The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-06-13
HOOVER HOTEL
ROOM drama
NO MYSTERY
Open Conference Contrasts
With Secret Session
Naming Harding.
100 SCRIBES LOOK ON
First News of Ware Break
Carried by Reporters
Voice.
BY CoURTENAY TERRETT

KANSAS CITY, Mo, June 13.-
According to the now almost apo
cryphal tale, the President, whom
Senator Fess calls our beloved
Harding was nominated in Chi
cago hotel room at 2 o'clock in the
morning by six grim and ponderous
super mentalities and a voice over
a long distance wire.
The voice was Boise Penrose' s,
coming from his sickbed in Penn
sylvania and the six corporal bod
les we're those Of the well-remem-
bered Daugherty, Wadsworth of
New York, now an obscure devourer
of detective fiction; John T. King,
who died before a couple of swim
ding indictments could be tried; the
fascinating Jake Hamon. who later
was obliterated by a retired female
friend: Joe Healing. whom death
did not remove from the Indiana
boss-ship before the Stephenson
scandals broke, and Senator Jim
Watson, the freshly-scoured hero of
that States delegates.
Everything New
Herbert Hoover. who will be
nominated by 1,O89 yes-men on
Thursday, was chosen for the Re-
publican candidacy in a hotel cor
ridor, open to anyone who happened
to step off an elevator.
A reporter for a tabloid news
paper. by reading a flimsy handout
given him by a political courtier tc
spread it around among the boys, "
unwittingly nominated Hoover.
This unconscious hero's name IS
Joe CoWan, and he owes everything
to the fact that he had his glasses
hooked to his ears and ready for a
simple job Of handout reading when
the nameless newspaper man 10
whom the slip was first offered
fumblsd for his spectacles.
The statement which he read was
that by which the Honorable Will
liam S. Ware, the Senator-elect from
Pennsylvania kicked the throne out
from under the elegant and DELHI
crate figure of Mellon.
Breakline Expected
A hundred pressmen had as
sembled in the corridor outside the
treasury secretary's suite, expecting
nothing more than to be called in
and told that he had nothing to
say" when Wares phrases, announc-
ing his application for a seat on
Herbert Hoover's big red band
wagon, was red.
At the moment Mellon was in a
master mind conclave somewhat
similar to that of 1920.
He busily was practicing up on
the assembled delegates the White
House technique of saying nothing,
and he was, up to the moment that
Wares simple words we're read, the
accredited boss of the convention
and very large political potato.
Senator David Reed, his agent,
was prepared to read a polite little
announcement that Mellon was in
conference" and telling the boys to
go back to their telegraph wires and
inform the world that the Pittsburgh
sphynx had not chosen to choose
his candidate just yet.
The King Is Dead
Senator Reed had his head poked
out the door when he caught the
words of the handout reader. There
upon he ducked back and closed the
door softly.
Mellon, Senator Reed, Chairman
Butler and little group of better
minds sat still in the hotel room
Mellon. no longer the boss of the
convention, now was merely Penn
sylvania rich man, who held the Of
flee of Secretary of the Treasury.
A burly colleague, to whom dis
dem and dose" and reeking cigars
are as natural as an appetite for
Rembrandt's and gentle crypticiSmS
are with him, had made him in an
instant just another Hoover in
| dorSer.