MR. ADAMS'S APPOINTMENT

By appointing Charles Francis Adams '88, treasurer of Harvard College, as Secretary of the Navy, President-elect Hoover has shown himself to be influenced by more than political considerations. That there were other men whom the public could have better expected chosen, was evidenced by the fact that Mr. Adams's name was not even mentioned by the press as a possibility, although he was among those who have recently conferred with Mr. Hoover in Miami. It seems plain that the new cabinet will be appointed with less regard for invisible government, and more for personal qualifications.

No one who knows his record as an officer in the fifty corporations which he has served,--who is acquainted with his skill as an amateur yachtsman,--or who knows his integrity in business and his interest in naval affairs, can doubt that Mr. Adams is highly suited for the post. The things which have dominated him have been evident in all of his family. Since the colonial days when they captained ships out of Boston and Salem harbors, his maternal ancestors, the Crowninshields, were among the most famous of New England seafarers. Only last year Mr. Adams himself sailed across the Atlantic in the Spanish race. Among his paternal forebears, there have been many distinguished public men, two of whom were presidents of the United States. And recently it was divulged that President Cleveland extended an invitation to his father, for the very post which the son is now to fill. Thus Mr. Adams, who inherits both love for the sea and alrllity in administration, is more than fitted for his new work. Incidentally he will probably be the only man from New England to be chosen for the cabinet. That his appointment should be as secretary to the navy department is altogether proper, in the light of this section's maritime tradition.