Foreign News: Reaction to Hoover

Britain. The Lady Beauchamp revealed, last week, that on election eve David Lloyd George, shrewd, intuitive, said to her: "The chances that Mr. Hoover will be elected are 50 to 1 in his favor."

London's press of course chronicled President-elect Hoover's triumph with felicitations and urbanity, but also dug up the old and rusty hatchet which Secretary Hoover flung at the British rubber monopoly (TIME, April 16). Even the impeccably well-bred London Times printed a distinctly savage cable from its Washington correspondent:

"The clock has been set back, no man can tell how far! If the United States is to be the gainer by the result ef the election, it will be because Mr. Hoover is strong enough to rise above some of the forces which have helped to elect him. . . . He will have need of all his strength and all his independence of mind—of all those qualities, in short, which even his admirers have vainly sought in him when expediency rules his action—if he is to justify the faith which has been placed in him. . . .

For him, the American way, whether it be political, social or religious, is better than any other way, and in its essence different and superior. His is a conception of America romanticized by long residence abroad."

Polite and typical was the comment of the Daily Mail, London's. newspaper of world's largest circulation: "The British people will tender their respectful congratulations to Mr. Hoover, the new President of the United States. ... He has traveled or practised his profession in many parts of our Empire, including Burma and Australia."

Butler John Dunn, who buttled for Engineer & Mrs. Hoover in England 14 years ago, soothingly observed at London last week: "Every Christmas, Mr. & Mrs. Hoover used to give a party to all their servants and to the children, and Mr. Hoover used to dress up as Father Christmas and distribute lovely prizes from the Christmas tree to the children.

"The best time, however, was at Easter. Mr. & Mrs. Hoover used to have several dozen eggs boiled hard and painted different colors. On Easter Saturday night they used to creep secretly into the garden and hide the eggs in various places. Next morning all the children, including their own two boys, had to find the eggs and a prize was awarded to the one who found most, although as an actual fact every child got a prize. They used to call the game 'hunting the rabbit's egg.' "

Said Labor's Daily Herald: "Why should the average American kill a Republican Government to make way for a Democratic Government when the difference between them is negligible? Smith's defeat is at bottom the judgment of the American electorate upon the unreality of American politics. The people just don't care. Only 50 per cent of the electorate trouble to go to the polls, and of these the majority choose to keep Dum in office rather than bother to change to Dee."

France, Spain, Italy. Wine selling, Roman Catholic and debt-owing countries carped at Herbert Hoover.

Paris semi-official Journal des Debats gloomed: "We see small hope that he will cancel our debts or greatly reduce them.

"Yet Hoover who contributed so much to save the starving populations of Belgium and northern France will not be blind to the lot of Europe."