Era of Good Feeling?

For the first time since March 4, 1933, ex-President Herbert Hoover this week entered the White House.* Harry Truman, facing the gigantic problem of Europe's hunger and poverty, had "cordially invited" him down from New York for a talk. The interview, scheduled to last 30 minutes, went on for almost an hour. Smiling, grey-haired Herbert Hoover, 70, looking a little heavier than usual, let a waiting crowd of reporters, newsreel men and photographers guess at what had been discussed. Said the only living ex-President: "The President of the United States has the right to make his own statements."

The capital buzzed with rumors that Herbert Hoover, famed for his European relief work after World War I, was to be put back in harness, if only as an adviser. Whatever the outcome, Harry Truman's invitation had been as shrewd as it was generous. In one master stroke, he had won the applause of Republicans and had sharply reminded the nation of the immediate necessity of feeding Europe. Even those who had balked at the idea of the U.S. "feeding the world" would now give weight to Herbert Hoover's passionate V-E day declaration: "It is now 11:59 on the clock of starvation."

But what was perhaps more important. Harry Truman had made it plain that he is not mad at anybody, an attitude which he further delineated by inviting both Thomas E. Dewey and Alfred Landon to confer with him "any time they might be in Washington." Harry Truman seemed determined to use all U.S. brains, of whatever party. Was he paving the way to a new U.S. "era of good feeling?"

* It was by no means his first return trip to Washington, however. He has frequently testified before Congressional committees, still buys tall starched collars from Henry J. Goodman & Co., Pennsylvania Avenue haberdasher.

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