THE PRESIDENCY: The Hoover Week: Oct. 6, 1930

"It is easier to borrow 85 percent on an automobile and repay it on the instalment plan than to buy a home on that basis. . . . The whole process of purchase and finance involves a ceremony like a treaty between governments."

So declared President Hoover last week to members of his Home Building & Home Ownership Conference as he officially started them on a survey of the National Housing situation. The President's chief aim: easier credit for home purchasers. ¶To the White House with many another oldster learning to read and write went M. S. Gains, 72, of Apison, Tenn. He presented President Hoover with a basket of sweet potatoes, declared afterwards: "And I whispered to him that come frosty weather, I'd send him a 'possum to go with 'em. And that pleased him. He was tickled. He laughed." ¶President Hoover dotted his last "i's," crossed in his last "t's" in speeches he will deliver this week at Cleveland, Boston. Kings Mountain, N. C. Republican candidates throughout the land hoped hard that these Presidential addresses would help them in their campaigns. ¶Because the president cancelled both his press conferences last week without explanation, newsmen could not ask him what he thought of the fact that the New York G. O. P. had gone solidly Wet (see p. 18).

¶To complete his new Tariff Commission President Hoover appointed Lincoln Dixon, 70, of Indiana as its third Democrat. Mr. Dixon, like two other commissioners, was a member of the old commission that Congress put out of business. ¶Into the White House went Dwight Whitney Morrow with his resignation as Ambassador to Mexico tucked in his pocket. President Hoover asked him to stay to luncheon, talked about Mexican affairs. Not until his resignation was accepted did Republican Senatorial Nominee Morrow purpose to begin his New Jersey campaign.

¶Last week appeared President Hoover's first book since entering the White House. Its title: A Remedy for Disappearing Game Fishes. Shrewdly the Huntington Press of Manhattan had obtained the publishing rights to two of the President's old addresses—one to the Izaak Walton League of America, the other to the citizens of Virginia at Madison courthouse (TIME, Aug. 26, 1929)— and brought them out in a limited edition (990 copies) with a foreword by Hoover Administrative Assistant James French Strother. Price: $7. Theme of each speech: less time between bites.