Nation: THE WELFARE STATE, REPUBLICAN STYLE

THE job, as Wilbur Cohen pictured it, is a one-way passport to ulcers and oblivion. The new Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, warned the outgoing Secretary, would not only have to maintain a man-killing schedule—twelve hours a day, six days a week—but would also have to put up with endless opprobrium from every conceivable quarter. "Whatever he says or does," said Cohen, "it will impair his political future."

After three months in office, Robert Hutchison Finch wholeheartedly endorses his predecessor's first premise. "This," he admits, "is...