President Hoover has been told with some precision that his October tour of speechmaking was not convincing. His refusal to spoil a night's rest by waiting for the election results showed possession of a philosophical calm which should be of sdme value to him at the moment. Disaster has overcome his party. By the ordinary laws governing the disposal of. popular favour, it presages disaster for himself in two years' time when he might have been hoping for the re-election crowns a successful tenure of office. He cannot shut his eyes to the fact that, in a singular degree, the elections now completed have been the test of his own ascendancy over: the nation. The test has given depressing results from his point of view. Thus is the fickleness of political favour abundantly exposed. The President must feel that the lot of the superman is hard. The Gods seem to ordain that, just when he might attain to the very zenith of supermanship and almost bid for the higher plane of divinity, some overwhelming blow shall come to remind him that, in spite of everything, his clay is but human. It is the old story of Phaeton in modern setting. Me. Hoover, the business man and no mere politician, was hailed on his advent to White House ay: the gifted organizer who would lead his country happily along the road to prosperity. He was looked upon with all the more favour just because he did not profess political ability. He took up the text himself: "We shall soon, with the help of God, ye in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation." That was two years ager If there had been no slump in world prices, if America could have been kept clear of the slough of depression, Mr. Hoover would "have been safe for re-election on the record of his distinguished services to the State alone. If only he had been a politician would have known how to guard against the danger of chicken-promises coming home to roost His business-like, eminently sane and silent manner of dealing with problems as they arose—they arose quickly enough in the tariff issue and the prohibition wrangle—proved a handicap. It led to misunderstandings and resentment which the ordinary political mind might have obviated.
To appreciate the atmosphere it should be realized that the rave of acute financial ion has been a sad shock to a nation buoyed up by all the outward appearances of a well-established prosperity. The spectre of unemployment when it appeared seemed to be utterly incredible. When its grim actriality became. patent beyond any possible doubt, incredulity gave way fo intense resentment.
If President Hoover had been the embodiment of all wisdom, humani and divine, if he had been the Archangel Gabriel, he could not have escaped condemnation for the disaster. Had he possessed a stronger political equipment, instead of being a gifted tyro: wielding the politifal baton, he' might have maneuvred so as to temper the wind to the shorn lamb. In the face of the fierce challenge of hostile fortune he presented the picture of a good man strugeling with: adversity. It was' a pathetic picture but pathos does the rancour of poli cal criticism. Even the less virulent of' his" "antagonists would urge that, had prosperity! been maintained, he would have claimed for it the credit: therefore the justice of blaming him
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.