THE PRESIDENCY: Aug. 31, 1931

When you write, address and mail a letter to President Herbert Hoover, The White House, Washington, D. C. it goes, not to him, but to Ira Smith. Mr. Smith has a mustache. He sits at a big desk in the outer Executive offices. His title is White House mail clerk. All day long he opens letters from sacks and sacks of mail, scans them through gold-rimmed glasses. If your letter looks very important, he routes it to Private Secretary Theodore Joslin who may put it before the President. If it looks political, it goes to Political Secretary Walter Newton. If it looks personal, it is sent to Detective Secretary Lawrence Richey. If it is none of these, it finds its way to the office of Executive Clerk Rudolph Forster who replies with a stock acknowledgment from the White House form book. After Mail Clerk Smith has sorted the President's mail, Head Messenger Joe Sheehan comes around, scoops it up, distributes it to the different secretaries. The chances are 1,000-to-1 against the President's ever seeing your letter at all.

Last week this White House mail system came under critical fire. Governor Roosevelt had written President Hoover about the St. Lawrence River development and New York's water power plans. Presumably the letter went to Ira Smith and thereafter was reported "lost." None of the secretaries had seen it. When it did finally turn up—with an answer—at the State Department, much explaining was necessary (see p.12).

Another document temporarily lost at the White House last week was China's inquiry about Farm Board wheat (see p. 11). The State Department said the message had gone to the White House. There a "stated official source"—that is, the Hoover secretariat which has replaced the "White House spokesman" since the President plugged news leaks—denied its receipt. Later the Chinese inquiry turned up, somehow, at the Farm Board.

For weeks President Hoover's press conferences have been few & far between. It was explained that he had no news to give out, that he was absorbed with the unemployment problem. Last week his visitors were limited to Government officials on official business. Finally he emerged from his seclusion to hold his first press conference in a fortnight, to announce the appointment of a generalissimo of relief and an impressive advisory committee (see p. 8), followed this up with a pronouncement on the Nation's health in poverty, which he found better than in wealth (see p. 35).