THE PRESIDENCY: Under the Eye of God

Shortly after 9 o’clock one evening last week President Hoover’s private telephone bell rang in the White House. It was his political secretary, Walter Hughes Newton, calling from the Capitol. Mr. Newton said that the second session of the 71st Congress would adjourn in one hour or less. The President, in dinner jacket, summoned Secretary of War Hurley and together they motored to the Capitol. Such trips to “the Hill” are pure courtesy on the President’s part. There is no constitutional reason for him to sign bills before adjournment.

At the Capitol he entered the ornate President’s Room, just off the Senate lobby. Looking down on him from the ceiling was the gaudy optic which guides explain is the “Eye of God” looking down on all that happens in that room. The President was ahead of time. Senators and Representatives flocked in, shook his hand. He smiled, puffed on a cigar, looked happy. Soon these Congressmen and after them the Senators would be out of Washington and then Washington would be a more habitable place.

Two Senators and two Congressmen bowed before him ceremoniously, asked if he had any further communication for the Congress. He had not. The committee scurried away to speed adjournment.

At last clerks laid three bills on the table in the centre of the room. The President sat down, put aside his cigar, signed the Veterans Pension Act, the District of Columbia Appropriation Act, the Second Deficiency Appropriation Act. He had won legislative victories on all three. Then he said: “Good night, gentlemen,” and returned to the White House.

Next day President Hoover broke his customary routine by taking a two-mile walk through the downtown streets of Washington. After breakfast he signed “with particular satisfaction” the Rivers & Harbors Bill (see p. 19) and issued a proclamation: “Whereas public interests require that the Senate of the United States be convened . . . to consider and determine whether the advice and consent of the Senate shall be given to the ratification of a treaty for the limitation and reduction of naval armaments signed at London . . . Now, therefore, I, Herbert Hoover, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim and declare that an extraordinary occasion requires that Senate to convene . . . on the seventh day of July at 12 o’clock noon. . . .”

¶. For Independence Week End President Hoover went to his Rapidan camp, rode horseback, worked over his Treaty message to the Senate. With him at the camp were Republican Senators Watson, McNary, Fess, Walcott. Topmost in the minds of all, though denials were later made that it was openly discussed at the camp, was the case of Claudius Hart Huston, chairman of the Republican National Committee whose political effectiveness has been damaged by the disclosure of his Muscle Shoals lobbying (TIME, March 31). Many had been the demands for Mr. Huston’s resignation.

¶. Appointed last week as chairman of the reorganized Federal Power Commission: Lieut.-General Edgar Jadwin (retired), onetime Chief of Army Engineers.