Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1913 — BIG JOBS REQUIRE BIG MEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BIG JOBS REQUIRE BIG MEN

SHE position of general manager of the biggest railroad in the country, or the biggest manufacturing plant, or the biggest mercantile establishment, would sink into insignificance when compared to any of a score of positions in the government service at Washington that have Just been filled by the new administration. These big jobs, nearly every one of which has to do with the well-being of millions of the people and carries with it greater responsibility than all civil life can parallel, pay, on the average, $5,000 a year. Quite naturally a five-thousand-dollar man is not big enough for such a job. So the appointive power •throws out the dragnet for men big enough for the given task who place public service above profit, or who regard the distinction of a federal office as compensation, or who are men of parts despite the fact that they may not have yet gained such financial standing as to make a hundred dollars a week look unattractive. Have a look at some of these jobs, says W. A. DuPuy, in the Philadelphia Record. Indian Commissioner. Take, for instance, the commissioner of Indian affairs. That official is in reality the administrator of a great estate. This estate is valued at $900,000,000. ft is the biggest estate in the world. There are 300,000 heirs to it. They are mostly, in the eyes of the law, minor heirs and the estate must be managed for them, their moneys must be collected, must be taken care of, must be distributed. Not only thiß, but each of the individuals in the 300,000 must be carefully looked after. He must be kept healthy. He must be given thfe advantages of schooling. He must be led toward selfsupporting manhood. He must be given the rights of manhood whenever I he proves himself fit. The man who is responsible for the administration of so huge an estate should be a man of unimpeachable character and of many parts. It fell to Secretary Lane of the department of the interior, to find such a man. He dragged the cpuntry for the individual of just the right qualifications and experience. Finally he settled upon Cato Sells of Cleburne, Texas, for the post. Mr, Sells was not a candidate for the post, but was appointed only after special agents of the department had looked Into every step in his career with the idea of determining whether or not he was the right sort of man to handle one of the most trying posts in the government service. Chief Patronage Dispenser. Over in the postofflce department is a man who is in the very midst of appointing 62,000 postmasters. In addition to this he is the chief of staff of an army of 66,000 clerks and letter carriers. In addition to this be is the superintendent of 60,000 postoflices and has the control of the policies that govern them. And still in addition to this he has direct charge of the development of the parcel post, which is attempting to carry packages for a hundred million people. Altogether no mean job. « This man is Daniel C. Roper, first assistant postmaster general. The slxtfy-two thousand postmasters who are appointed from Washington actually receive thei? commissions from the president or the postmaster general. First Assistant Roper is. however, the man who handles all the detail that leads up to those appointments. That army of city letter carriers, which haß increased from 10,000 twenty years ago to 30.000 at the present date, is immediately under his care, and every rule and regulation for its control originates in his office. The same is true of the 36,000 clerks, of the 62,000 postmasters .and various other odds and ends that go to make up the 150,000 people who are under tbe command of the postmaster general. This first assistant is to the postmaster general very nearly what the chief of staff of the army is to the secretary of war. But he has a bigger force to deal with, scattered over vastly more territory and performing a service of infinitely greater detail. Rural Organization. In tbe department of agriculture a brand new job has just come into being' and a brand new man has been appointed to fill it This job is one of

