A Serious Hour

The issue before the country is the re-establishment of confidence by ending these delays in balancing the Budget. . . . It is not a partisan issue . . . not a controversy between the President and Congress. It is an issue of the people against delays and destructive legislation which impair the credit of the United States. It is also an issue between the people and the locust swarm of lobbyists who haunt the halls of Congress seeking selfish privileges . . . misleading members as to the real views of the people by showers of propaganda. . . . This is a serious hour which demands that the people rise with stern courage above partisanship to meet the needs of our national life.

It was with a warm feeling that has not come to him often during his Administration that President Hoover thus addressed the nation last week. Rarely had the White House correspondents, to whom and through whom he spoke, seen him so pleased and self-confident. Overwhelming evidence had come to him overnight that he really had the country behind him in a time and on an issue of utmost importance. The White House secretariat had showed and described this evidence to the Press--a real, continuous flood of telegrams, telephone calls and letters cheering for the President's message to Congress the day before, a sudden, sharp message calling for protection of the nation's credit (see col. 3).

President Hoover had not been to the Capitol since Washington's Birthday, but no journalist in Washington could deny the accuracy of his "locust swarm" phrase in describing the country's legislative halls (see above).

The President followed up his statements to Congress and the country in two ways: 1) He ordered his political entourage not to pick up his words for partisan purposes. 2) He forewent his week-end at the Rapidan to hold two night conferences in the Lincoln Study with Treasury officials and those men of his party who really count in the Senate. At these meetings a legislative program, of which Action was the keynote, was discussed, devised.

P: Two evenings before President Hoover's special message went to Congress, a tired-looking gentleman in a Homburg hat stepped off a train from New York. It was John Pierpont Morgan. ''I'm just down here for dinner," he told newsmen. "I have no statement to make." Two private detectives closed in chorusing: "Mr. Morgan has no statement to make." That night Secretary of the Navy

Adams gave a formal dinner for President Hoover at which Mr. Morgan was also a guest. Other guests included Charles Dewey Hilles, G. O. P. boss of New York and Louis Kroh Liggett. G. 0. P. boss of Massachusetts.

P: President Hoover signed a bill whereby this year's graduating class at the U. S. Naval Academy can be commissioned ensigns in the Navy.

P: Before vetoing the new Tariff bill which deprives him of his flexing power, the President circulated it at the State, Treasury and Commerce Departments for expert opinion as to why it should be killed.

P: "Trying to please nine different Presidents and their families in the matter of keeping the White House not too warm and not too cold has been some job, believe me!" declared Edward A. Norris as he retired after 40 years service as engineer at the White House.

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