The Hoover Week

"What," asked newshawks of Baltimore & Ohio's tight-mouthed Daniel Willard as he emerged one day last week from the President's office, "was the purpose of your visit to the White House?"

Railroader Willard, who usually brushes through the press cordon in the White House lobby with a curt "nothing-to-say," paused to reply:

"I have found in my travels around the country that there is a nation-wide confusion as to when Indian Summer begins and when it ends. I believe such confusion should be ended and I came to solicit the President's help in getting through Congress a bill defining Indian Summer and establishing by law the date on which it begins and ends."

Newsmen grinned doltishly as busy Mr. Willard hurried out the door and went his way.

P: On what would be his last message to Congress on the State of the Union President Hoover put finishing touches. Also nearing completion was his message on the Budget for the first year of the Roosevelt Administration.

P: While President Hoover was napping on Thanksgiving Day two taxicabs rolled up to the White House gate. Out of one climbed a man and two women. Out of the other emerged six small children, one a pickaninny. Watchful police swooped upon them, bundled them all off to the station house. They constituted what had been heralded as "a mighty prelude" to a Communist "hunger march." One thousand children were supposed to have paraded, clutching empty milk bottles in their tiny fists.

P: In 1898 William Kirby Robinson, aged 31, robbed an Arkansas post orifice, was sentenced to four years in Leavenworth Penitentiary ("Bankers' Institute"). On his way to prison he picked his handcuffs loose, plunged from a moving train at Coffeyville, Kan., made his escape to California. There he married, served as a deputy sheriff, grew well-to-do running a store and tourist camp at Westmoreland. Conscience-stricken, he turned up at Leavenworth in October, announced that he was ready to serve his term. Only after a long search could the Department of Justice find any record of his case. He told his jailer that since 1920 California's Senator Shortridge and Representative Swing had known he was an escaped convict. Because of his good record for 34 years President Hoover last week gave William Kirby Robinson an unconditional pardon.

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