McAdoo on Hoover

Rarely mentioned about the White House these days is the Wartime period when, as Food Administrator, Herbert Hoover got his political start under a Democratic President. Fortnight ago William Gibbs McAdoo, null Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury and Director-General of Railways, published his autobiography Crowded Years* Politically minded readers thumbed through it to see what this Democrat would say about the man who later became a Republican President. They found two mentions each with a sting in it.

Mr. McAdoo described Mr. Hoover's panicky interview of February 1918. in which he predicted a 60-day food crisis and blamed rail congestion. After some fruitless correspondence Mr. Hoover, with his legal adviser, called at the McAdoo office. Writes Mr. McAdoo: "Glasgow [the legal adviser] did all the talking. Hoover sat with downcast eyes, like a diffident schoolboy. I do not recall that he had anything to say. Glasgow told me . . . Mr. Hoover regretted his statement [and] that its publication was a mistake. ... I said I thought Mr. Hoover should make his complaints to me and not to the public through the newspapers. . .. Mr. Glasgow finished his say, Mr. Hoover completed his inspection of the floor and they took their departure."

Referring to the Wilson practice of "adjourning politics" and appointing Republicans to office, Mr. McAdoo declared: "It was a wise course and it gave some of the Republican leaders of today their start in political life. Herbert Hoover was one. Hoover was a practically unknown man who had spent most of his adult life abroad. . . . His chief distinction had been acquired in distributing free food to the Belgian people-a celebrity easily won. I fancy, as the job of giving away things requires very little wear and tear on one's ability."

* Houghton Mifflin Co. $5.00.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.