considerable proportions in that it has as its object no less a thing than an improvement of the conditions under which dwell all those people of the farms who furnish the fobd supply for themselves and the 60 per cent, who dwell in the cities as well. This'nejv activity in the department of agriculture is known as the rural organization service. It has as its directors Dr. T. N. Carver, professor of economics at Harvard. Dr. Carver'ls the nation’s recognized ifest authority upon the subject of rural • economics. He has written a number of books upon this subject which are regarded as standard. He takes up his present work upon an indefinite leave of absence from Harvard. The rural organization service is largely financed through the national education board, endowed by John D. Rockefeller. The department of agriculture has co-operated with this board for a number of years in farm demonstration work in the south and is highly pleased with the practical results obtained. Uncle Sam’s Real Estate Office. This is a new commissioner of the general land office, who is a man who has 683,000,000 acres of land for sale. Sales of land are now running on pretty smoothly and amount to about $lO,000,000 a year. There have been better years and there have been worse. There was the banner year of the sales through this office away back in 1836, when the land-hungry AngloSaxons had reached that choice tier of states including Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and were buying fast. fiut today there are good lands for sale throughout the west. There are gold lands and coal lands and oil lands and farming lands. Alaska has a wealth of valuable real estate, but even Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and Florida," in the east, still have federal lands for sale, and they are selling. The new man who has Just taken charge of this monster real estate business Is Clay Tallman, a young lawyer from Nevada, in the far west, where the chief activity of the people Is land-booming. In this office there are 500 employes in Washington. There are 125 branch offices In as many localities, and these and the field force are responsible for ap additional 1,000 men. _ Mr. Tallman is. not yet forty years of age. He grew up in Michigan, was educated at the state university and went to Nevada when he was ready for practice. A term in the state senate, an unsuccessful but closely contested candidacy for representative to congress, and other political steppingstones, led to his appointment to one of the big posts in the federal executive service. An Executive Hero. Rear Admiral Victor Blue, under appointment by the new secretary of the navy, sits, at the head of the premier branch of the navy department—the bureau of navigation. Some months ago this young naval officer held the rank of commander and was in service on the Pacific, being chief of staff of the Pacific fleet. Then he was called to Washington for service on the general board, and before long he found himself the head of that bureau which has offices immediately adjoining the secretary with the rank of rear admiral and authority to officiate as acting secretary when Mr. Daniels and Mr. Roosevelt are out of Washington. The bureau of navigation haß nothing 'to do with navigation but everything to do with the personnel of the navy. It is, again, the human branch at the given service. Every lad who is recruited into the service enlists through this bureau. All the training schools that work toward making .him

a man-o’-wafsman are under the bureau of navigation. Even the naval academy at Annapolis finds its authority here. Every captain ambitious to get command of a squadron must look to this bureau for promotion N The enlisted man who overstays his leave, the lieutenant who has fallen a victim of the plucking board, the stout commander who has been too long on shore duty—each and all must take their cases to this bureau. Ruler of 9,000,000 People. Over in the sister branch of the military service sits another man who has a very human work to perform in that he Is the virtual ruler of 9,000,000 people. > This individual is Brigadier General Frank Mclntyre, chief of the bureau of insular affairs, and therefore charged with the active control of all matters pertaining to the government of the peoples of the Philippines and Porto Rico. General Mclntyre is not as new to his task as some, of the men herein mentioned, as he came to it through many campaigns in the Philippines and by work in the bureau under General Edwards, Its former chief. His task is an immense one, as the bureau of insular affairs is attempting for one thing to perform the miracle of molding into one homogeneous whole the 50 chaotic tribes, speaking as many dialects, holding to many religions, harboring many animosities and unenlightened as to civilized living, who go to make up the popular tn>n of the Philippines. The Gold Guardian. John Burke, three times governor of the great state of North Dakota, Is the guardian of the greatest aggregation of actual that has ever been gotten together in the history of the world. He is the new treasurer of the United States, and this government is the possessor of more wealth than any other institution since Adam. The other day he signed a receipt for $1,426,422,051.48 2-3. Nobody can think of a billion and a half of actual money and comprehend what the amount actually means. But that is the amount in actual money in the treasury at Washington that the retiring treasurer of the United States turned over to Treasurer Burke and for which he Is responsible. These vastly important government positions, that are so large in responsibilities as to appall the man who tries to measure them, are of great number, but one other should be mentioned in selecting but a few of ths most strikingly interesting ones. This other is that of councilor of the Btate department, a post just now held by one John Bassett Moore, college proThis is the man who advises as to the points of law arising between nations as the ordinary lawyer would give an opinion as to the points at difference between two individuals In ordinary business. Treaties and international differences are his regular diet, be they past or prospective. He is likely to patch up a little agreement any morning before breakfast that will lead to world peace or find a provision in an old treaty that will crowd some land-hungry European country off the American map.