"Effective Job"

One noon last week President Hoover nipped on his radio in the Lincoln Study and sat down to listen to his renomination in Chicago. By long distance telephone he had bossed the Republican Convention as completely as if he had stood up on the Stadium rostrum and shouted his orders directly at the delegates. His patronage power had defeated a Prohibition plank for Repeal, forced the adoption of one for Revision (see p. 12). At his dictation every event moved according to schedule, the renomination was hardly more than a perfunctory anticlimax.

When the radio began to blare with the pre-arranged Hoover demonstration, the President went outside the White House to be photographed with visiting delegates of the National Association of American Business Clubs, the Baraca Philathea Union and the Eta Upsilon Gamma Sorority. He was eating his luncheon when the balloting started. Back at the radio his only surprise was that other candidates had managed to get 23 1/2 votes between them. To the convention he dispatched a message carefully prepared in advance:

"I have your telegram. . . . I am deeply grateful. . . . I shall labor as I have labored to meet the effects of the world-wide storm which has devastated us with trials and sufferings unequaled in but few [sic] of our history. . . . Beyond platforms and measures lies that sacred realm of ideals, of hopes, of aspirations, those things of the spirit which make the greatness and the soul of the nation. These are our objectives and with unceasing effort, with courage and faith in Almighty God, they will be attained."

Next day his corps of agents--Secretaries Mills, Stimson, Hyde, Postmaster General Brown, Detective Secretary Richey and Political Secretary Newton-- began returning from Chicago to tell him how well his wishes had been executed, receive his thanks. "A prompt and effective job," said the President. When the Vice President arrived at the White House, the President led him out to the posing ground for the first pictures of the renewed Hoover-Curtis ticket.

To manage his campaign President Hoover picked large, chunky, slow-minded Everett Sanders, onetime Coolidge secretary, whom the National Committee obediently elected as its chairman. "This high honor has come to me unsought," Chairman Sanders told the committee in a low, tired voice. "But it's as welcome as the flowers of May [Cries of "Louder."] The reason I didn't speak louder was that what's in my heart almost chokes my words. . . . We're going to win."

In 1928 Nominee Hoover campaigned as little as possible. In 1932 he will campaign even less, on the theory that intensive faithfulness to public duty will win him more votes than trooping about the country. Two days after his renomination he announced:

"I have informed Republican leaders that except for a few major addresses ex pounding policies of the Administration I will not take part in the forthcoming campaign as my undivided attention must be given to the duties of my office."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.