National Affairs: Service Shift

Last week Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau summoned reporters for a rare joint press conference.

It was rare because the other conferee was Chief William Herman Moran of the Secret Service who practically never gives interviews. For 54 of his 72 years, Chief Moran had helped guard U. S. Presidents’ lives and the nation’s securities and currency. Head of the department since 1918, he successfully shouldered the grave responsibility for the safety of Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. Due to retire at 70, Chief Moran’s tenure had twice been prolonged by President Roosevelt’s decree. It could be prolonged no further.

If the newshawks or Secretary Morgenthau had expected to find the old man in a mellow mood on laying down his duties, they received a rude surprise. Taciturn Chief Moran’s mood was black and rueful. A reporter asked if his recent absence from duty was due to sickness.

“I was on a vacation,” corrected Chief Moran. “The Government owed me a vacation. It was the first vacation I have had in 20 years.”

“Well, the Government certainly owes you a debt of gratitude, Chief,” put in Secretary Morgenthau.

“I’m glad that someone owes me something,” grimly replied the neat old detective. “I wonder what I’m going to use for money.”

Still trying to get a light touch into the interview, amiable Secretary Morgenthau suggested, “how about counterfeit?”

Everybody laughed except Chief Moran. “I know the Service too well for that,” he replied. He then frankly complained to reporters that he was leaving a $9,000 a year job for a pension just one-sixth as large. “I can hardly rely on the Government’s retirement pay to support my family. I am being given the munificent sum of $1,500 a year. I cannot understand why Congress fails to realize that the men of the Secret Service who occupy hazardous positions are entitled to adequateretirement considerations.” Retiring Chief Moran, long famed for his lack of communicability, said he might eke out his diminished income by writing his reminiscences.

To succeed him, Secretary Morgenthau selected Frank Wilson, a keen-looking sleuth with a sharp inquiring nose and glittering spectacles. New Chief Wilson dug up the income tax evasion evidence which sent Al Capone to prison, traced and identified in court the Lindbergh ransom money. His assistant will be Joseph Edward Murphy, who was Chief Moran’s aide until last summer when he got himself, his department and Secretary Morgenthau into an intra-Cabinet snarl by setting Secret Servants on the trail of G-Men suspected of murdering criminals without giving them a chance to surrender (TIME, Aug. 17).