POLITICAL NOTES

Secretary Hughes is no lily of the field. When Congress adjourned last March and President Harding went to Florida, Secretary Hughes stayed at his desk. When this Summer the rest of the Cabinet scattered to mountains, fishing places, the capitals of Europe, Secretary Hughes remained at his desk. Early in September, after President Coolidge's accession, most of the Cabinet members again dispersed, but Secretary Hughes remained at his desk. Last week, after more than a year without vacation, Mr. Hughes (with Mrs. Hughes) left Washington to spend two weeks at Hot Springs, Va.

The arbiters who will award $100,000 of Edward W. Bok's money to the person or persons who devise a practical plan (TIME, July 9) in which the U.S. may participate to prevent war were announced. The roster of judges: Colonel Edward M. House, Major General James Guthrie Harbord, Ellen Fitz Pendleton (President of Wellesley College), Roscoe Pound (Dean of the Harvard Law School), Elihu Root, William Allen White, Brand Whitlock.

Governor Jack Walton of Oklahoma who, at his inauguration a few months ago, gave a barbecue to the entire population of the state, last week placed all his constituents under Military Law. The Ku Klux Klan is the reason. Its whippings and its floggings, its domination of civil officers made the measure advisable in the Governor's eyes. He does things vigorously and on a large scale.

Porter James McCumber of North Dakota was among those who waddled lamely from the Senate last March. He did not go far. He had been Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; he was necessarily an expert on tariff and tax laws. So he hung up his shingle in Washington and trusted that a thriving law business would spring up to furnish him with a living. It is now reported that he has been sorely disappointed --that his pickings are meager. Friends of his are looking for a place for him in the Coolidge Administration. Other former Senators who are reported to have an unsubstantial practice in the Capital are Charles S. Thomas (Colo.) and Hoke Smith (Ga.). A. Mitchell Palmer has a law office there, but is honeymooning abroad.