Metamorphosis

From a work-buried Cabinet officer, which he had so enjoyed being that he half hoped President Coolidge would not accept his resignation, Herbert Clark Hoover had to change last week into the ruling party's actual, active heir presumptive. He clung to his secluded corner office in the Department of Commerce as long as possible, inspecting final reports, perfecting the next year's budget, bequeathing last orders to the large corps of minor executives whose number and loyalty had grown together since 1921.

Mixed in with the final flood of departmental work there were, of course, many political conferences and duties. There was the notification speech, for delivery in Palo Alto on August 11, to be completed. Nominee Hoover consulted men like Matthew Woll of the American Federation of Labor and President Lewis T. Taber of the National Grange to make sure he would say just the right things on August 11.

Yet it was still as the Secretary of Commerce that Mr. Hoover received newsgatherers one final time. In a three-minute speech he thanked them for their patience and industry in making public the doings of the Department. "We thought we had a gospel to preach here," he said. He bade adieu to his heads of bureaus in a choked voice.

The Hoover special for Brule left Washington on Saturday evening. Newsgatherers joked about some "lively and impressive impromptu ovations" which National Committeeman C. Bascom Slemp had been overheard to say should be arranged at station platforms across the land. When the train reached Baltimore, this sly, Slempish suggestion was proved superfluous. Some 200 quite distinguished Baltimoreans were there with a really spontaneous demonstration. At York, Pa., and Harrisburg it was the same.

Nominee Hoover appeared several times on the back platform and, as an ardent Republican correspondent said, "waved his appreciation with hand and hat. Speak he would not. At Crestline, Ohio, someone cried: "At least you can tell us what you had for breakfast!" The Nominee laughed and mumbled something about "a good Ohio breakfast."

At Chicago, motors were ready to transport the Hoover party up Michigan avenue and Sheridan road to Vice President Dawes' house in Evanston. The Vice President handled the thronging newsgatherers while the Nominee kept what he called a "back seat." The Dawes dictum was that prosperity and competent government were the Issues.

The next stopover was Brule. . . .