Hoover Pleases

Warm approval tempered by a certain amount of indifference characterized the reaction, last week, of European capitols to the Republican nomination of Herbert Hoover for President of the U. S. (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

Rome (Papal) recalled that a young Mr. Hoover was married by a Catholic priest and that Belgian Relief Chairman Hoover more than once appealed to the late Pope Benedict XV, during the War, requesting his good offices in behalf of stricken Belgium.

Rome (Fascist) appeared completely indifferent the news organs concerning themselves almost exclusively with the fate of General Umberto Nobile (see PEOPLE).

Berlin reacted cordially. The Tageblatt congratulated Mr. Hoover upon what it called his "German origins," and stated that his family name was originally Huber.

All the financial dailies approved Candidate Hoover as certain to oppose any such legislation as the McNary-Haugen bill, which, Germans feel, would give U. S. farmers a decisive advantage in competition with their own.

Germania, organ of the Catholic Centerists, uncharitably referred to the "clear British complexion of the candidate," whom it insinuatingly dubbed "Sir Herbert Hoover."

Typical of the German reaction as a whole were the Tageblatt's comment that "15,000,000 Europeans would have starved but for Herr Hoover," and the Vossische Zeitung's observation that: "Americans wish, after the colorlessness of their last two Presidents, to see a strong and big personality at the head of their State."

Paris comment, calculating, rational, was well epitomized by that distinguished journalist M. Stephane Lauzanne, writing in the authoritative Matin: "In one word, M. Hoover is the first business man in a country of the biggest business men in the world. Perhaps he may never move crowds with his eloquence nor the world with his declarations in fourteen points. But it is certain that, with him as President, America will never suffer cold, nor hunger, nor privation."

Le Temps declared: "Whether M. Hoover or M. Smith wins the election, we may be sure that we will have not only a new man, but a new policy also. For the world at large, this nomination and election will be of immense importance."

' London has now almost forgotten that it was Herbert Hoover who roused U. S. rubbermen to fight tooth and nail the British rubber restriction scheme which the Empire has now been forced to abandon (TIME, April 16).

With this major battle passed into recent history. British comment was almost wholly friendly toward Candidate Hoover.

The Times observed with well-meant pomposity: "By the circumstances of their apprenticeship in State politics, most

American Presidents and Senators and many American Ministers-know* little of the world which exists outside the boundaries of the United States. This is a definitive in the organization of American public life which is going to matter more and more as American interests abroad increase in importance and complexity.

"That the Republican Party chooses as its standard-bearer one who is not only not a politician but who has a professed contempt for a politician's calling, is proof of how completely the party accepts the dictum of President Coolidge that "the business of the United States is business."

The Liberal Daily News concurred in a brisk sentence: "Hoover is probably the best choice that could have been made."

Brussels was virtually en fete, last week, as almost every Belgian newspaper spread across its front page the following headline or a paraphrase:

OUR BENEFACTOR WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Cried L'Independance Beige, "All our hopes are that this great-hearted organizer of human happiness will be elected to the place at the head of the American people once occupied by M. Abraham Lincoln who liberated the slaves."

Crown Prince Leopold of the Belgians, Duke of Brabant, called at the U. S. Embassy to express informally the pleasure of the Royal Family at the nomination. Felicitously His Royal Highness recalled that King Albert created to honor Mr. Hoover a new Belgian order, that of the Friend of Belgium. It has only one member, will cease to exist when he dies, is listed with all appropriate pomposity in the long, historic roll of Belgian orders, of which the most famed is The Order of Leopold.

* The Times, ignorant, meant Cabinet members.