Evening star., 1928-11-06
HOOVER TADULATES
RETURNS AT HOME
Gathers Family. and Friends
Around Him for Long
Night Vigil.
BY REX COLLIER,


PALO ALTO. Calf, November g.
His ballot in the box, along with those
of four members of his immediate
family, Herbert Hoover this afternoon
gathered a small circle of relatives and
friends about him in the cozy study of
electorate.
The first returns. from two small
towns in Massachusetts reached him
from the Associated Press as he pre-
pared to go to the polls this morning,
and they brought smile to his face.
The dispatches told him that the people
of Mount Washington and Ashford in
the Bay State had cast their vote over
whelmingly for him.
Sporadic messages from other East
ern points began to trickle in after he
had completed luncheon in the oak
panelled, beam-ceilinged dining room
of his Stucco residence on San Juan
Hill. overlooking the 200-acre campus
of Stanford University and the San
Francisco Bay.
BIackboards In Room.
He sat at the same desk from which
he broadcasted his final word to the
voters last night On the desk were
mental telephones and in room below
him were leased telegraph wires. He
centered his attention upon these COM
nunication series, for they were to tell
him. sometime tonight or tomorrow,
whether his three-month campaign for
the presidency had been in vain. The
crisis of an extraordinary career which
had carried him from an orphan,
campus laundry man and laborer to
so1r x.f f1ln ffn
Hoover appeared quietly, modestly con-
fident that the final step into those
sacred portals will have been success
fully negotiated by nightfall.
Putting long cigar and lingering
pencil and notepaper in anticipation of
incoming returns, he chatted easily with
his family and their friends of the
weather incident of the trip West and,
occasionally, of the election. Two big
blackboards stood ready for use in total
ing the electoral votes by States as they
might come in during the evening.
With him in the study, or just out
side the door in the spacious living
room, were Mrs Hoover; their two sons,
Herbert. jr., and Allan: Mrs. Hoover, jr.,
George Barr Baker, friend and adviser;
Lewis Straus, wartime personal secre-
tary; George Akerson, Hoover's assist
ant; Thomas p G. Gregory, lawyer and
one or two others.
Dr. David Starr Jordan, president
emeritus of the University and one Of
HooverS first professors in his old days
on the campus, also had been invited
to come this evening and join in the
informal party.
Press Men Invited.
Two score newspaper men were in
r1ted to make themselves at home and
drop in as they pleased to view the
family circle.
AS press association representatives
received special returns during the aft
ernoon. they were taken into the study
and read aloud. In another room
played the Hoover grandchildren, Her
bert, Sd, who celebrated his first BIRTH
day yesterday, and vivacious little
Peggy, two and half years DID, Hoover
is extremely fond of these lively young
sters and he spent an hour this morning
playing with Peggy.
From the window of his study, the
nominee looked upon gorgeous Cali
1ornia landscape, bathed in warm sun
shine and splashed with the green of
close-cropped turf, the pastel shades of
gigantic roses and chrysanthemums and
geranlun1s, the shimmering blue of the
day to the southeast and the shadow
background of the Contracosta Range
Of Mountains.
On that broad, tropic-like campus AZ
tf1e foot Of the hill Hoover had come rs
17-year-old Quaker lad to seek ad-
mittance to the founding university of
Leland Stanford. His night school
STUDIES in Oregon had netted him all
but few Of the necessary credits re-
quired for matriculation. His determi-
nation to make the grade won him the
friendship Of Prof. Jordan, however. and
he was given his chance"
Organized Students.
AS the candidate gazed out of the
window his thoughts perhaps were cf
the days when he and his chum, Lester
HtnSdale OF Sacramento, reorganized the
student government so thoroughly that
1t has stayed organized that way to this
day.
Hinsdale would have been with him
today but for an attack of illness. Mil
ton Esberg of San Francisco, another
old friend, is staying at the Hoover home
during the election period. After mark
ing their ballots in the women's club
house of the Stanford Union, amid the
confusion of cracking arc lights and
grinding motion picture cameras, the
Hoover family went home and prepared
for an afternoon automobile drive
Through the palm -fringed driveways of
the campus and the surrounding 1000
acres of picturesque land owned by the
university.
Hurrying through luncheon, Mr.. and
Mrs. Hoover, MIR. and Mrs. Hoover, jr,
and Lewis Strauss set forth for their
Drive. Allan got into an open sport car
and whizzed down the hillside to visit
his fellow students and professors.
Returning from the drive greatly re-
freshed, Hoover went into his study
again and continued his vigil If the
returns seemed to be coming in too fast
around dinner time, servants planned to
bring him a buffet meal Hoover gave
orders, moreover, that similar repast
be served the newspaper men, and he
sent one of his boxes of choice cigars to
them
FactOrtum in Charge.
In charge of such household manage
inent detail was HooverS faithful and
efficient factotum. Boris, bright-faced
Serbian and former American soldier,
whom Hoover has had in his employ
since the Paris peace conference. Boris
is sort of general manager Of the Hoover
household.
Hoover planned to remain up as late
tonight as the trend of returns con-
tinued to claim his interest. The news
paper men were prepared to make an
,all-night siege of it, if necessary. The
radio beside the stone fireplace in the
living room was to be brought into use
during lulls in the evenings program.