The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-12
DANIELS HELPS
 HUGHES TO SEE
 CAMPAIGN JOKE
'Ex-Secretary Recites Up. rOariOus Issues In
 c. o. P. Drive
fRy Associated Press.)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11.-Secretary . Hughes recent campaign speech in Gin cinnati was mgde the particular tar get of an attack delivered against the record of the present administration here tonight by Josephus Daniels, who served as secretary of the navy under Wilson.
 Mir. Daniels took as his text for a radio address the declaration of MT. Hughes that i've not only have com mon honesty in this country, we have a sense of humor.'' This, said Mir. Daniels, shifted the republican cam paign to a new strategic base.
 p. "The conspiracy of silence" he con- tinued, "broke down everywhere ex- eept in the White House. Oh, for got, and in the navy department. It was converted into a deaf and dumb asylum until after election. The muz- zling of Wilbur was not a new pol icy, however. Every responsible man in the navy department was muzzled at the Washington conference while the secretary of state became secre- taryS of the navy, hauled down the American flag and handed the su- premacy of the seat to Britain, the supremacy of the air to France, and the control of the Pacific to Japan.
 New Campaign Stunt
 @ "The secretary undertakes now to make a joke of a long series of scan- dals and rejoices that we have sense of htlmor. It is a novel method< of campaigning. But Mir. Hughes is a past master at practicing it; not to speak of his ability to see joke which. Aid 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 of the thirty-one that the only way to insure entrance by this country into the League of Nations was to elect Harding and Cool fdge.s
 But the Towering of the sense of hunor so much praised came when it leaked out that the oil kings had ob- tained the whole of the S0,0O0 acres of the naval petroleum reserve. Fall and Sinclair had hilarious time at Three Rivers. The sense of humor was most appealed to when the end man of the performance transformed the $6S,0O0 into six or eight cows right in the presence of the audience.
 There has been no more delicate ap- peal to this vaunted sense of humor than the enforcement of prohibition. In private life Secretary Mellon. was. ' a boss distilIer. In public life he has made a failure of prohibition enforce tlent, but when Senator COuzens wanted to investigate Mellon, for the first time the White House became vocal.
 Laugh At Surplus
 You can imagine the hilarity be- hind closed doors when with a straight face treasury officials assured Presi dent Harding that if the soldiers were given compensation the treasury would go broke, and shortly afterward snickered as they paraded surplus. Don't you know Bascom Slemp and Edward B. Mclean had a jolly time ill Florida when they were practicing on 9iving horticultural names to their friends? They say official Washing ton 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 lad any, has been almost as side split ting as Sancho Panza's travels. "In this emergency comes the diplo- matic and witty secretary of state, and expounds the only philosophy that gives his party a chance. It is: You cannot stupify the public conscience by silence. You cannot satisfy it by swear words. The people work hard and pay high prices. They have griev- snces. Do not answer, explain or de- fend. 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,'