Evening star., 1924-10-12
ATTACK ON HUGHES.
MADE BY DANIELS.
Former Navy Secretary
0WeIIS on "Humor" of Scan
daIs in Washington.

Secretary Hughes recent campaign
speech in Cincinnati was made the
particular target of an attack deliv-
cred against the record of the pres
ent administration here last night by
Josephus Daniels, who served es Sec
retary of the Navy under Woodrow
Wilson.
Mr.. Daniels took as his text for a
radio address the declaration of Mr..
Hughes that I'VE not only have COM
mon honesty in this country, we have
a sense of humor" This, said Mt.
Daniels, shifted the Republican cam
paign to a new strategic base.
The conspiracy of silence" he con-
tinued. broke down everywhere ex-
cept in the White House. Oh, 1 for
got, and in the Navy Department.! 1t
was converted into 4 deaf and dumb
asylum until after election. The
muzzling OF Wilbur was not a new
policy. however. Every responsible
man in the Navy Department was
muzzled at the Washington confer
ence, while the Secretary of State
became Secretary of the Navy, hauled
down the American flag and handed
over the supremacy of the sea to
Britain, the supremacy of the air to
France and the control of the Pacific
to Japan.
JOKE OF SCANDALS.
THE Secretary undertakes now to
make joke of a long series of scan
dals and rejoices that we have a
sense of humor. 1t is novel method
of campaigning. But Mr.. Hughes is
a past master at practicing it; not to
speak of his ability to see a joke
which did not exist in the income tax
law, which, as Governor of New York,
he opposed; or his sense of humor
because Of his political associate
Newberry, whom he defended; or his
ability TO laugh up his sleeve at the
trick of the famous proclamation that
the only way to insure entrance by
this country into the League Of Ma
tions was to elect Harding and
Coolidge.
But the Towering of the sense of
humor so much praised came when II
leaked out that the oil kings had OBJ
tanned the whole of the $4,000 acres of
the naval petroleum reserve. Fall
and Sinclair had a hilarious time at
Three Rivers. The sense of humor
was most appealed to when the end
man of the performance transformed
the S6S.000 into six or eight cows
right in the presence of the audience.
Mellon ms Distiller.
L
appeal to this vaunted sense of
humor than the enforcement of pro-
hibition. In private life Secretary
Mellon was a boss distiller. In pub
lie life he has made a failure or
prohibition enforcement, but when
Senator Couzens wanted to investi-
gate Mellon, for the first time the
White House became vocal.
You can imagine the hilarity be-
q
straight face Treasury officials as
sured President Harding that If the
soldiers were given a compensation
the Treasury would go broke, and
shortly afterward snickered as they
paraded a surplus. Don't you know
Bascom Slemp and Edward B. Nc
Lean had a jolly time in Florida when
they were practicing on giving horti-
cultural names to their friends? They
say official Washington laughed until
their sides shook when they learned
that Apples was the code name for
Fall. Could anything be funnier?
"Our foreign policy, when we have
had any, has been almost as sidesplit-
ting as Sancho PanZa'S travels.
In this emergency comes the Dip
1omatic and witty Secretary Of State.
and expounds the only philosophy
that gives his party a chance. 1t is:
You cannot stupify the public con-
science by silence. You cannot sat
isfy it by swear words. The people
work hard and pay high prices. They
have grievances. Do not answer, ex-
plain or defend. Entertain and
amuse them. Give them an apricot
circus and excursions to Palm Beach.
If you can induce them to laugh, they
will forget their troubles and grin as
they go to the polls