New Machine

When the thing was settled, there was a moment of political silence. Hoover was forgotten for a minute while politicians considered the men around him, the new faces, the new commanders. First of all they saw a bland, pink-and-gray Iowa lawyer who was saying very little and looking very cheerful. He was James W. Good, who has managed the Hoover campaign, who may well become the new chairman of the Republican National Committee and who, if he does, is well assured of a good cabinet post if he wants it. Newsmen call him "Sir James" for his fine manners.

The previous political history of James W. Good is creditable but it is not spectacular. He was born in Cedar Rapids 62 years ago. He served in Congress seven times (1909-21) and retired when he was chairman of the pivotal Committee on Appropriations. Since then he has practiced law in Chicago and raised potatoes and angora goats in North Dakota. He met the Beaver Man in 1921, when they worked on the Budget together. He managed the Coolidge campaign in the West in 1924. When Hoover asked him a year ago to Hooverize the U. S., Good consented with pleasure. Of what he has done since, Mr. Good speaks modestly:

"... A large number of prominent men with experience in politics came forward and assisted to perfect the organization. Then we went ahead and did efficient work. Oh, yes, I will admit that it is an efficient organization."

It is doubtful if this account of the campaign machine would seem accurate to the men whom Hoover beat. To them Good's success is almost sinister. They see in him an almost Catilinian figure who, by some mysterious and influential energy, succeeded in making use of the most miscellaneous collection of backers that any nominee could have. Able political writers, well aware of this, are equally amazed at Good's adroit handling of a difficult endeavor. Wrote a thoughtful correspondent to the New York Sun:

"Called to command, he found himself a sort of Falstaff reviewing the tatterdemalions of politics, not a few of them outcasts from the G. O. P. He looked again and discovered also in the loose and undisciplined Hoover ranks, in addition to half-ruined guerrillas that were beginning to pluck up hope, an assortment of poets, prophets, hymn singers, professional reformers, unclassified uplifters, novelists, Federal office holders, reformed bootleggers, Anti-Saloon League superintendents, society leaders, social climbers, lame ducks and efficiency experts. This would have dismayed an ordinary general. But Jim Good is not an ordinary general. He took hold of this crowd and patiently instilled into its mixed elements of fanaticism and craftiness, its curiously contrasting elements of idealism and greed, the dependable, cooperative discipline of a magnificent partisan machine. He made them click--the whole lot of them, poets and place hunters--and the result was one of the most sweeping and astonishing triumphs we know anything about."

Other faces in the miscellaneous bodyguard of Hooverism include the following:

James P. Goodrich, oldtime rough-and-tumble boss from Indiana, until now a colleague of Indiana's small-eyed Watson.

Henry J. Allen, journalist and onetime (1919-23) Governor of Kansas, famed also for his connection vith the globe-circling University Afloat (TIME, May 16, 1927).

Walter F. Brown, of Toledo, whose obviously political appointment last year as Assistant Secretary of Commerce so greatly vexed the late Candidate Willis, and who stands as prime target of the charge that the Beaver Man has used his present office--and taxpayers' money--to get a higher office.

Dr. Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior.

Ralph E. Williams, Oregonian strategist, who will doubtless manage Hooverism in the Rocky Mountain section. Strategist Williams was last week made temporary chairman of a campaign subcommittee of the Republican National Committee which went to Washington to confer with the Beaver Man. The Hoover plan is to divide the country into wieldy sections and proceed along scientific lines of management, a campaign of efficiency and infinite detail, with Nominee Curtis in the picture to mollify the Embattled Farmer and Senator Borah on the stump to educate and convince.

Good and Hoover met in Washington,

D. C., to hatch campaign plans with a group of potential Committeemen: Ogden L. Mills, Under-Secretary of the Treasury; Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior; William Wallace Atterbury, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad; Elliott Cox, who did canny campaign work for Hoover in the now important State of North Carolina.