Caribbean Cruise

President Hoover made up his mind one night last week to take an immediate ten-day vacation to U. S. possessions in the Caribbean. Going by train to Old Point Comfort, Va., he would board the U. S. S. Arizona for her scheduled "shakedown" run after reconditioning. The cruise would be to Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Secretary of War Hurley, possibly Secretary of the Interior Wilbur, would accompany him. Mrs. Hoover would stay behind.

The White House announcement of this journey stressed the word "rest" and added: "This will be the first vacation of the President since assuming office, with the exception of a seven-day fishing trip to Florida something more than a year ago."

What drew President Hoover to Porto Rico was the chronic economic distress of that square little island as a result of the 1928 hurricane. The big Hoover heart had been touched by Governor Theodore Roosevelt's description of the subnormal condition of Porto Rico's children. The second Chief Executive to visit the territory (the elder Roosevelt was there in 1906), President Hoover wanted to see things for himself, study rehabilitation.

The Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John), bought from Denmark in 1917 for $25,000,000, presented a similar economic problem. Their 95% Negro population had been squeezed off the farming land. Their rum trade had been blighted by Prohibition. Their sugar plantations and factories were close to collapse. Last month following a six-month investigation by Chief Herbert Brown of the Bureau of Efficiency, President Hoover transferred the Islands' administration from the Navy to the Interior Department. To set up a new civil government and pull the Virgin Islanders out of their economic hole President Hoover appointed Dr. Paul M. Pearson, onetime elocution professor at Swarthmore College. Last week Governor Pearson and his staff of experts sailed from New York to take up their new job, will barely have time to turn around in office before receiving a visit from the President of the U. S.

P: Another matter President Hoover settled last week was his Spring speaking schedule which called for eight addresses and excursions into four states. In Washington he would address the American Red Cross (April 13), the Pan-American Union (April 14), the International Chamber of Commerce (May 4), the 50th anniversary of the Red Cross (May 21). He will go to Valley Forge for his Memorial Day address. The Indiana Republican Editors Association will hear him at Indianapolis June 15. The next day he will review the Grand Army of the Republic at Columbus, Ohio and, at last, dedicate the Harding memorial at Marion. The day after will find him at Springfield, Ill. dedicating another Lincoln memorial.

P: President Hoover was described last week by Dr. Abraham S. Wolf Rosenbach, bibliophile, as the greatest book collector in the White House since Thomas Jeffer- son. Said Dr. Rosenbach: "On all his journeys he gathers volumes that in time will be valuable to the student. In China in 1899 he gathered a most comprehensive collection of books on China and the Chinese people." This he gave to Stanford University. It became the nucleus of the great Chinese library there. Dr. Rosenbach described how he had informed President Coolidge that the first edition (1865) of Alice in Wonderland was not to Lewis Carroll's liking and was therefore sup- pressed. President Coolidge had remarked: "Suppressed? I didn't know there was anything off-color in Alice."

#&182; Still under fire for his veto of the Wagner bill, President Hoover last week appointed John R. Alpine of New York, an A. F. of L. man, as special assistant to Secretary of Labor Doak to expand the existing Federal Employment service with an extra $500,000 allowed by Congress. Meanwhile Secretary Doak, reporting an increase in February employment over January, declared: "It looks to me like the first sign of a general pick-up in industry."

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