National Affairs: In the Midlands

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Stories to the effect that James William Good is one of Mr. Hoover's "discoveries," one of his Bright Young Men, are absurd. Mr. Hoover was lucky to get him and he probably owes getting him to Calvin Coolidge. After "I do not choose," Mr. Good dropped in at the White House one day and told President Coolidge he again felt like organizing the Midwest for some one, perhaps his fellow townsman of Evanston, Ill., Vice President "Charlie" Dawes. President Coolidge froze. Mr. Good departed. Later he returned and said he might organize for Secretary Hoover. President Coolidge unfroze, said that might be a good idea.

It is now an old story how "Sir James," as he was called during the Anglophobe phase of the anti-Hoover campaign in the Midwest, bravely sowed seeds of Hooverism from the Alleghenies to the Ozarks; how, at and after Kansas City, first the blade and then the ear, then the whole Corn Belt appeared, a party united again in time for the Hoover harvest-home at West Branch last month.

It was generally predicted that Mr. Good would be National Chairman. Why he was not is still a mystery. Perhaps the explanation is that a shirt-sleeve diplomat who can harmonize the anti-salooners, dirt-farmers, public utilitarians, idealists, Klansmen, social leaders, social climbers, sound businessmen, magnates, housewives and mugwumps that comprise the G. O. P. in the Midwest, would be wasted as a figurehead at a big shiny desk in Washington, shaking the hands of ladies and lame ducks, reading workers' reports and issuing national propaganda.

The Good office in Chicago is by far the .busiest focus of the Hoover campaign. To it go all Republican bigwigs on their to's and fro's through the land. To it go all political pundits and special correspondents for the .most commanding view of the G. O. P.'s condition throughout the nation. There the Northwest hears what is being done on the Border and in the South; the Far West hears about the East; the Farmer about Wall Street, the cotton-grower about the New England mills. There Mr. Good summons or receives men from leagues around to tell him things or get orders. His calling list in the two weeks alone included four cabinet members (West. J. J. Davis, Wilbur, Jardine) ; National Committeemen from North Dakota, Utah. Montana, Colorado; the Wisconsin gubernatorial nominee, Walter Jodok Kohler, and friends; Theodore Roosevelt the Younger; Nominee Curtis; Chairman Work. Senator Watson telephones constantly from Indiana. Senator Brookhart bustles in and out from Iowa. Senator Deneen of Illinois pokes in, by letter or in person, to complain that Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, the party's nominee for Congressman-at-large, is being given undue advantages by the national organization, advantages that may help her oust Senator Deneen and take his seat in 1930.