Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-30
BY WILLIAM HARD.

Today this campaign seems in some
ways to be going from bad to worse. A
week ago this writer narrated some
features of the anti-Catholic, anti-alien
and anti-negro so-called whispering
campaign against Gov. Smith. 1t con-
tinues undated. especially in the
matter of trying to hold Gov. Smith
responsible (Which he is noD for the
presence and prominence of negroes In
the municipal services of the city OF
New York.
This week the writer notes that the
whispering" campaign against Hoover
bids fair to equal in virulence the
whispering" campaign against Smith.
The campaign against Hoover In
whispering" channels runs all the way
from the well worn tale about how he
allegedly cheated Chinaman out OF a
coal mine when he was in his bright
and blushing early twenties to a Won
derful yarn which Is now being circu-
lated in California to the effect that in
his youth he left behind him at STAN
ford University an unpaid board bill.
The Chinaman, in fact, ended up his
acquaintance with Hoover by making
him his agent in London for the dis
posal of his valuables there, thus ap-
parently deliberately asking to be
cheated some more, but Hoover's de-
termination to cheat him may be gagged
by the fact that Hoover personally
saved him from getting executed by a
firing squad at the siege of TientSin
during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, thus
painstakingly keeping him alive in
order to be sure to be able to cheat
him afterward.
1t is a sad tale, this tale of Chang
Yen Mao, and Hoover must certainly
sometimes wish that he had let the
firing squad get him, but what Is there
really for Hoover to do with the per-
verters and "whisperers" of it? Hoover
is a good deal of a novice in politics,
but he has amply learned that old
Uncle Joe Cannon was eternally right
when he one day meditatively re-
marked:
IF you get into an argument with
a skunk. it doesn't make much differ
ence which wins"
AS for the unpaid board bill story,
the funniest feature of it IS the num-
Der of serious letters to Hoover urging
him to denounce the villainouS fabri-
Gators of it and thus publicly clear his
name from an otherwise indellble stain.
y X X X
Absolute priority and pre-eminence
of righteousness must be assigned.
however. to the persistent whispers
about alcoholic beverages in Hoover
Washington house. The eminent prac-
ticing vets of Washington have long
regarded with horror any invitation by
Hoover to dine with him. Their eX-
pcriences in waiting-course after course
at his dinner table for the appear
ance upon it of anything actually
drinkable have been in the nature of a
diabolical torture. leading them now to
start getting fortified as soon as their
wives tell them that they are due to
dine at 1900 S street.
The dryneSS of Hoover's house has, in
fact, been a Kissing and byword for
all these many years in social Wash
ington. and yet now there is actually
an altitudinous Democrat who claims
in letter privately circulated to have
been served with liquor in it. Con-
fronted with the letter the writer has
a faint recollection that the serving OF
the liquor may have happened in some
other house in the same part of Wash
ington. But what good does that do
when the letter, although unpublished
itself, has clready produced a half
dozen editorials charging Hoover with
drinking privately among his social &C
quaintances in his home.
Gov. Smith in his speech on the oil