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Show ; I GRASSROOTS When Herbert Hoover Talks, All America Listens ! i By Wright A. Patterson WHEN HERBERT HOOVER talks, all of America listens. When I i the people of the nation have the j j j opportunity of both listening and j seeing, they take advantage of both I 1 j opportunities. They had both on ! j j January 27 when the man whom the i j people recognize as a national lead- i er was on both radio and television, j ; Then millions of Americans, re- , gardless of political affiliations, both I looked and listened. Those letters I that Hoover appreciated most were j from the homes of the nation, writ- i ten in longhand on plain stationery, i nearly 7,000 of them. Those letters : indicated a willingness to accept the i 1 leadership of the former president j on so vital a subject as our national f i defense. For him, those 7,000 letters let-ters constituted a heart-warming : ; experience, but there were many 1 ! others coming from those recognized ! as 'experts in defense lines, and ex- , I ' pressing firm approval in what he had said. From the army there were letters let-ters from Lt. General Albert W. i i j Wedemeyer, Lt. General Leslie B. I ; j Groves. Lt. Gen. Harold L. George, I j j Major General Hugh Knerr and Gen- eral Brice P. Bisque. ! ! j From the top brass of the navy j there were letters of approval and j commendations, with the privilege j of quoting them, from such officers ; I as Admiral William V. Pratt, Ad- I . 1! miral William H. Standley, Admiral j Harry E. Yarnell, and Capt. James j ' E. van Zandt, now a congressman, i From the realm of diplomacy: ; Henry P. Fletcher, former undersecretary under-secretary -of -state and ambassador I I : ! to Chile, Mexico, Belgium and Italy; William R. Castle, former director European division department of state, under-secretary-of-state, ambassador am-bassador to Japan; Hugh Gibson, former ambassador to Belgium; Spruille Braden, former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Argentine, Colombia and Cuba; Joseph A. Kennedy, former ambassador ambas-sador to Great Britain; Arthur Bliss Lane, minister to Estonia, Latvia and Poland; Jesse Jones, former secretary of commerce, chairman reconstruction finance corporation. All of the above endorsed Hoover's statements that the nation should concentrate on the construction of more sea and air power rather than on additional ground forces as a defense de-fense against Russia, and that we must also protect our economy, and not waste our resources in Europe It was the agreement with and the approval of those statements in the 7,000 long hand written letters received re-ceived by Mr. Hoover from American Ameri-can homes which he so much appreciated. ap-preciated. It would be well for those of us who are interested only in provable facts that we prepare in advance for the storm of invective, mud, filth and generalities that will be showered upon us by political orators ora-tors of both parties through the period pe-riod of the coming presidential campaign cam-paign of July. August, September and October. The coming one will be such a mud slinging campaign as has not been known since the days of the 70's and 80's of the last century, and both parties will indulge in the same type of invective. . President Truman set the keynote of the campaign in his address before be-fore the national Democratic Woman's Wom-an's club at Washington in November. Novem-ber. He was greeted with applause because he was talking to an audience audi-ence who have voted Democratic because father and grandfather voted that ticket. His generalities did not change any votes, nor will the orators of efther party who indulge in the same type of generalities. Those whose votes can be changed want provable facts. For example, the president charged the Republicans with the expenditure of vast sums contributed by a small minority for purely selfish self-ish reasons in an effort to attain a result, in which they failed. The fact is the Republicans spent in that campaign a total of $1,444,-894.77. $1,444,-894.77. In the same campaign the Democrats spent $2,066,372.50. The figures are those submitted to congress con-gress as required by law, by the national chairmen of the two parties. par-ties. In the Ohio senatorial campaign, cam-paign, he charged that Senator Taft received vast sums from "special interests" in their attempt to influence in-fluence legislation for corporate wealth, but he said nothing about the assessments levied against all members of organized labor, and spent to defeat Taft that organized labor bosses might benefit from legislation leg-islation in behalf of a minority. |
