and with the attitude of Congress toward fluoridation of children's teeth. She prints Braille books, extends credit to deserving citizens, bosses the nation's largest Negro university (Howard, in Washington), and brings out new editions of the Government's most durable bestseller.*