Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-15
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Many politicians think President
Hoover Is practicing bad psychology"
In not delivering his maiden message
| of by proxy. The periodical appear
ances of Presidents Wilson, Harding and
Coolidge on Capitol Hill for message
! reading purposes were always events and
| invariably created good impressions. In
| Hoover'S case, congressional old hands
think he would have got of on the right
| foot with his first Congress If he'd hon.
| ored the House and Senate with his
presence at the opening of the special
session. There are one or two factors
| which governed the Presidents decision
to send his message up to be read for
him. Probably the principal reason is
his desire. at least at the outset Of the
administration, to avoid big-stick meth
DDS, or anything family resembling
| them. Another reason is Hoover's well
known aversion to public speaking
where he has to face an audience. The
President vastly prefers the microphone
| to the platform. He has perfected his
radio style" during the past few years,
until he is today one of the real stars
Of the air.
DR.. Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary
| of the Interior, as nearly everybody
! knows, is a physician by profession
| One of the side-lines, which he's taken
into the Hoover cabinet with him, is
| the craftsmanship of the Committee
on the Cost of Medical Care" 1t was
organized in Washington couple OF
years ago, to carry on flve-year study
of the economic aspects of the care and
prevention of illness. DR.. Wilbur con-
siders that proposition almost as i'm
portant a public issue as oil eonserva-
| tion-and then some. He's going to
Boston on Wednesday, to address the
Hub Chamber of Commerce at lunch
con on the cost of medical care. While
| there is no direct relation between
/ Wilbur's Boston address and the medi-
cal-cost row which has just. broken
out in Chicago, it is an interesting
coincidence. The national committee
| which Secretary Wilbur heads is giving
the most serious and comprehensive
! thought to the vital question OF the
high price Of keeping well.
X ** X
| DR.. James N. Doran, the prohibition
commissioner, who's going to investi-
gate California grape production and
| the cause of its fabulous prosperity, Is
q DIdVC II1dIls x1C . 1AOo why AAAO'AAAG
against what has become. one of the
basic industries of the Hoover admins
| trations home State, but against inter-
ests captained by one of the Presidents
bosom friends. The friend Is Capt
| Thomas C. G. Gregory, San Francisco
| lawyer, and for many years, according
to popular report, Mr.. Hoover's personal
counsel. Capt. Gregory is general coun-
| sci for the California Grape-GroWerS
Association, the organization of ranch
ers'' who have so vastly increased their
| acreage, output and profits since en-
actment of the eighteenth amendment
! Gregory happens also to be the Presi-
dents next-door neighbor at Palo Alto
Their palatial homes there back on to
each other. Gregory ranks with Rick
ard Wilbur, kellogg and Requa as one
Of the Big Five" of the Hoover OLD
Guard. He was one of 1.-THE Chiefs
principal postwar adjutants IN Europe
X ~
Secretary Stimson thinks that one of
his assets as diplomat Is his lack OF
"poker face" When his classmates
of Yale '88 gave him a farewell dinner
two years ago, on the eve OF his de-
parture for Manila, Col. StimSon re-
marked that he was about to plunge
into the vortex Of Oriental politics
hopelessly devoid of the physiognomy
supposed to be essential in that field.
He says he lived in the Philippines long
enough to undermine that theory. The
Secretary OF State, instead Of trying to
cultivate q poker face" specialized In
laying all his cards on the table. Cue
ION, Roxas and the other Filipino polit-
icos met him in kind, and the result
was thatsthe American governor general
got on swimmingly with them.
= X X
This observer has to record the ban
ner radio fan" experience Of his broad
casting lifetime. A widow in heavy
weeds recently addressed herself to him.
to say that for the many months Of ILL
ness preceding her late husbands de-
mise the broadcaster had been an I'M
| failing comfort to him on recurring
Tuesday evenings at o'clock II want
to tell YOU" the WidoW wrote thai