The appointment by President-elect Kennedy of Connecticut Governor Abraham A. Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was hailed here today by many Congressional leaders. Mr. Ribicoff is the first Jew to be a member of the Cabinet since Henry Morgenthau, Jr., served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Roosevelt.
“Abe” Ribicoff, the son of a poor Jewish immigrant family, was hailed today in Congressional circles as the man “most fit” for the job in which he will administer the Government’s vast Social Security program, and operate a governmental department with an annual budget of $3,750,000,000 with a staff numbering 62,000 employees, concerned with medical aid, schooling, help to the aged, and responsible for many other social welfare programs which were among the most important domestic planks in Mr. Kennedy’s election platform.
Born in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1910, young Ribicoff was brought up in a tenement house. His father was a peddler and factory hand. As a boy, to help the family meet living expenses, he peddled newspapers, and worked as a caddy, errand boy and laborer. When he finished high school, he went to work for a hardware company.
He studied for a year at the Law School of New York University. Then he went to Chicago to head the sales office of the Connecticut firm for which he had worked in the hardware business. He attended the law school of the University of Chicago, graduating with honors, and returned to Connecticut, going into law practice in the capital, Hartford.
He served as a police judge, as a member of the State’s Charter Revision Commission, and as a hearing examiner for the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Administration. From 1938 to 1942, he served in the Connecticut State Legislature. From 1949 to 1952, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1952, he was defeated for the U.S. Senate. But in 1955, he was elected Governor–the first Jew to be thus honored by his State. Four years later, he was re-elected Governor by a plurality of 246,000 votes, the largest ballot a Connecticut Governor ever received.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
