Evening star., 1932-10-22
HOOVER KEEPS FILE
| OF CAR|CATURES
Collection of Cartoons on
Himself Is Biggest
in World.

President Hoover has at the White
House the biggest and most exclusive
and inclusive collection Of caricatures
in the world.
1t has been one Of Mr.. Hoover's little
known hobbies ever since he entered
public life, which was in England in
1914. when at the Savoy Hotel, London,
he organized an agency to help Ameri-
can refugee tourists caught in Europe
oy the World War to get back home, to
collect all the caricatures of himself he
could get hold Of.
He now has more than 10000 such
pictures, which, 1t is said, he regards as
his most priced personal possession. He
values them as high as does King
George v his albums Of postage stamps.
These pictures the President stores
In one of the rooms in the east wing
framed, on the walls. Most of them
His Chamber of Horrors"
Whenever President Hoover feels the
need of a little relaxation he goes up
to what he sometimes calls his "art
gallery" or his chamber of horrors,
and there amuses himself by going over
the strange assortment of pictorial rep
resentations of himself as seen through
the eyes of friends and foes, in the
United States and abroad. Among re-
cent additions are particularly uncom-
plimentary sketches from Japan, and
some choice homegrown art comments
on the recent bonus marchers' rumpuS
Since he entered the White House
Mr Hoover has added many interesting
specimens to the purely political car
toonS of his museum. AS Is the lot OF
most men who hold high public office,
he has received more cuffs at the hands
Of contemporary commentators with
line and brush than he has caresses
To his credit, 1t is said, the President
gets more amusement from a sketch
representing him as Uncle Shylock or
the patron saint of the New York Stock
Exchange than he does from a senti-
mental Caran d'Ache or Forain sketch
in French paper of the war days, in
which he is represented as an angel
with wings autogyroing over stricken
Belgium.
Has Many Originals.
Some of the sketches from Punch
and the Petit Parisien of recent years
are almost as savage as those of Uncle
Sam that appeared in Simplicissimus
and Fliegende Blatter during 1917-1918.
or Of Mr.. Hoover himself In Moscow and
Latin American publications since 1928
Mr. Hoover has the originals of large
number of the caricatures that have ap-
peared in print.
These caricatures are not all the work
OF professional artists. Hardly a day
passes without the White House mail
containing at least one drawing or
painting of the President sent by an ad-
miring or disapproving citizen, and not
infrequently by precocious and aspiring
youngsters.
Most of these personal offerings. oil
course, are not intended as caricatures
1t Is only lack by the Self-styled artists
Of color sense, or ignorance of the
fundamentals of drawing, that gives
them the appearance Of primitive
Hogarths or Cruickshanks. old fashioned
valentines or base libels of even the
weirdest imaginings of the most extreme
modernists and sur-realists
None but the best of the pictures
from-well. let's say a purely decora-
tive point of view-has the President
had framed and hung on his walls
The others go either into the portfolios
or are stacked away on shelves.
President Hoovers collection of carl
torical value, in fact very little less than
that of the war posters and documents
he presented to Leland Stanford Uni
versity, and beside which they will some
day probably find their way.
tCopyright. 1882. by North American News
paper Alliance, Inc)