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Ickes offered to stay until the end of March. The President, in an icy reply, accepted his resignation, effective in three days. This ended "all" of Ickes' "other governmental activities," said the President.
Mr. Ickes replied acidly: "I assure you that I have had no secret design . . . to hold on to any other office under your jurisdiction."
Question of Self-Respect. Harold Ickes then held a spectacular press conference in the Interior Department's auditorium. His aides, newsmen, photographers and radiomen with recording apparatus swarmed in. In his crusty old voice he made his position doubly clear —either "I had forsworn myself and made false statements under oath or someone else has." He went on the radio: "A man has to live with himself. I have to spend the rest of my life with Harold Ickes and I could no longer, much as I regret it, retain my self-respect and stay in the Cabinet of President Truman." Mr. Truman said that Ickes would not dare to impugn the integrity of the President. "I would dare to dispute the integrity of the President," Ickes retorted, "on any occasion that my country's welfare demanded it." At week's end it was over. Until Mr. Truman appointed a new Secretary (a matter already of much speculation), Ickes' assistant, Oscar L. Chapman, would hold down the job.
With his young second wife, Jane Dahlman, whom he married after Anna Thompson died, Ickes shook hands with 1,500 Interior Department employes.
Then he went to his office and lay down on the sofa. He grunted unintelligibly and closed his eyes. For the moment at least, 71 year-old Harold Ickes was a very tired old man. But only for a moment. Like every man's conscience, he would not be stilled.
-"Gentle" was the word, as Ickes recalled it.