"Action Counts"

President Hoover last week had a chance to compare himself with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Both those great men were mentioned in an open letter to the White House from long-nosed William Randolph Hearst, who said he wanted President Hoover to make ''some reassuring utterance" at this time of "sudden and unjustifiable collapse of (stock) values." He said:

"The people expect as much from you . . . as they would have expected from Mr. Roosevelt under similar circumstances. Surely your Administration could assemble the banking and financial leaders of the nation and insist that they cooperate with the government in reviving confidence and restoring normal prices."

Publisher Hearst was just 24 hours late. President Hoover had already made a move no less Hooveresque than Rooseveltian.

The first outward sign of what the President had done was three figures leaving a private door of the Treasury Department early in the morning. A thick grey mist enfolded them as they entered the ceremonial East Gate of the White House grounds. Walking through the rolling South Grounds, they skirted the back of the White House and entered the executive offices by a rear door used only by the President himself. It was 8:45 a. m. Secretary of the Treasury Mellon--for he was one of the three--removed his coat without aid (none of the White House staff had yet arrived) and laid it neatly on a messenger's desk. Undersecretary of the Treasury Ogden Mills tossed his coat into a chair. So did Roy Archibald Young, governor of the Federal Reserve Board. President Hoover cheerfully greeted his three visitors, led them into the Cabinet room, closed the door.

Chairs were pulled close to the table. The President talked. Secretary Mellon talked. Governor Young talked. Undersecretary Mills read figures from papers. Thirty minutes later the four men arose with one thing definitely settled: There should be immediate tax reduction.

President Hoover returned to his private office, picked up his telephone to inquire about his good friend Secretary of War Good, then on his way to the operating room at Walter Reed Hospital. The three visitors returned to the Treasury by the back way. That evening Secretary Mellon announced the President's plan to lop 1% from 1929 income and corporation taxes.

But President Hoover was not yet finished. For weeks another plan had been stirring in his head. Two days after the tax news, the President read this announcement to assembled newsmen:

"I have engaged in numerous conferences with important business leaders and public officials with a view to the coordination of business and governmental agencies for continued business progress . . . . I am calling, for the middle of next week, a small preliminary conference of representatives of industry, agriculture and labor . . . to develop certain steps.

"The magnificent working of the Federal Reserve system and the inherently sound condition of banks have already brought about a decrease in interest rates and an assurance of abundant capital. . . .

"In market booms we develop overoptimism with a corresponding reverse into over-pessimism. They are equally unjustified. . . .

"Any lack of confidence in the economic future ... of the U. S. is foolish. . . . Words are not of any great importance in times of economic disturbance. It is action that counts. . . . The next practical step is the organizing and coordinating of a forward movement of business through the revival of construction activity, the stimulation of exports and of other legitimate business expansion. . . ."

The President's announcement stirred the business world. He himself studied lists of industrial leaders to summon to the Cabinet Room, eyed such names as Owen D. Young, Thomas William Lament. Julius Rowland Barnes, Daniel Willard, William Green. Four group conferences were arranged: 1) potent railroad presidents; 2) tycoons of industry and finance; 3) husbandmen; 4) laboring men.

Pestered for details, the President's aides suggested that one purpose of the President's conference was to focus in the public mind such unrelated expansion programs as a $75,000,000 road project in Iowa, a $2,000,000 shipbuilding scheme, a billion-dollar telephone development plan, a billion-dollar waterway improvement plan.

President Hoover ordered government departments to resume all halted public works under their jurisdiction, hopeful that states, municipalities, railroads and industries would follow suit.