The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-10-15
NEED OF BEING CONSID-
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President Hoover comes in for a
vast amount of fault-fnding these
days. Part of it is deserved. A long
series of forecasts by him, taken and
intended as promises of better times
coming speedily, have been ludicrous-
ly falsifed by the event. Some of the
statistics and official estimates which
he has given out, or caused to be given
out, have been rudely challenged as
misleading, with proof furnished that
they were. This is particularly the
case with inaccurate and inflated
claims by the Department of Labor,
in the matter of finding employment
through Federal agencies for men
out of work. Other points in the ar
NOR of the President might be men
toned which are VIGOROUSLY vulner-
able. But fair-minded people will ask
whether too much has not been de-
manded of him, whether he has not
been severely held accountable for
things quite beyond his responsibility;
and whether, in effect and on bal
ance, he does not deserve more SYM
pathy than blame.
The pressure put upon the Presi-
dency in normal times is heavy, but
=, it is redoubled in a period like the
present. Every man with griev-
ance or request, or a freakish-polit
cal or social scheme, desires to run
with it at once to the White House.
One has only to glance at the daily
lists of Mr. Hoover's callers to see
what a variety and urgency of prob
lens are continually being forced
upon his attention. Besides the men
with whom he makes appointments
for the sake of consultation, there
are the throngs of Congressman and
of groups from every State in the
Union besieging the doors of his Of
flee. 1t all shows how the people of
the United States are disposed to
place upon the shoulders of their Pres
ident burden of work fairly to be
called-as even that man of dynamic
energy, President Roosevelt, once
called it-"infamous."
A part of the infamy consists in
asking for the impossible. Because
the American President has a very
great responsibility, it is too hastily
assumed that he has unlimited pow
err. Because he feels it his duty to
listen patiently to complaints, people
go away thinking that he ought at
once to furnish the remedy. 1t is even
argued that, without Congress con his
| hands" just now, Mr.. Hoover ought to
be doing everything that is needful.
But the American President is not a
dictator. He cannot, like Mussolini,
on his own motion, set aside funds for
public works or apportion money for
, the relief of the unemployed. Even
President Hindenburg, with the Reich
stag not in session, has greater power
I to govern by decree than has the
, President of the United States with
Congress not sitting. Some of these
necessary limitations of the functions
and ability of any American President
ought to be kept in mind by those who
keep on clamoring over what they call
Mr.. Hoover's do-nothing- policy. He
is, in fact, doing all that he can-and
angels could do no more.
Among the victims of our prevail
ing misfortunes, President Hoover
must be reckoned as most to be pitied.
Suddenly he was thrust into the
greatest public calamity of our recent
history. Personal chagrin and party
modification were added to his dis
comfture. Yet through all this try
ing time he has borne himself as be-
cometh a President. To whatever
sense of evaporation he may have
given vent in private, his public bear
7 ing, has been that of handwriting
and hopeful man doing his very best.
Even under successive disappoint-
ments, with his heart made sick by
deferred hope, his spirit has not been
broken. Criticism he knows that he
cannot escape. Querulous reproaches
will be addressed to him. All this is
inevitable. But inevitable also ought
to be at least an occasional manifes-
tation of kindly and sympathetic feel
ing by the American people for a
President taxed almost beyond his
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