Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-25
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

There's absolutely nothing new under
the sun, even when so resourceful a
hand as that of Jimmie" Gerard clears
for action. The former Ambassadors
list of "a rulers of America" Is ante
dated, by more than % years, by a
roster of 100 lin whose grasp is the
destiny of the Republic" That tabula-
ton of power wielders was compiled by
the late Senator La Toilette of Wiscon-
sin and read to the United States
Senate in March. 1908. The money
trust was then the paramount issue.
One Of Fighting Bob's" contributions
10 the discussion was catalogue OF
railroad magnates, bankers, merchants
and other capitalists who, according to
La Toilette, held the Unions fate in
Among them about the only names
recognizable by n1oderns are those of
Charlie" Dawes, then Chicago bank
president, and the late Chauncey M.
Depew, whose power at the time was
confined mostly to after dinner wise
cracking. Charles S. Fairchild of New
York, Secretary of the Treasury in the
first Cleveland administration John
Clafiin Gotham merchant prince, and
Brayton Ives. Manhattan banker, were
on La Follette's list. So were minor
railroad leaders of the day-Edwir Haw-
ley and H. H Vreeland. Fighting Bob"
brought down a good many laughs on
his wise old head for including some
dead men in his table.
X
President Hoover would render pub
lie service II he'd make public all the
names of men who were offered and re-
fused the Craftsmanship of the United
Id nd
1t is an open secret at the White House
that Hoover had almost unprecedented
difficulties in filling the tariff post be-
fore Henry p. Fletcher accepted 1t. Mr..
Hoover was not surprised by his eX-
perience. Long before he became
President the Californian was familiar
with the disinclination of class A citi-
zens to run the gauntlet of political
gunner" who lie in ambush at Wash
| ington to blast the regulations of men
whose standing was never challenged
| until they were named for high Federal
| Office. It has long been Hoover theory
| that the country is Systematically
| cheated out of the services OF fine and
| capable personalities by their reluc-
| lance to become targets for unmerited
abuse.
Henry p. Fletcher might have re-
manned an incouspicuous figure in
| American life If he hadn't joined Roose-
| velt's Rough Riders in 1893. When
TT. r. became President in 1901 one
| Of the first of his Cuban comrades to
| turn up in Washington and pay res
poets was the young Pennsylvania,
| Fletcher expressed an ardent desire TO
enter the diplomatic service. He likes
| to tell nowadays how he had to poster
Teddy" before the President finally
gave him his chance as second secre-
tary of the American legation in China:
Fletcher had just completed a couple of
| years of soldering in the Philippines.
A good many heads are being shaken
in Washington over the selection OF
Pennsylvania Republican organization
protectionist to run the flexible ma
chinery of the "Grundy tariff" Fetch
er's record as fighting man, both in
war and peace, leads his friends to
assert that he's just the dentist to put
teeth into the revisionary provisions
of the law.
Not for many moons has a magazine
article stirred national political quar-
ters so much as Frank r. Kent's
Charley Nicholson" in the September
Scribner's. The publishers subtitle it,
NIichelson-H oovers Gadf1y." It's q
breezy tale of how Nicholson put life
into the Democratic party, within g
few months after the most crushing
defeat in its history, by depising anc
maintaining a brand-new type of po-
litical publicity. According to Kent
Nicholson draws down S25, 900 a veal
of johnnie" Rasiob's money for max
ing life a burden for the Hoover ad'
ministration Not everybody knows tina
the master of Democratic ballyhoo is {
brother of Prof. Albert Nicholson, Amer
ica's most eminent physicist and Nobe
nrize winner. Brilliancy runs al
through the Nicholson tribe. Sisters o
Charley and Albert are talented
writsrs Somebody asked the Demo
Gratis potent press agent what he want
! from the incoming administration,
, Cluoth Charles. "A diplomatic appoint
! nlent to some out-of- the-way place il
tire wc-ld where the fishing Is goos
ali the year round"