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Rules for Success. Harold Smith is a living compendium of the rules for success in professional administration. The rules:
He must be trained for his job. Government in the U.S. is too complex to be administered by amateurs. Reared on a Kansas wheat farm, Smith took a degree in electrical engineering at the state university, but his interest shifted to government. He became successively a graduate student and teacher of government at the University of Michigan, staff member of the Detroit Bureau of Government Research and the League of Kansas Municipalities, director of the Michigan Municipal League, the University of Michigan's Bureau of Government, and the Michigan Budget Bureau.
He must have a "passion for anonym ity." Smith's undistinguished appearance and self-effacing personality are assets.
He must be a good and a merciless judge of men, willing to sacrifice personal prestige, loyalties and friendships to the success of the job. Striking proof of Smith's disregard for his own pride and prestige is the fact that his chief assistant, tough, able Wayne Coy, gets the same salary ($10,000) that he does.
He must stick to his administrative duties, leave policy to the politicians. When a new policy is under debate, Smith willingly gives the President and Congress the benefit of his information and experience, will argue stoutly for his own point of view. But, once a policy has been adopted, once the people through their representatives have taken a decision, Smith lays his personal opinions away. From then on, his job, as he conceives it, is to help make the policy work.
Smith 60%, Roosevelt 40%. Harold Smith is too loyal and discreet a staff officer to sound off about his commander's mistakes. But it is no secret that his carefully drawn organization plans — for war production, food, manpower, economic stabilization, rationing, price control —have been repeatedly ignored. Time & again the President has yielded to his political instincts to compromise, to repay loyalty with loyalty, to keep everybody happy. Smith swallows such disappointments cheerfully. He is glad and proud that, sooner or later, the President has accepted about 60% of his recommendations.
In a sense, he is any and every Mr. Smith of the U.S.A. In his high Government post he is a solid, reassuring symbol of the average American's patience, common sense and optimism. He does not let his knowledge of Mr. Roosevelt's administrative failings blind him to the President's great qualities of leadership. He knows that America has survived plenty of mistakes in the past, and is sure it can survive plenty more.
He told a Congressional committee early this year: "While, as Director of the Budget, I see many soft spots that worry me, at the same time one has to look at the overall product. When I look at that, I say, 'Well, it is rather amazing that we have done as well as we have. . . .' "