The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-10-13
KEEPING UP
With
THE NE WIS
BY LUDWELL DENNY
XXTAsHINGTON, Oct. 1S.-He

w bert Hoover is storing up for
himself a huge political debt to one
individual, which is expected to
have a deep effect on the next adj
miinstration if Hoover is in the
White House.
This is the reaction of old po-
litical observers today to the Re-
publican announcement that Sena-
tor Borah has been chosen to fol-
low Smiths campaign swing around
the doubtful Southern, border and
MidWestern States, to wipe out AIS
tracks"
To Borah, more than to any
other, Hoover probably owes his
nomination and his degree of sue
cess so far in the election campaign.
Neither Hoover nor Borah is the
type to make campaign trades"
But so long as politics and poll
ticians remain so much a matter
of personalities, it is believed in
evitable that such debts" always
end after a successful election in
close working friendship-or eX-
IRENE hatred.
Borah's relation with Hoover is
unusual. 1t is entirely different
from that of the old line wheel
horses, whom the candidate took
over automatically when he became
leader of the party. For Borah was
not part of that old organization.
The relationship is also different
from that of the younger Republic
an group, in Congress and the de-
partments, such as Ogden Mills, as
sistant secretary Of the treasury,
wild Bill'' Donovan, assistant at
torney general, and different from
that Of "Hoover's bright young men"
at the commerce department. Borah
is 63-neither young nor ambitious
to rise in party management.
The relationship is utterly unlike
that of the dozens such as that
other assistant attorney general,
Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt,
whose critics characterize her as "a
publicity seeker and climber" Hoo
yer, nor no one else in the country,
can give Borah any more publicity;
he long has had more than the
vainest of men could ask.
XXTHAr could Hoover give
w Borah? Long before Hoover's
day Borah had rejected the vice
presidency, various embassies
abroad, and several cabinet posts,
including that Of Secretary Of State.
There is nothing, apparently,
which Hoover could give-nothing,
that is, except a close political
friendship Of two equals working to-
gether for common purposes, one as
the chief executive and the other
in his own right the most powerful
figure in Congress.
Since Borah, so far as outsiders
can judge, could have had no posi-
BILE reason of personal advantage for
becoming the key man in tn Hoover
campaign, it is assumed he is act
ing solely from the belief that Hoo
ver's election will advance the type
of liberalism which Borah serves.
At any rate Borah threw his sup
port to Hoover in the pre-conven-
ton struggle when the candidate
was ignored by Coolidge and Mellon,
and opposed by both the so-called
reactionary Wall Street and So
called radical farm wings of the
party.
After the Wall Street opposition
collapsed at Kansas City, it was
Borah more than any other who
swung the revolving midwest del
egates aboard the band wagon.
Then, when Smith began his eff
fective campaigning through the
restless grain belt, the Republican
strategists found there was almost
only one G, o. P. speaker able to
vim back the boilers. That was the
Orator from Idaho. Now in the cru
cial closing weeks of the campaign
they trust Borah, almost alone, to
repair the damage of Smiths second
tour.
nor twenty years Borah has been
II been an independent lone-hand
leader Of the progressive group in
the party. Never has he bolted the
party. But never has he given UNI
questioning support to any Repub-
lican administration. Never has he
worked for a candidate as he is now
for Hoover.
Borah has many enemies. The
conservatives in Washington single
him out for hatred and abuse. The
radicals curse him almost as much.
because "he does not go the whole
way on any issue"
But all fear his opposition. All
court his help. All recognize that
he has more power to create public
opinion throughout the country and
control the Senate on close issue
than perhaps any man, including
Presidents.
Hoover, the silent, aloof, driving
executive; Borah, the eloquent
statesman of popular appeal--two
men utterly unlike in temperament
and training except for the extreme
individualism they share.
Working together, they would be
practically an unbeatable political
team; but, working against each
other they probably would wreck
and administration and provide
more fireworks than Washington
has seen in generation.
The Hoover political debt to
Borah already is too big probably
to result in anything but the closest
friendship or the bitterest enmity.