Hon. Harold L. Ickes

              Figure

Photographed by Ifor Thomas, Collier's Staff Photographer.
DETROIT TOWN HALL
★ HON. HAROLD L. ICKES
Secretary of the Interior, Oil Administrator, PWA Administrator — champion of the under-dog, he has consistently fought public graft and corruption.

SUBJECT:
★ TO BE ANNOUNCED


WEDNESDAY MORNING DECEMBER 4 ELEVEN O'CLOCK



WHEN President Roosevelt appointed Harold L. Ickes Secretary of the Interior he chose a man who had spent most of his life in a struggle against social injustice and political indecency. Mr. Ickes began his fight against Chicago's corrupt politics as a senior at the University of Chicago, and has consistently fought the corrupt groups which made Chicago's politics notorious.



Fought Insull
He took the field against Samuel Insull, when he was at the height of his power, against the unfair franchise of the traction lines, at a time when a man who opposed Chicago's most distinguished citizen was on the spot socially, legally and politically.  This same aggressive dislike of graft and spirit of reform he has brought to Washington.



Saved $63,000,000 First Year
In 1933, the largest sum ever given to one man to spend in a hurry, $3,300,000,000, was entrusted to Ickes to spend on public works and for the relief of the workless destitute.  Not a dollar shall be unwisely expended, said he, and not a dollar shall be stolen.

Says the New Outlook, May, 1935, He came as near making good as one man could in an atmosphere of unrest, politics, greed and ordinary red-eyed graft.  He set up an investigating division under Louis R. Glavis which is quite the equal of the more publicized bureau of investigation of the Department of Justice.  J. Edgar Hoover's men hunt more violent criminals than do Glavis'.  That's the principal difference.  Hoover's men say it with six-shooters and Glavis' men use sub-poenas and affidavits.  Under Ickes there are 600 Department of Interior investigators instead of 43.  In their first year Glavis spent $800,000, to save the government in real cash $63,000,000.  The cost of saving a dollar was little more than a cent.



Grows Dahlias, Collects Stamps
Mr. Ickes likes individuals but detests stuffed shirt society.  Gardening is his hobby, and he grows the best dahlias in the Middle West.  When he gets time off, in Washington, he pores over his stamp collections or motors through nearby parks.

The Ickes have a summer home near Taos, New Mexico, where they have come to know intimately the Indian life of the Southwest.  They have four children—three sons and a daughter.