RESIGNATION OF MR ICKES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24801, 15 February 1946, Page 5

RESIGNATION OF MR ICKES

DISAGREEMENT WITH PRESIDENT

SEQUEL TO U.S. NAVAL APPOINTMENT

WASHINGTON, February 13. President Truman has accepted the resignation of Mr Harold L. Ickes as Secretary of the Interior, and has designated Mr Oscar L. Chapman acting-secretary until Mr Ickes’s successor is appointed. Mr Chapman has been AssistantSecretary of the Interior for 13 years. The Associated Press states that the resignation of the self-styled "Old

Curmudgeon,” who took office with President Roosevelt in. 1933, sprang from Mr Ickes’s opposition to Mr Truman’s nomination of Mr Edwin W. Pauley, a Californian oil man, as Under-Secretary of the Navy. Mr Ickes asked to be relieved by March 31: but .Mr Truman made the resignation effective on February 15. Mr Truman’s letter accepting the resignation has not been published, but Mr Ickes’s letter to Mr Truman said- "I cannot accept the theory that I should have told the Senate Naval Affairs Committee less than the truth. I do not apologise for this, although I have regretted the unhappy personal position in which I involuntarily found myself.” Mr Ickes said in evidence before the Senate committee that Mr Pauley told him in September, 1944, that a Government suit for a Federal title to submerged coastal oil lands would be bad politics as it would cost the Democratic Party 300.000 dollars in contributions from Californian oil men. Mr Ickes told the committee that this was the rawest proposition he had ever had. Nevertheless, Mr Truman again backed up Mr Pauley, telling a news conference that Mr Pauley was honest and that Mr Ickes could be mistaken.

Mr Ickes’s letter to Mr Truman added: "I cannot stay on when you, in effect, have expressed a lack of confidence in me.” Mr Ickes was the last member of the original New Deal Cabinet to retain office.