The Chief

Boris cast an anxious eye out of the S Street window. It looked like rain. Boris is a Serbian who lost his last name in the war. He works as valet for a big, thickset, friendly-faced engineer whose friends and helpers all call him The Chief.

Today was to be The Chief's big day. As Boris helped The Chief into a pair of grey pin-striped trousers and a formal morning coat, he felt like giving little adjusting pats on the broad shoulders.

The Chief went downstairs to breakfast alone. The rest of the family was late. Afterwards Mr. Justice Stone dropped in for a chat. A truck came up with two sacks of mail--presents for The Chief, which were not opened.

After giving The Chief's silk hat (which The Chief detests) a final swirl, Boris, with others, got into an automobile and was driven off through crowded streets to the Capitol: a monstrous building with a domed centre, .the like of which you never see in the Balkans. A nipping wind blew up from the Potomac. The clouds were growing thicker. Boris was distressed.

Boris didn't see the arrival of two top-hatted gentlemen with whom The Chief and his wife motored two miles to the White House, where Calvin Coolidge stood in the Blue Room to greet them. Outside, two dozen motor cars were in line. Mr. Coolidge and The Chief went out and got into the first car, their ladies following in the next one. The chauffeur of the No. 1 car stepped on the self-starter. Wheels within groaned loudly but the motor would not start. The chauffeur gasped at himself and the motor. The Chief looked worried. Cameramen pressed in closer. Finally the engine spat, caught, hummed properly and the open car rolled down the gravel drive and out upon Pennsylvania Avenue. Calvin Coolidge did not look back at the White House. Mrs. Coolidge paused to say goodbye to policeman at the gate.

Rolling around the Treasury behind an escort of cavalry, Mr. Coolidge and The Chief heard the throat-rasping cheers of early-comers in the stands along the route to the Capitol. The Coolidge silk hat moved up and down in frequent response to this acclamation. The Chief's headpiece moved less frequently. One irreverent youth screamed "Oh you Herbie!" from the sidewalk.

Boris, already at the Capitol, knew when The Chief arrived by the yell that arose from the plaza. Mr. Coolidge went up the broad steps of the Senate wing at a quick, almost jaunty, pace. The Chief was slower, measured his stride more carefully. Once inside Mr. Coolidge walked around to the President's room, just off the Senate lobby, put his silk hat down on the green felt table top, sat down in an arm chair, signed many bills. His Cabinet stood about him, eager to be of last-minute assistance. When he had finished he motioned shut the ponderous doors and lighted a cigar.

The Chief, head lowered, was taken to the Military Affairs Committee Room where he stood first on one foot, then on the other, smiled and listened while many people he didn't know told him how happy they were on his Big Day.

On the Senate floor were so many people Boris couldn't count them all. The Senators were packed on the east side, the Congressmen on the west. Round and about were Ambassadors, Cabinet members, Generals, Admirals, everybody who could squeeze in. The cutaway was standard gear except for the military officers and foreign representatives who vied to outglitter one another with gold and brass.

Boris listened to Reed Smoot call Charles Curtis "A child of the Wrest." He saw an attendant bend Time to the Constitution by setting back the Senate clock first ten minutes, then seven, to keep its hands from reaching noon too soon. Microphones were scattered about everywhere. In a glass booth David Lawrence of the United States Daily was telling the world.

Calvin Coolidge came in. Everybody stood up and clapped. Suddenly a man threw open the centre door and announced in a great voice: "The President-Elect of the United States." And who should walk in but The Chief himself.

On the dais a thin blond man in a choker collar made a loud rapid speech and a short dark man swore to be a good Vice-President. After a tremendous throat-clearing a minister prayed and the short dark man read a speech from a little leather notebook. Mr. Coolidge listened with one hand up to his face. When the speech was over everybody clapped and helter-skeltered out of doors to the front steps of the Capitol.

Just as Boris had feared, a mean, chilling drizzle had started. Nevertheless, The Chief and President Coolidge went out on the platform which was decorated with seals of the U. S. Food Administration. Everyone was cheering but, looking around, The Chief and the President couldn't find their wives, who had been swallowed up in the confused exodus from the Senate.

Five minutes passed and The Chief frowned; ten, and he snapped his fingers, fumbled in his pocket, was plainly vexed by the delay. Boris was distressed again. George Akerson, The Chief's secretary, shuttled in and out in frantic search. Finally the ladies were extricated from the jumble. The Chief looked immensely relieved and beamed about him through the drizzle.

Speaker Longworth lit a cigaret in one corner of the stand. He had seen many such ceremonies. The Coolidge Cabinet, led by Frank Billings Kellogg (who will continue as Secretary of State until the arrival of Henry Lewis Stimson) took reserved seats well forward. The Chief moved up to the rose-decked reading stand among the microphones. Chief Justice Taft, in black robes and skullcap, moved to his side. Supreme Court Clerk Elmer Cropley handed the Chief Justice a small, new Bible, ribboned to Matthew 5 (The Sermon on the Mount). It was really raining now.

The Chief Justice began the Presidential oath--he knew it well; he swore it once himself. "You, Herbert Hoover, you do solemnly swear that you will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of your ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

One of The Chief's hands lay on the open Bible. With the other hand raised toward the sky, and while a reverential hush held the umbrella-covered multitude, The Chief said: "I do."

Then the Bible was turned back to Proverbs 29:18 and President Hoover stooped and kissed the proverb: "Where there is no vision, the people will perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."

Chief Justice Taft's hand was the first to give President Hoover's a congratulatory squeeze. Mr. Coolidge, without rising from his seat, reached up and did likewise. The President turned back to the public, seen and unseen, and began his speech (see col. 2). Wind-blown rain dampened his hair, clotted his eyebrows. He shook his head impatiently to get the wet off his face. The fringes of the crowd melted away. Indians in full war paint (friends and race relatives of the Vice President) retreated to shelter under the Capitol's main portico. The President began to hurry his words, faster, louder, doggedly, as the tattoo of water from above grew louder and louder. It was, Boris must have thought, dismal weather for a Big Day.

When the speech was over the Marine Band, never more appropriately, struck up "Hail to the Chief." The President said "Goodbye" to Mr. Coolidge, who edged off to catch his train home. A great many people followed Mr. Coolidge, but many more remained to offer moist hands to the President and first lady before they could enter their open automobile for the drive back to the White House.

A downpour engulfed them on the way down Pennsylvania Avenue. Sodden and drippy were bunting and flags. But spectators in the stands, huddling under newspapers and umbrellas, cheered plentifully nevertheless. From an upstairs window along the way, Dr. Arthur James Barton, southern Baptist, Chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Anti-Saloon League of America, and a band of prohibitors representing 29 other national organizations--the U. S. Drys, Consolidated (see p. 16)--looked down upon their Wet-Dry President with great satisfaction.

At the White House, the President and first lady hurried upstairs to change their rain-soaked clothes and forestall head colds. They ate some luncheon alone.

Later the President, the Vice President and 800 others mounted the White House stand on Pennsylvania Avenue and there, comfortably glassed in, reviewed the Inaugural parade.