The Washington times., 1929-03-04

Cd of Arkansas, as % the Senate.
Governors of Half the States
and Justices Make Picture

The governors of more than half
the States were there--the black
robed and venerable justices OF the
Supreme Court-frock- coated SEN
ators. old and neW-diplomats, the
representatives of kings resplendent
in their brilliant court uniforms
officers-the rank of the Army and
the Navy-and out and beyond all
of these were many, many thous-
ands, perhaps a quarter of a mil
lion, of the plain people of Amer
ica by whose suffrage and because
of whose confidence the man with
the llpraised hand was stepping
into the first elective office he ever
held. which is also the most power
ful in the world.
And there on the white and gold
platform, too, mingling with the
hoity.toity of officialdom, was a
| group of Herbert Hoovers boyhood
| grows tall. The Droudest of the
| holding the hat of the man he
| in West Branch, Iowa, whoss
| a
Quaker community. Hard by "Oli
Iowan, who once licked the
round-faced man standing there 80
solemn and stern-visaged, Newt
wasn't belligerent today. He was
| awed.
Elite Of Hosts
In front of the new President as
he stood facing the black-robsd
Chief Justice stretched row upon
row Of upturned faces. These were
the elite of the inaugural hosts,
those who by position or influence
rated official seats for the historic
occasion.
Behind him on the other side of
the big dome. of Pennsylvania Ave-
nue.. from the Peace Monument to
the White House. They gathered
early on their hard-purchased, hard.
bottomed circus-no boards, waiting pa:
tiently for the moment when the
new President would come riding
back down the Avenue in solitary
state, to be followed later by the
pageantry of marching thousands.
Overhead was the steady drone OF
airpIanes.
What his thoughts were as he
stood there with appraised hand
listening to the Chief Justice inton.
ing the words of the oath only Mr..
Hoover himself knows. But they
might very we'll have been, "here
am I, an orphan boy, born in
proverty, self-educated and success
ful by my own efforts. unschooled
in politics. and now attaining the
headship of the most powerful coun.
try in the world by the greatest
vote ever given any man in the
worlds history. Such Is the miracle
and the opportunity of my coun.
try
Something like that may have
been running through his head.
Maybe it didn't. Maybe he was
thinking of the weather and won.
dering whether these ominous look
ing skies were yet going to open
up and spoil his day of triumph by
drenching the thousands who camo
| to acclaim him. He might even
have been thinking of something
that Calvin Coolidge said to him as
they rode side by side together
down the Avenue an hour before,
although Mr.. Coolidge is notoriously
q silent man on such occasions
Or of the picture in the President =
room a few minutes earlier when
ne stood and killed time in conver
sation while the hands of the clock
ticked off the death of the old
administration. .
/ No one but Mr.. Hoover knows
what his thoughts were as he stood
there and gazed into the face OF
his predecessor. and swore to uphold
the Constitution and defend IL
against all enemies.
| Whatever they were, he turned
away after the simple 81 DIDO" In
response to the questioning oath
! and, facing the multitude before