Monday, Nov. 17, 1930
Words, Deeds, A Dream
THE PRESIDENCY
Words, Deeds, A Dream
This year's Thanksgiving Day proclamation was not an easy one for President Hoover to compose. The election returns offered him small inspiration. Depression and destitution did not make for gratitude. After carefully picking and choosing his words, however, President Hoover proclaimed:
". . . Our country has many causes for thanksgiving. ... As a nation we have suffered far less than other peoples from the present world difficulties. We have been free from civil and industrial discord. The outlook for world peace has been strengthened. . . . The arts and sciences have been notably advanced. Education has been further extended. We have made gains in the prevention of disease and in the protection of childhood. . . .
"Many of our people are in need and suffering. ... A proper celebration should include that every person, young and old, shall have cause to give thanks for our institutions and for the neighborly sentiment of our people."
P: "The job for the country now is to concentrate on further measures of co-operation for economic recovery. This is the only suggestion I have to make on this occasion."--President Hoover's comment on the results of the election. (For other comment see p. 16.)
P: Acts as well as words came from the White House as election aftermath. President Hoover summoned Prohibition Director Amos Walter Wright Woodcock back to Washington from San Francisco just as he was sailing for Hawaii (see p. 20). Estimates were prepared on which President Hoover would "recommend to Congress a special emergency appropriation to be applied to a further intensification of public works ... to provide further employment."
P: One of the first "lame ducks" to be received by the President after the election was Henry Justin Allen, Senator-reject from Kansas. Citizen Allen emerged from the White House loudly denying that he was looking for or would accept any Federal lame-duck roost.
P:President Hoover dined Prince lyesato Tokugawa, President of the Japanese House of Peers, at the White House.
P:Last week H. M. Prajadhipok, King of Siam, had his 37th birthday. With customary flourish of formality the State Department despatched to Bangkok a cablegram, signed Herbert Hoover, in which "sincere felicitations on behalf of the American people" were extended. Next April President Hoover will receive King Prajadhipok, traveling incognito to save money and needless ceremony, when he comes to the U. S. for the removal of a cataract in Manhattan.*
P: About the neck of Captain Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, 40, at Boiling Field, D. C. President Hoover hung the pale blue ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor, highest military award, acclaimed him "ace of aces of the American forces in the World War." Medalist Rickenbacker's feat: attacking single-handed seven enemy planes, downing two. (His full record: 26 planes shot down.)
P: Herbert Hoover and Howard Heinz have long been great good friends. Their association began with Belgian relief (1914), continued through War days when Mr. Heinz was Mr. Hoover's food administrator in the Pennsylvania zone and afterwards in southeastern Europe. There was not a business conference called by Secretary of Commerce Hoover in which he could not count on Mr. Heinz's friendly participation. Therefore it was natural that President Hoover last week should put aside the White House taboo against publicizing private industry to help Howard Heinz, president of H. J. Heinz Co., Pittsburgh pickle-packers ("57 varieties"), to dedicate a new Romanesque auditorium and restaurant at the factory. Speaking over an international radio hookup, President Hoover declared:
"It is a pleasure to participate in this tribute to Mr. Heinz ... to engage in the anniversary of the establishment which has a record of over 60 years of industrial peace. . . . We often tend to forget that the most wonderful and powerful machine in the world is the men and women themselves. . . . Industrial conflict is the greatest waste in industry. . . . The higher purpose of industry is to provide satisfaction of life to human beings. . . . Unless industry makes living men and women and children happier, it cannot excuse its failure by pleading that at least it has kept them alive."
Of all the suggestions and advice concerning President Hoover's political future that followed the election returns to the White House, none was more significant than an editorial entitled, "A Dream For Mr. Hoover," in the arch-Democratic New York World. Its author, able Editor Walter Lippmann, had been a good Hoover friend since 1915, had written the first article (1919) proposing him for the presidency. Excerpts from Mr. Lippmann's Dream For Mr. Hoover:
"President Hoover . . . must contemplate the genuine possibility that he will not succeed himself. . . . The incentive to break the precedents and perform a political miracle will be very strong in President Hoover's entourage. ... If that miracle is to be accomplished, there would be just one way to go about it: by abandoning all personal interest in 1932. His one chance is to be President in his own right from now on. . . . Mr. Hoover . . . has lost a very great deal of his power. Has he not gained a great deal of freedom ?
"It seems to us that he might very well say to himself now: Fate plus errors of judgment have deprived me of legislative power ... by all the precedents I shall not succeed myself . . . certainly I face a strong opposition even to my own renomination. But I am still President of the United States and for the two years that are left, I propose to be President in the full sense of the word. ... I cannot lead Congress. ... I shall lead the nation as my real convictions dictate. ... If I am to be denied a second term, I cannot be denied the opportunity to use the great prestige of my office to clarify public opinion on major issues and to formulate projects which, because they are right, time will vindicate."
*Last week it was announced that H. M. Prajadhipok and his entourage would occupy Ophir Farm, the Purchase, N. Y. estate of Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, widow of the onetime Ambassador to the Court of St. James's and publisher of the old New York Tribune. Last week Mrs. Reid was also awaiting an optical operation at the Medical Centre.
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