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Show Released by Western Newspaper Union. HERBERT HOOVER AND POLITICAL HISTORY TO ME the dominant character in America, the man whom I, personally, person-ally, should most like to see as President of the United States, is Herbert Hoover. I have no expecta- tion of seeing him again occupy the i White House. I know he does not want a nomination to any public of- , fice and doubt if he would accept one for any office if it were tendered. His place in America today is that of an influential citizen; to me, the ' outstanding cider statesman. With that statement as an introduction, I will recount some bits of political , history in which Mr. Hoover figured j and as I saw them in the making. I In the 1932 campaign, Mr. Hoover knew long before the votes were counted that he was beaten. Much against his personal wishes, he took to the stump in an effort to soften the blow as much as possible. Members Mem-bers of the Republican "old guard" in charge of that campaign were even less than disinterested in Hoover's Hoo-ver's election. They were devoting thir pflfnHs to their own cause, and several of them were not successful. Four years later, at the Cleveland convention, I spent a portion of an afternoon reading an address Herbert Her-bert Hoover was to deliver before , the convention that evening. After reading it, I said to him: "You do not want the nomination to be made by this convention but you will have it if you do not leave the platform and the building immediately im-mediately after the completion of your address this evening." He did not agree with my state-S state-S ment as to the elTect of the address on the delegates, but he did leave the platform and the building the instant in-stant the last word of that address was spoken. The demonstration that followed was a tremendous ovation. Competent political experts assured me that had he remained and so inspired the continuance of that ovation, ova-tion, he would undoubtedly have been the nominee. Again, four years after Cleveland, at Philadelphia, Hoover was to, and did, address the convention. An element, ele-ment, with a favorite candidate, re membered the Cleveland incident. They knew it was not the way Hoover Hoo-ver said things, but what he said that swayed his audience. They were taking no chances on the effect on that audience of delegates. dele-gates. The instant the Hoover address ad-dress began, the loud speaker system, sys-tem, went out of commission and remained out until Mr. Hoover finished fin-ished talking. No one in the auditorium audi-torium heard what he said. It marked the end of any Hoover influence in-fluence on that convention. From his hotel, immediately following fol-lowing the completion of his address, ad-dress, Hoover announced he did not wish to be considered a candidate for the nomination and his name was not presented. The evidently planned failure of a loud speaker system had marked the end of the political ambitions am-bitions or expectations of a great American. To me the loss was that of the nation, but as a distinguished citizen, as an elder statesman, Mr. Hoover exerts a tremendous influence influ-ence on American thinking. . Six months before the Philadelphia convention, Representative Joe Martin, Mar-tin, then chairman of the Republican National committee, asked me to name my choice for the nomination. r I named Herbert Hoover. "If he could be nominated, we could elect him," Martin said. Some one, or some group, had taken no chances on a dark horse nomination. FOR LAST OCTOBER THE NATIONAL NA-TIONAL CONFERENCE board reported re-ported that a fraction more than one of each two people, men, women wom-en and children, in the United States was gainfully employed. The total of 63,612,000 had a paying job of some kind. It is these workers of today and those of the tomorrows who must, in time, pay off the national na-tional debt. On October 31, 1943, the average for each worker amounted amount-ed to $2,595. 'What the workers of today do not pay will be left as an inheritance for their children, the workers of tomorrow. At the present pres-ent time the debt is increasing at about $100 per worker per month. WHAT WE DO, how much we accomplish, ac-complish, is a subject for pride, not how much we spend. The fact the government spent 88 billions of dollars dol-lars in 1943 is not, of itself, something some-thing to boast about though it is an all time spending record and represents rep-resents more than the total cost ol government for all of our first 15C years, including the financing of all previous wars. THERE IS NO INCENTIVE tc produce when all the profits of pro-auction pro-auction are taken for taxes. Thai marks the vanishing point for the tax collector. EXPERIENCE IS BETTER than theory, though that is not admitted by Washington bureaucrats whe have only theory. . . . HITLER IS BETWEEN the devil the deep blue sea and the Allied armies. To whichever he turns, h dies. |