Hooverizing

The silence emanating from the Administration's busy beaverish heir and beneficiary became, as the hyperbolists said, almost deafening. Following his telegram of the acceptance to the G. 0. P. Convention, Nominee Hoover addressed no word to the U. S. electorate. He actively avoided contact with the nation's press. He shut himself in his big, bare office at the Department of Commerce. He left his chunky political secretary, George Akerson, onetime newsgatherer, to answer all questions. Newsmen remarked that this was but a continuation of the policy adopted by Secretary Hoover ever since he seriously began aligning delegates.

Callers. The newsmen simply sat, fidgeted, watched callers going in and out. Early to come was William S. Vare, Philadelphia's pudgy boss, whose obtrusion at Kansas City embarrassed Hooverism and irked Pennsylvania (see p. 13). Mr. Vare also went to see Nominee Curtis at the Capitol. The nature of Boss Vare's errands remained obscure.

Another caller was President William Wallace Atterbury of the Pennsylvania R. R., one of the few National Committeemen who strongly opposed the Hoover nomination before it happened. Committeeman Atterbury seemed adequately Hooverized last week.

Nominee Curtis also called and with this visit the Hoover campaign for election formally began. The Hoover-Curtis conference, which lasted several hours, was for the purpose of drafting a new slate of officers for the National Republican Committee. Observers estimated that this conference consisted of about 98% Hoover decision, plus 2% Curtis suggestion.

To Work. With continued uncommunicativeness, except as to the factual results, the Republican National Committee's subcommittee to cooperate with the Candidates was taken into conference, Hooverized, given some luncheon, dismissed. It did leak out that the Hoover campaign is to be a businesslike affair, based on the Coolidge record, with no mudslinging at the Democrats countenanced or tolerated. Senator Moses said: "When we begin to campaign . . . we won't call him 'AP but we will refer to him as the governor of New York."

To replace William Morgan Butler as National Republican Chairman, the committee elected Dr. Hubert Work, grey-bristled Secretary of the Interior. Dr. Work's centre of influence is supposed to be in Colorado, where he long practiced medicine and where, at Pueblo, he founded a hospital. The choice of a more easterly generalissimo for the G. 0. P. campaign had been expected, since the ticket is California-and-Kansas and since the sharpest competition between the two parties is expected to centre in the urban East. But the Work-for-Chairman movement was many months old. Dr. Work was the first Hooverizer in the Cabinet.

Dr. Work's career as a large-scale organizer began during the War, when he gave up his private practice and was put in charge of the medical aspects of the Army draft. Will H. Hays selected Dr. Work to organize the farm vote in the Harding campaign and later retained his services as

Assistant Postmaster General. When Hays resigned as Postmaster General in 1922, Dr. Work inherited his place in the Cabinet. Then Albert Bacon Fall had to resign and Dr. Work took over the Interior portfolio. All his doings have been applauded for their quiet efficiency. He was "in wrong" with ranchers and farmers in 1925-26 because of his handling of grazing permits and reclamation projects. He was hanged in effigy at Scotts Bluff, Neb. But when some Western Senators brought pressure to oust him, the episode rebounded to his credit. The Senators were up for reelection and it looked like a noble refusal by a Cabinet member to play politics. Last week he said he would go to Brule, Wis., at once and resign. "Seven years of association with the Cabinet is enough for one man," he said.

As a physician, Dr. Work was honored in 1921-22 with the presidency of the American Medical Association. His most notable patient was President Harding, whom he helped tend on the ill-omened presidential trip to Alaska and back in 1923. His closeness to President Coolidge became such that when Dr. Work's wife died in 1924, the funeral service was held in the White House. The Work manner is breezy, smiling, voluble. He makes a special point of keeping his office door open.

Other Officers. For Vice Chairmen, the Hoover choices were Ralph E. Williams of Portland, Ore., Mrs. Alvin T. Hert of Louisville, Ky. (both re-elected), and Daniel Eleazer Pomeroy of Englewood, N. J., backer of the animal picture Simba (TIME, Feb. 6). The East's outgoing Vice Chairman, Charles Dewey Hilles of New York, whose anti-Hooverism was pronounced to the point of stubbornness right up to the moment of nomination, was given a place on the Executive Committee.

For treasurer, to succeed William V. Hodges of Colorado, Hooverism selected Joseph R. Nutt of Ohio. Little-known to the national rank and file of the G. 0. P., Mr. Nutt is famed locally as president of the largest bank between Manhattan and Chicago, the much-controlling Union Trust Co. of Cleveland.

Representative Franklin W. Fort of New Jersey, able legislator, was made secretary, succeeding Roy O. West of Chicago.

Notable on the new Executive Committee, besides New York's Hilles, were Ohio's adept Maurice Maschke, Pennsylvania's dashing Mrs. Worthington Scranton, Michigan's experienced Miss Bina M. West, Missouri's Mrs. Grace Semple Burlingham.

Campaign managers were named--Senator Moses for the East, James W. ("Sir James") Good for the West. Henry J. Allen was proclaimed Publicity Man. Stump-speakers were placed under the command of Representative Walter H. Newton of Minnesota. Most effective of all on the stump, the Hooverizers hoped, would be President Coolidge. At least four speeches in the dubious East were figured as his tentative assignment.

Speech. The Beaver Man made the following speech to newsgatherers: "Just now I must ask you to excuse me from talking politics. That is why I am not holding conferences with you every day, since to do so might prove embarrassing to you as well as to myself. I know you will understand."

Plans. It was learned that Mr. Hoover planned to go to Brule on July 2 and spend Independence Day with President Coolidge. But this plan was abandoned when the President let it be known that he wanted no guests until August. The notification ceremony at Palo Alto, Calif., was tentatively set for August 10, the Beaver Man's 54th birthday. Then the date was changed to the last week in July.

Money. Prompt to champion Nominee Hoover and the Dry-spoken Republican platform was President (Mrs.) Ella A. Boole of the W. C. T. U. "We will show our appreciation," said she. Dr. S. E. Nicholson, secretary of the Anti-Saloon League, put it the other way around. He promised that anti-salooners would spend $250,000 in New York State alone to beat Democrat Smith.

"Planetary Thinkers." The graduating class at Stanford University heard Dr. John Huston Finley of the New York Times utter the following: "Your president, Dr. Wilbur,* and your most distinguished graduate, Herbert Hoover . . . are the foremost planetary thinkers of this new age."

Propaganda. The first item of Hooverizing publicity was a report, probably exaggerated but meant to illustrate the famed Hoover efficiency, that to save time and reduce cost, Nominee Herbert Hoover buys his suits six at a time, hats three at a time, shoes by the dozen, collars by the gross.

* Ray Lyman Wilbur, M. D., LL. D., brother of famed Curtis Dwight Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy.