Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-01-15

1t probably Is less in Displacement
of Hiram JohnSon's yote-getting powers
than 1t Is in tribute to the inyincibility
of the Hoover machine that admins
trationists say the Senator couldn't
muster Is delegates against the Presi-
dent. Hence and therefore, White House
composure in the face of a possible
Johnsonian threat in the North Dakota
primaries and at points East and West
OF the 1,000-odd men and women who'll
sit in the Republican national conven-
ton. q. 0. P. regulars are ready to
wager that at no time will Hoover con-
troll fewer than 1000 of them. The one
and only chance of stopping the Presi-
dents denomination lies in stampede.
There is the history of the preceding
Chicago Republican Convention Of 1920,
with its precipitate rush to Calvin Cool
idge for Vice President, to prove that
such things are possible. But an anti
Hoover stampede next June Is branded
by hard boiled politicians as the zenith
Of improbability. With those few who
hold to the contrary the wish Is father
to the thought.
Senator Johnson's reluctance openly
to toss his hat into the ring has been
thought, in some degree, to be due to
his inability to finance an honest-to
goodness pre-conVention campaign. Like
Borah, Johnson is not richly blessed
with this worlds goods He has Sacri-
feed in the public service what might
at any time have been a handsome in
come at the bar. Capitol Hill hears
that Hiram has found an angel in
brother Senator Bronson Cutting, Re-
publican, of New Mexico. The Cut
ftyor ho JcIo ,,l
w Bayard Cuttings-have money to
burn. Some day the lions share of the
dynastic fortune will go to the young
Senator from the Southwest, who quit
Harvard and the effete East In 1910 to
carve out public career in New Mex
leo. Senator Cutting is a bachelor. He
and his mother inhabit marble halls in
the Massachusetts, avenue extended sec
ton of Washington. An intellectual
and liberal Cutting during his four
years in the Senate has consistently
veered to the Progressive wing of the
Republicans. He is still in the sunny
40s. Friends say the mantle of Henry
Cabot Lodge, as the scholar in poll
tics" has descended on the New
YorkerNew Mexican's broad shoulders.
Another apparent field marshal in
the Johnson high command is that
other Republican Progressive young
ster, Senator Gerald P. Nye of North
Dakota. For while Nye was supposed
to have staked out permanent claim
on the Hoover reservation. The North
Dakota comrade, whom the Senator
brought into the administration, As
sistant Attorney General Seth w.
| Richardson, is now one Of the fair
| haired boys around the White House.
| 1t is this tWo-fisted Nye man who has
| just been sent to Hawaii by the De-
| partment Of Justice to survey crime
conditions. The Nye lukewarmness
| toward the Hoover cause may spring
from the Senator's impending fight for
denomination in North Dakota. His
prospective primary opponent, Gov.
| George F. Shafer, ranks as-or has had
thrust upon him the rank of "a
Hoover man. The Presidents stock is
! admittedly low out in the Northwestern
wheat fields, so the story goes that Nye,
a keen politician, has denned anti
Hoover war paint as one means of
keeping Gov Shafer out of the sena-
tortal nomination.
x x X
| 1t escaped general notice, but SEN
ator Joe Robinson, Democratic minority
leader earned at least a White House
breakfast invitation by stemming the
tide of useless debate on the Recon-
struction Finance Corporation bill. His
fellow Democrat, Tydings of Maryland,
was wasting time with one OF his
eloquent but familiar TRADES against
the eighteenth amendment. Not to be
outdone, that peerless paladin of pro-
hibition, Brookhart Republican Pro-
gressiVe OF Iowa. prolonged the pro-
crastination with an equally thread
bare panegyric on the virtues of Vol
Steadism Senator Robinson had been
pacing up and down the aisle in obvious
hope that brother Tydings would cut
the cackle and hasten the finance
measure to a vote. The Arkansan's
impotence was not stilled as Brook
hart's babble flowed on. Then, with