The Evening Times

DAVIS MAY SOON RETIRE

Friction in the Interior Department
the Reported Cause.

The Assistant Secretary Said to Be
Dissatisfied With His Position and
Constant
Clashes
of Authority.

Pension Decisions
Believed
to Be
the Principal Source of Trouble.

The resignation of Webster Davis, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, is confidently looked for, and it is firmly believed in official circles that he will never again take up the duties of his office.

His departure for the seat of war in South Africa, with an indefinite leave of absence, is said to be equivalent to final retirement, and when the friction which is said to have existed for a long time in the department is taken into consideration, this conclusion cannot well be controverted. The Secretary of the Interior refuses to discuss the matter, but his silence does not affect the prevailing belief that his assistant's vacation will never be ended, in so far as the Interior Department is concerned, and when does return from South Africa it will be to go to his home in Kansas City.

It is recalled that Mr. Davis was one of the most energetic and independent mayors Kansas City has ever had, that he was practically supreme, and for so young a man his influence over the Republican party in western Missouri was very close to complete control. This is said to have unfitted him practically for any office in which he must be subordinate to the counsel and plans of a superior. As Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Davis, it is said, would be a great success, but as Assistant Secretary he is likely to prove an odd cog in the Government wheel.

The first friction with his official associates is said to have arisen over certain decisions of the Board of Pension Appeals. By law the "Assistant Secretary of the Interior is assigned the consideration and decision of appeals from the Commissioner of Pensions and questions relating to violations of the pension law." Commissioner Evans brought to the Pension Bureau all the originality of idea and abundance of executive ability he has always displayed in official and private career. It seemed not unlikely the two should clash. They are said to have done this with regularity and frequency.

Mr. Evans, having received the key to his policy from the President, always represented the Administration view. On appeal to the Secretary of the Interior his judgment was approved. Mr. Davis is said to have had the melancholy satisfaction of overruling the Commissioner of Pensions again and again and of having his ruling reversed by the Secretary of the Interior quite as often.

Matters were thus on the brink of open rupture during Secretary Bliss' term of service. When Ethan Allen Hitchcock, also a Missouri man, and probably possessed of political ambitions like those of Mr. Davis, became the head of the department the Assistant Secretary found things more uncomfortable.

Mr. Hitchcock had already achieved distinction as a public servant, and had at his command a much larger private income. His influence in the State is based on the successful management of a vast commercial enterprise and the prestige which such management entails, as well as on distinguished service as a diplomatist. Such a man was hardly likely to heap fuel on the flame of a "new light" from the western part of the State, say those who comment on Mr. Davis' departure.

Whatever else Mr. Davis may be, he is not a nonentity. A man who could force his political allies in a city just recovering from a "boom" to support the proposed construction of a park out of an unsightly bluff at a cost of perhaps $500,000 is a man of much personal force. His endowments are not inconsiderable—he writes entertainingly, is somewhat of a student, and is a strong public speaker. In Kansas City he has grown accustomed to control. It is not impossible, therefore, he grew restive under repeated reversals of judgment and in a position which became every day more and more like that of a clerk.

Those who discuss the situation most freely argue from this that his departure for South Africa is at least a temporary, if not a permanent, retirement from office. Mr. Davis was dissatisfied, they say. Mr. Evans, Mr. Hitchcock, and the President were dissatisfied.