THE PRESIDENCY: The Hoover Week: Sep. 16, 1929

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Trunk lids slammed. Fishing and dam-building clothes were put away. The President led Mrs. Hoover and his retinue back to Washington announcing that regular weekends at his Virginia camp were at an end. Possibly he may take one or two hurried Sunday excursions to the camp in the next month or two, but it is his intention to join Congress in sitting on the Tariff. Last act of Mr. Hoover before leaving his camp was to invite Mr. Burraker to visit him. Last month freckled, tatter- demalion, 14-year-old Ray (William McKinley) Burraker tiptoed into the camp carrying a pet opossum to his President. As a special treat, the President introduced his benefactor to a tall curly-haired man. Ray was not impressed—he had never heard of Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh. Last week Pa Burraker and President Hoover settled down in a couple of chairs under the trees. The President said that he "and his friends" would contribute $1,200 to build a schoolhouse where Ray, and 19 other children of five families living thereabouts, could be educated. The nearest schoolhouse now is 20 miles away.

¶ Back in Washington one morning before breakfast the President greeted Secretary of State Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Adams, and six Admirals—all of whom sat down to eat, to talk about naval reductions. Next day the President sent a new note (contents secret) to England about cruisers.

¶ Grocers calculated that the President was inefficient in buying White House food at retail instead of wholesale. Since March 4, they computed, the President and Mrs. Hoover have not passed a day without having guests at one or more meals. Some 1,400 guests ate at the White House in a little over six months, including 200 house guests and 250 week-end guests at the Virginia camp. Wholesale savings on butter, eggs, bread, tradesmen said, could have been considerable. But the U. S. Government has no cause to object. Food eaten by all except official guests is paid for out of the President's private pocket.

¶ Guest at the White House all week was Hubert Work M. D., being eased out of the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. His visit was interpreted as a parting token of the President's esteem. That his resignation, announced as "due to ill health," left him under no misapprehension, he showed by saying:

"I expect to get rid of the Republican Committee in about ten minutes. Then I'm through. Since I'm on the toboggan it's not for me to talk—that will be up to the new Chairman." As for illness: "I am feeling fine. I've been sick only twice—once in 1885 and once in 1915. Since ten I haven't missed a meal. Every year two or three doctors examine me and find nothing wrong."

Next day, after the committee had elected as Chairman, Claudius Hart Huston of Tennessee, businessman-politician whom President Hoover had chosen to prepare the nation for his re-election in 1932, the Committee members trooped to the White House, expressed respect.

¶ President & Mrs. Hoover attended the Quaker meeting house on Sunday, for the first time since they began going to their Virginia camp last summer.