The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-03-31
NEA Service Writer

WaSnlngton-FOr eight months
 now, until Congress convenes, Presi-
 dent Hoover has the center of the
 stage and controls the loudspeaker
 which he has heretofore had to
 share almost continuously with
 members of the Senate and House. i. A very definite attempt is being
 made to popularize or ''humanize"
 him through the channels of publi-
 city and the success of that and of
 Hoover's own use of the propaganda
 opportunities onw available to the
 White House may have much to do
 with the way people feel about the
 president when he runs for re-elec-
 tion.
 Republican leaders privately ad-
 init that Hoover isn't the easiest
 man in the world to "sell'' on his
 personality. It is difficult, they con-
 cede, to make people realize how
 warm his heart really is and hard
 to make the president himself CO.,
 operate when anyone wants to
 present his human side"
 Hoover Is Changing.
 Nor has the country any concep- tion, they add, of the terrific labors of a bitterly assailed president in
 his efforts to cope with the trying period of the last year and a half. Nevertheless, they agree that some thing certainly ought to be done about 1t and they have presented the case to Hoover himself. There is some indication that Hoover has realized the force of the argument. Anyway, with Congress gone, the president soon leaped into the news with his Porto Rico trip and he will be speaking extensively over the country later on. Although the visit to Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands was his first real approach to a vaca- tion, correspondents weer told that he hoped to relieve conditions among the islanders by his brief visit and that he felt he could bet a better picture of the situation by personal inspection than through long reams of reports.
 It has often been claimed that Hoover didn't know how to publiciZe himself, but the fact is that some times he is very good at it and sometimes quite poor. His appoint
 ment of a newspaperman as his sec I retary has been taken as an indi- cation that he is giving considerable | thought to the matter. Some of his friends thought he should name a SIidTL ROAI4CAdi, Just dS SOolluSS picked out c. Bascom Slemp about a year before the convention which nominated him.
 Akcrson Missed Good Bets. George Akerson, although con sidered as sort of glorfied press agent, missed plenty of bets if that
 was what he aimed to be. The cor respondents now wonder how active Ted Joslin will be in feeding them tidbits of come or less personal news which might tend to raise Hoover in popular affection and esteem.
 Meanwhile, the veteran press agents and feature writers who won-
 dered why the Hoover grandchildren weren't allowed more in the lime light-a quite legitimate method of dering any more. Both they and
 Mrs Hoover have within month
 become far more familiar figures to newspaper readers than ever before. No suggestion is made that any, | one seeks to capitalize the presi-
 dential family, but it has often been explained that the president strenu- ously objected to personal publicity for himself and his family and it now appears that some of his ob- jections have bean overcome.
 At any rate, neWSpapermon lately have been able to get details of the life the Hoover kids lead in the White House as well as little anec-
 dotes containing soep of their bright sayings and doings. Mrs Hoover speaks over the radio and it be- comes known that she has made
 several sweaters for drought suf- fers.
 Publicize Mrs Hoover, Too. And suddenly the women's di-
 vision of the Hoover emergency un- employment committee breaks out with a long mimeographed state ment describing Mrs Hoover's girl- hood, her love for children, her out
 door habits and how she learned to ride a bicycle. The head of the division is pr Lillian Gilbreth, a warm admirer of the president. 1 Of course the democrats and pro- gressives are pretty sore because the White House now has the loud- speaker virtually to itself. What
 with those boys goaded on to bigger and hotter words of abuse, the re- lpublican national committee mimeo-
 graph oiled and whirring again, all the Hoover friends doing their best to make everybody love the presi- dent and even the socialists at last ] IOpening up a. propaganda bureau