Booms

Candidates' Row bestirred itself last week. Primaries were approaching. Inactivity bred uncertainty which in turn bred activity.

Mr. Hoover. Candidate Hoover received a medal, a title and a challenge. The medal, a gold one from the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, was "for achievement in mining." It had nothing to do with politics.

The title came from President Calvin Coolidge who, in denying the likelihood of his Secretary of Commerce resigning, referred to "President Hoover." It was the slip of a tongue which ordinarily picks its way more carefully through mazes of associated ideas.

The challenge came from boom-boom-booming Candidate Willis, who blustered that the contest for delegates in Ohio, the one State from which Candidate Willis can expect any delegates at all, "will be no kid glove or powderpuff affair."

Candidate Hoover also received a manager, a headquarters and a potent friend last week. The friend was Representative Theodore E. Burton of Ohio, whose formal announcement that he would try to Hooverize Ohio was what upset boom-booming Candidate Willis. Mr. Burton explained that he would have supported Candidate Willis as first choice, out of courtesy, until he learned that the Willis boom-booming really took itself seriously and was to be kept up "through long and protracted ballotings" at the convention in the hope of an accident such as nominated Ohio's Harding in 1920.

The Hoover headquarters opened in Washington, in case it should become necessary to declare the Hoover candidacy.

The Hoover manager was John Taylor Adams, big sash & door man from Dubuque, Iowa, onetime (1921-1924) Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He arrived in Washington smiling, called on President Coolidge, emerged beaming and promised Candidate Hoover's election. Observers recalled that it was John Taylor Adams who so ably managed the western Harding campaign in the 1920 election. They concluded that some such man was badly needed by Candidate Hoover, who is one of the most impolitical candidates on record.

Until Mr. Adams' arrival, the Hoover campaign had been improvised at the Department of Commerce building by loyal, well-meaning secretaries, among them an amiable image of the Candidate himself, by name George E. Akerson. Hearty at handshaking, able at desk work, Political Secretary Akerson has also done much good talking for Candidate Hoover, perhaps almost too much in the cases of visiting celebrities, such as earnest publishers of pro-Administration newspapers, who would rather have listened to the Candidate himself. With Mr. Adams on hand, he would no longer need to talk but could devote his whole, thickset, prematurely-greying, bright-eyed self to work better befitting his competent mind, which was fashioned at Harvard (A. B. 1912) and whetted in journalism (Minneapolis Tribune).

But Mr. Adams left Washington for a two-month trip to Europe. Akerson improvisations continued necessary. In view of the crux in Ohio, an overt statement by Candidate Hoover seemed imminent.

Mr. Coolidge. The candidacy of Senator Willis is a phenomenon arising full-bodied from the Harding legend and native pomposity. It has no significance outside the borders of Ohio, where it serves only as a frock-coated obstacle (composed half of the Anti-Saloon League and half of what was once the "Ohio Gang,"* ) in Candidate Hoover's way. Far more obstructive to Hooverism was a meeting last week in Manhattan of G. O. Politicians who professed to believe that President Coolidge might yet be forced to run. Among these professionals were National G. O. P. Chairman William Morgan Butler of Massachusetts, National Vice Chairman Charles Dewey Hilles of New York, National Secretary Roy Owen West of Illinois. Primarily their meeting was to arrange housing details of the Kansas City convention but they could not deny that they talked politics, too. What with news from Pennsylvania that Secretary Mellon had ordered an uninstructed delegation, the Hoover boom last week seemed overshadowed by a bogie named Illinois-Massachusetts-New York-Pennsylvania. This bogie would answer first to the voice of President Coolidge and last to whatever candidate seemed best next June to its conjurors.

Mr. Lowden. In Illinois, the State Supreme Court declared constitutional a law substituting a primary election for the caucus system of nominating candidates for state offices, including delegates to President-nominating conventions. Underlings of Frank Orren Lowden hastened to enter his name as a primary candidate, rejoicing that he now had a chance to get nominating votes in his home State, where, while the caucus system prevailed, he was at the mercy of the State Bosses, Mayor Thompson of Chicago and Governor Len Small. Lowdenites felt better about the East, too. Following their still-pond-no-more-moving policy, State Bosses Hilles and Morris of New York made known that any old boom might come to their State and try to get delegates. The small Lowden headquarters in Manhattan closed, but only because the Lowdenites were going to make bigger & better efforts among upState farmers.

* Candidate Willis' two most famed utterances were: 1) At the Republican National Convention in 1920 when he said: "Say, boys and girls, let's nominate Harding"; 2) In the Senate, in 1923, when he declared that Harry Micajah Daugherty, defamed Attorney-General of the Harding regime, was "clean as a hound's tooth."