Word: oveta
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...other Cabinet departments, save Defense and Treasury. She must fend off more pressure groups and lobbies than any ten Senate committees; she must woo a shy but fascinated Congress (already she has made nine trips to Capitol Hill). Yet, amid the bewildering mass of unrelated facts, figures and projects. Oveta Hobby was quick to discover a theme of organic unity: through the department, she said recently, runs "a common thread of family service. Cut one, and you destroy the lifeline of the others...
Washington's vast Federal Security Building. "Office of the Secretary," it read, in shiny new gilt letters. Beyond the door, in a mulberry-and-cream office, Oveta Culp Hobby, the nation's first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was beginning the biggest spelldown of her career. She looked small and feminine behind her broad mahogany desk, but she moved with the poise and confidence of a successful business executive, as she checked "yes" and "no" on a long list of requests for appointments and telephone priorities. Now & then she paused reflectively and puffed on a Parliament, then...
...Theme of Unity. Oveta Hobby's new job brings her into direct contact with more U.S. citizens than anyone else...
...Senate Agreed. Ike Eisenhower chose Oveta Hobby to run the new welfare department partly because Oveta is a Texan and he owed an election debt to Texas, partly because she is a woman and he had promised to install women in positions of responsibility. But he chose her principally because Oveta Hobby possesses a rare talent for tactful administration. The Senate agreed with the President. Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson, a Texan himself, took her under his wing and introduced her around Capitol Hill. When her name came up before the Senate Finance Committee, the Senators confirmed her in seven minutes...
...Texans," explained Lyndon Johnson later, "are not always in agreement on everything. But there's one thing there's no disagreement on-that's Oveta. She's the type of woman you'd like to have for a daughter or a sister, a wife or a mother, or the trustee of your estate...