Republican Hive

During the War and shortly thereafter the most fashionable hotel in Washington was the Shoreham at the corner of 15th and H Streets.* In 1929 it was dismantled and subsequently became an office building. Last week it became known that the Shoreham Building would be the Republican hive for the next four Democratic years at the Capitol.

Owner of the Shoreham Building is dapper, aggressive Secretary of War Patrick Jay Hurley. Shrewd at business as well as politics, Secretary Hurley, onetime mule boy in an Indian Territory mine, has been successfully leasing Shoreham office space to his G. 0. P. cronies. Last week he caught the best of all possible Republican tenants when President Hoover, in the name of Lawrence Richey, his detective-secretary, took a four-room suite to serve as a political watchtower overlooking the Democratic scene. Sooner or later wise Washingtonians expected to see this lettering on the door: HERBERT HOOVER, CONSULTING ENGINEER.

On the same floor Vice President Charles Curtis has taken a three-room suite. Mr. Curtis is debating which of five secret offers of employment he will accept after March 4. Other eminent G. 0. Politicians with Shoreham offices: Everett Sanders, chairman of the Republican National Committee; Ray Benjamin, Hoover adviser from California; Edward Tracy ("Ted") Clark, Coolidge secretary; Col. William Joseph ("Wild Bill'') Donovan, onetime Assistant to the Attorney General; Mabel Walker Willebrandt. onetime Assistant Attorney General. Owner Hurley will have a 16-room suite in his building where he will practice law with an as yet unnamed Washington partner.

Plans of other Cabinet members upon their retirement:

Secretary of State Stimson, in love with Washington, will keep his beautiful estate "Woodley," resume his New York law practice.

Secretary of the Treasury Mills will loaf for several months, joining Citizen Hoover in California, but probably refusing to fish. Under his father's will which gave him a $12,000,000 fortune, Mr. Mills must spend two weeks each year in that State. Last year he served his time there electioneering unsuccessfully to hold his job in the Hoover Cabinet.

Attorney General Mitchell, one Democrat who will get no job from the new President, will return to St. Paul, rejoin his law firm.

Postmaster General Brown, back in his Toledo law firm, will keep the political kettle hot.

Secretary of the Navy Adams: "I'm going back to Boston and mind my own business." His business: bank and corporation boards.*

Secretary of the Interior Wilbur will resume the presidency of Stanford University.

Secretary of Agriculture Hyde, if nothing better turns up, always has his Buick agency at Trenton, Mo. to fall back on.

Secretary of Commerce Chapin will again become board chairman of Hudson Motors.

Secretary of Labor Doak, with his estate "Notre Nid" (our nest) in Virginia, will stay on in Washington as lobbyist for the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen.

* Not to be confused with the new Shoreham, an apartment hotel off upper Connecticut Avenue.

* Last week Secretary Adams' Battle & Scouting Forces, with lights out, radios muffled and guns manned, played hide-&-seek on the broad Pacific as they executed Fleet Problem No. 14 (TIME, Feb. 13).

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