Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-03
HOOVER INTENDS TO RUN
u. S. ON BUSINESS LINES
Expected to Tackle Presidency as
Vast Engineering Job-keen
on Science.

Herbert Hoover yearnS as soon as
possible to put the great big thing We
call our Government on the planning
! table of his executive workshop and do
it over He is bug on charts. For
years there hung in his Office at the
Department of Commerce huge
framed diagram charting the countless
branches of the Federal Government.
Hoover has stood in front of the picture
for half an hour at time, putting away
at pipe. and thinking. His associates
knew what he was thinking about. Often
he thought out loud about it.
What he said. in effect, was that the
American ship of state is a craft that
reaks and creaks with senseless over
tapping in every rook and corner. One
of the earliest and best Hoover stories
was his tale of the three bears. He
wasn't in the cabinet six months be-
fore he found, to his amusement and
amazement that Uncle Sans bears are
regulated by no fewer than three Gov
eminent departments. Hoover diScOv-
cred that polar bears come undc" the
Interior Department, brown bears under
the Department of Agriculture. and
black bears under the War Department.
The President-elect considers that the
three-bearS system or lack of system.
is rampant in the Government, or prev
alent at least TO an extent that
hampers efficiency. creates unnecessary
duplication and involves useless cX-
penditure. Hoover is going hunting for
three bears" soon. and as often as
necessary. 1t is going TO be his favorite
indoor sport at the White House. His
chief assistant huntsman will be in the
cabinet-Walter +. Brown, who six years
ago drew up at President Harding's di-
rection a comprehensive plan for re-
organizing the executive departments.
It has remained pigeon-holed in the.
White House and in Congress. Hoover
will haul it out and overhaul it.
Based Broadly on Trade.
This writer foreshadows that the
State Department will be one of the
very earliest fields of the chief ,ngi-
neers recognizing activities. Hoovers
plans for overhauling our foreign Serv-
ice are based broadly on the belief that
its principal function nowadays is to
develop and safeguard American trade
abroad. That theory is responsible for
the report that the place the President
elect has in mind for DR. julius Klein,
chief of the Bureau of Foreign and Do
mestic Commerce under Hoover's Com
merce secretaryship, is one of the State
Departments four assistant secretary
ships. 1t would be the one concerned
with consular affairs-the existing bust
ness branch Of the department. The
Commerce Departments system of COM
mercial attaches would probably be
merged into an all-inclusive State De-
partment agency.
To what extent Hoover will consider
career men" in the foreign service is
something about which there is much
speculation, and. among the officials in
that class, no little perturbation Hoo
yer has seen too many of our ex-
perienced career men" in meritorious
activity all over the world to be minded
to throw them out of Office wholesale.
On the other hand the President ELECT
is not at all keen about men who are
in the foreign service chiefly because
OF its pleasant social opportunities at
home and abroad. Our diplomatic and
consular woods are full of that type of
men. Their days, under Hoover, are
Individually numbered.
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