"A Strong Step"

President Hoover did not bother to go to the Capitol for the midnight adjournment of Congress. He had ten days in which to sign bills and that could be done just as well in the White House Office as in the President's Room off the Senate lobby under the "Eye of God." Besides, Bonus-seeking veterans were making a ruction out on Pennsylvania Avenue which required police attention. The White House motor under the portico was dismissed and the President spent the evening indoors.

Before signing the $2,122,000.000 Relief Bill, President Hoover issued a statement thanking "leaders of both political parties" for putting the measure into "effective shape." Declared the President:

"We have a solid backlog of assurance that there need be no hunger and cold in the United States. . . . The obnoxious features injected by members of the House have been eliminated. The $100,000.000 charity feature has been abandoned. The pork barrel infection has been eliminated. . . .

"The possible destructive effect upon credit institutions by the so-called publicity clause has been neutralized by the declaration of the Senate leaders that this provision is not to be retroactive and that the required monthly reports of future transactions are of confidential nature and must be so held unless otherwise ordered by Congress.

"The measure is a strong step toward recovery.

" Many a Representative disagreed with the President's interpretation of the bill's publicity clause. They held that Congressional reports are always public documents, that informal "declarations" by Senators to the contrary do not impose confidence. Floor Leader Rainey declared that the House Clerk and Senate Secretary would be guilty of "malfeasance" if they withheld the R. F. C. reports.

P: President Hoover cut his own salary from $75,000 per year to $60,000. This was his contribution to the Government's economy campaign, voluntary because Congress lacks Constitutional power to reduce his pay. Not since Theodore Roosevelt ($50,000) has a President received so little. For President Hoover the salary cut meant real self-denial; his personal income has suffered badly in the Depression.-- Simultaneously all Cabinet salaries were pared from $15,000 to $12,750.

P: Announcement of the Anglo-French accord to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the U. S. on War Debt payments stirred the Senate to noisy apprehension. As an outgrowth of the Lausanne agreement on Reparations, troubled legislators viewed it as a European united front to force Revision, if not Cancellation. There were dark intimations that U. S. diplomats in Switzerland had been consulted, had even given informal assent to the debtors' doings. This the State Department sharply denied. Raw nerves were further soothed when, largely for domestic political consumption. President Hoover wrote Senator Borah as follows:

"I wish to make it adequately clear that the United States has not been consulted regarding any of the agreements concluded recently at Lausanne and of course is not a party to nor in any way committed to any such agreements.

"While I do not assume it to be the purpose of any of these agreements to effect combined action of our debtors, if it shall be so interpreted, then I do not propose that the American people shall be pressed into any line of action or that our policies shall be in any way influenced by such a combination, either open or implied."

*Friends estimate that President Hoover's fortune has shrunk from some $4,000,000 to some $700,000; his private income from some $200,000 to $30,000.

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