The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1927-02-04
The Cherry
" Where with our
roo Little Hatchet
we tell the truth
about many things, sometimes pro-
foundly, sometimes flippantl-.
sometimes recklessly.

Twice a week there takes place in
Washington, D. c., an event of great
President Coolidge
meets the newspaper correspondents.
He talks to them. He tells them
what he thinks and implies that they
ought to think likewise.
The correspondents go away. They
write pieces for their papers. These
pieces say that "the Official Spokes-
man" said this and that.
1t appears that the president, hav-
ing spoken, still has said nothing.
Only the "Offcial Spokesman" has
spoken-and usually he is quoted as
having said mouthful.
The Official Spokesman is the great
est myth of the Coolidge days. His
shadowy form is never seen, is never
even heard to move about, or to speak,
yet he is quoted at length.
1t has become custom that presi-
dents must not be quoted. Harding
invented the Official Spokesman and
Coolidge has developed him until his
wisdom-and his tommyrot-domi-
mates the white house press confer
ences.
There are sage Coolidge reasons for
sustaining, supporting and otherwise
maintaining this wrath of an Official
Spokesman. If, in the course of
events, presidential utterance may
be found to have been unwise, it can
be denied. In other words, if the pres
ident's Official Spokesman puts his
foot in it, the president can deny that
he ever gave voice to the unwise pro-
nouncement that caused the trouble.
Such instances have arisen and the
president has side-stepped.
1t is a great game, but it wears
thin-and it is deception.
These seems to be not a single
newspaper in America that dares to
riddle the phantom behind whose
shadowy form Calvin Coolidge hides
himself while he lectures the country
and promotes his third-term aspira-
tions
Not a single newspaper dares to
throw aside the presidential disguise
and report that today Calvin Coolidge
said this or that.
Every correspondent knows that the
penalty would be closed doors the next
time he came to see the Official
Spokesman.
And yet every honest correspondent
hates the subterfuge of it ALL
Whether one of them will some day
rend the veil and expose the ghost is
on the cards and no one knows how
the cards will turn.
There fingers the memory of how
the rollers were almost put under one
intrepid correspondent who started
out to do that little trick.
So the Official Spokesman goes his
way, talking his head off, while Can
vim Coolidge maintains almost intact
his reputation for reticence.
Coolidge is silent, but the Officia
Spokesman is the greatest gabbler il
current political life.
But, he is also a safeguard ane
therein lies his usefulness to one wht
is above all a master politician of 6
sort.
If the Official Spokesman should say
today that 1--WE are going to have wal
with Mexico" and the country should
rise in protest, Calvin Coolidge car
say tomorrow, 81 never said it and we
are not going to have war;" and he
would be Gin the clear"
The device is a good one. 1t is rec
commended to others who may have
need for avenues of escape when Their
lightning rods are hit the wrong way
That's where Ma Ferguson missed
her cue.