Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-10
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

President Hoover's one-word post
| election statement-about the job now
before the country, /. e., promotion of
economic recovery was an after
thought. He had planned and actually
| prepared a considerably longer utter
ance. 1t was not essentially political,
| but, coming on the heels of the Demo-
cratic landslide, Mr.. Hoover decided
that brevity was the better part of
valor and withheld the document. Evil
IDENTIFY an eleventh-hour pooling of
White House and cabinet minds re-
suited in determination to refrain
from anything savoring of an alibi.
The kernel of the proposed announce
ment was that there'd been enough of
politics and the time had now come to
forget it. In effect, that's what Mr..
Hoover did say to the disappointed
newspaper men who assembled en-
masse in expectation of momentous
words. If his heart was heavy over
election events, he successfully hid his
emotions. In fact, the baffled scribes
| noted almost the broadcast Hoover grin
Of the season as the President, enjoy
ing their establishment, chuckled:
That's all"
Southern Democrats Of the type of
| Senators Swanson and Glass OF Vir-
GINA and Josephus Daniels Of North
Carolina are not throwing up their hats
over the pledge" by Messrs. Raskob,
Shouse, Robinson, Garner, Cox, Davis
and Smith that the Hoover administra-
| ton can count more or less blindly
upon Democratic congressional sup
| port. Swanson and Glass take refuge
| in significant silence on the statement
of the seven self-appointed guarantors
of Democratic good behavior. Daniels
assails it as "timidity." He asserts
that ''the country looks for complete
reversal of Hoover policies" having
! given the Democratic party in particu-
lar "a mandate to repeal the Hawley-
Smoot tariff without benefit of clergy"
| With voices like these crying in the
| Democratic minority Cor majority
wilderness, the signals seem to be set
| for stress and storm.
y \ X
Not even the Oldest inhabitant of
Capitol Hill can recall such wreckage in
| the Senate roll call as 1890 has pro-
duced. In consequence of voluntary re-
| tirementS and defeats in primaries or
elections, no fewer than 18 present men,
bers of the Senate will disappear vari-
ously on December /, 1880, or March 4,
1881. They include Allen of Kansas
/ Baird of New Jersey, BleaSe of South
Carolina, Brock of Tennessee, Deneen
of Illinois, Gillett of Massachusetts,, Goff
of West Virginia, Gould of Maine,
Grundy of Pennsylvania, Helm of Ala
bama, McCulloch of Ohio, McMaSter OF
South Dakota, Phipps of Colorado, Pine
of Oklahoma, Ransdell of Louisiana,
Simmons of North Carolina, Steck of
Iowa and Sullivan of Wyoming. Thus
more than one-sixth OF the Senate as
constituted at this hour Is headed for
! fha iY1olOriOIIc 1iO1h0 0f the
| X X X
Last week, when newspaper headlines
were screaming about Democratic con-
troll of the House of Representatives, a
Washington woman politician came
forth with the ingenious proposal that
AL Smith should be elected Speaker
She bulwarked the suggestion with a
reminder that the Constitution does not
require that the gavel be welded by a
member of the House. Article of Sec
ton 2 merely states: 1.-THE House OF
Representatives shall choose their
Speaker and other officers" etc. Apart
f, from what Jack" Garner might think
of q plan to hand the chair over to Al
Smith or any other outsider, probably
the question of the presidential success
sion would provide food for thought
/ Also where Mrs Smith would sit at
dinner is an issue which might eventu-
ally require Supreme Court arbitrament
X X
Minnesota is enthroned in the high
places at the executive end Of Pennsyl-
vania avenue. Why shouldn't the
Gophers sit prettily at the legislative
end? Two-thirds of the Hoover White
House secretariat-Georg Akerson and
Walter II. Newton-come from the
Scandinavian provinces. II our sys-
tenn Of checks and balances Is anything