Set for the Summer

Through the executive offices last week resounded a great beating and pounding of hammers. President Hoover was not disturbed. He knew it was only some workmen enlarging his office basement. What bothered him more was another noise-- the clanking and grating of legislative machinery at the capitol, out of gear and threatening to go out of control.

The House had brought forth its tariff bill and to the Hoover eye it did not resemble the article he had hoped for (see p. 10). To find out what was wrong with it, to gauge its potential effect upon Business and the Cost of Living, the President set expert analysts to work. His own first impression of the duties on shingles, lumber, cement and sugar was not favorable but he withheld formal opinion until he was better fortified with facts. Trouble aplenty was in the Senate where the Republicans were quarreling among themselves, to the jeopardy of the Administration's whole farm program. Ohio's Senator Fess attacked the party loyalty cf Idaho's Senator Borah. Senator Borah struck back, accused Senator Fess of being the President's political slave (see p. 10). Disturbed, the President summoned Senator & Mrs. Borah to the White House for Sunday luncheon. Senator Fess he invited for Sunday supper. Senator Borah went away smiling but uncommunicative. Senator Fess looked about the same next day.

P: Congress seemed so certainly seated for all summer that President Hoover made known he would be taking no summer vacation.

P: Of the Geneva Arms Conference, President Hoover said: "I am greatly gratified at the promising character of the results. . . . " (see p. 23).

P: For Abraham Lincoln, President Hoover has special reverence. Lincoln's oldtime cabinet room in the southeast corner of the second floor of the White House, he has changed from a guest chamber to a study. From the attic has been brought a dusty old chair which the President believes originally stood there.

P: The Hoover outing last weekend: to Cotoctin Furnace, Md., to catch eight more trout. Five tents now stand on the Cotoctin campsite. Electricity and telephones are installed.

P: The President of the U. S., aged 54, last week sent to the King of Rumania, aged 7, this message: "On this happy occasion of the anniversary of Rumanian independence, I send to your majesty sincere felicitations and cordial wishes. . . ."

P: Last week out of the Punjab came word that the fame of Herbert Hoover has penetrated the most remote and desolate back-country of Asia. He is there regarded as "a giant who feeds all people."

P: Mrs. Hoover last week drove her Packard to Richmond, Va., and back (225 mi.) to inspect an exhibit of portraits of early Virginians. Her guests were three -- Mrs. Vernon L. Kellogg, Mrs. H. S. Cummings and Mrs. Harlan Fiske Stone. A chauffeur rode idly in her car, a body guard trailed in another.*

*In Washington, Mrs. Hoover's town car is a Fierce-Arrow, newly acquired, omitted from TIME'S list of motors used by First Families (TIME, May 6). Two other Fierce-Arrows stand in the White House garage, for the Secret Service.