Evening star., 1928-11-08
HOOVER LEFT FREE
TO SELECT CABINET
While Candidate He Made No
Promises, Associates Say.
May Recognize Women.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Herbert Hoover will take Office March
4, 1929, untrammeled and unburdened
by campaign pledges. This statement
can be made on authority. It was not
Forthcoming from the President-elect
either on the eve of expected victory
or since. It dates from the earliest
inception of Mr.. Hoover's White House
ambitions.
1T became the hallmark of the Cali
fornian's preconvention activities. Every
one who expressed a desire to be
identified with his contest for the Re-
publican nomination was cleared up on
that score from the outset.
Hoover welcomed voluntary support,
and his friends went cunning for sup
port of him. But from start to finish
from the hour of the Coolidge LIDO
not-choose-to-run manifesto, in August,
1927, to the moment of Hoover's
triumph at Kansas City, In June, 1928
all and sundry understood that the
Secretary of Commerce was not buy
ing support with promises cashable
after March 4.
Had Example Before Him.
Hoover constantly had before him.
In the pursuit of his White House
aspirations the horrible example of
what pre-administration pledges did
for, and to, the Harding regime. When
Harding named his cabinet in 1921
it was commonly thought that. with
the probable exception of Hughes,
Hoover and Mellon, nearly every port
folio was bestowed either upon personal
cronieS of the incoming President or
in fulfillment of political understand
dngs.
Everybody will remember the popu-
HI NA fan
Harding cabinet-Hughes, Hoover and
Mellon9were considered the silver
plating which the PreSident-elect had
given an official household otherwise
mainly notable for It's political ear
marks.
The Republican whom the country
elected President this week by so
colossal a aiority--unleSS he has
abandoned the position to which he
committed himself Is months ago-will
enter the White House heart whole and
fancy free. Naturally, Hoover is going
to be surrounded by trusted friends in
many cases, but the prediction here is
11azarded that they will also be men
(and possibly women) whom the Nation
viii identify as persons entirely worthy
to sit in the Hoover official household.
Owes Much TO Women.
The President-elect owes so much to
the women and their vote that it is al
together likely the newly enfranchised
sex win be conspicuously recognized in
the composition of his administration
At one time Mabel Walker Willebrandt
was a possibility for the attorney gen.
eralship. Now the probability Is that
William ]. Donovan of New York will
be placed at the head of the Depart
ment of Justice. Donovan has been
one of Hoover's very closest counselors
for the past year.
Now that many things can be told,
it is permissible to explain Hoover'S So
called lodging" of many controversial
issues during his victorious campaign.
lie once said to this writer that he
thought Gov. Smith was pursuing an
unwise policy In so categorically prom
Using what he was going to do If elect
ed President Hoover preferred the role
OF conservatism in the field of pledges,
because, he said, he had constantly in
mind the possibility Of having to make
good" on thsm.
He did not want to let himself in for
anything that he wasn't 100 per cent
sire of being able to carry out. That
is one of the correlated reasons why
Hoover refraiIled from any extempore