Devout Gratitude

After a night and day with President Coolidge, Nominee Hoover took leave of Wisconsin and set off again for California, for home. He took with him:

Assurance that the President would not accept his resignation as Secretary of Commerce until next month.

Assurance that the President would help towards his election through the medium of speeches this autumn about the excellence of the Coolidge Administration, including the Coolidge Cabinet.

Advice from a President to a would-be President to mind one's health.

The decision that Prosperity and Integrity are to be the campaign Issues.

After Wisconsin, the next State entered by the Nominee was Minnesota. He took leave of the President at Superior, Wis., and motored around the lakeshore to nearby Duluth.* Governor Theodore Christiansen, "Minnesota's Mellon,"/- was not on hand to welcome him, but many another Minnesotan was. After 142 actual shakes and 47 separate waves of the Nominee's hand, Duluth yielded its visitor and the Hoover special started southwest.

State by state, at every wait, the Nominee revealed himself as more and more of a politician. The train entered Iowa--"Hoover's Iowa"--soon after sunup next morning. Waiting at the town of Missouri Valley was tall, bronzed Governor John Hammill of Iowa. He climbed aboard and after the Nominee had roused, dressed and breakfasted, conferred for two hours on matters agricultural.

Iowa's Republicans were holding their state convention that day in Des Moines. Two days before, the Corn Belt Committee, a body of Farmers' Friends originally organized by Governor Hammill, had met in Des Moines and excoriated the Republican national platform and candidates, applauded and endorsed the Democratic. Professional agitation obviously underlay this Cornbelting. Governor Hammill's plan, which he carried out dramatically, was to get off the Hoover train at Omaha, give out a resoundingly enthusiastic pro-Hoover interview, hurry into a waiting airplane, fly across Iowa to Des Moines, drive to the Republican convention hall, enter, mount the platform and announce that Nominee Hoover was the greatest Farmer's Friend of all, that he would be the next President, that he would meet his "imperative obligation" (farm relief) in a constructive way, beginning with the Federal Farm Board promised in the G. 0. P. platform. The convention, already primed by a keynote speaker, responded joyfully with a resolution of "supreme confidence" in Nominee Hoover. Iowa's vote was sure for Nominee Hoover by a 200,000 majority, said Governor Hammill.

Leaving Omaha, the Hoover special set out across Nebraska and, after 40 minutes, picked up that State's Governor, plump, polite Adam McMullen, at the station in

Fremont. Governor McMullen is the man who asked for and predicted a "crusade" of 100,000 farmers before the Kansas City convention, and who then renounced the "crusade" when he saw there was going to be none. Looking solemn and not-to-be-deceived, Governor McMullen listened to what Nominee Hoover had to say about agriculture. As he left the train at North Platte, Adam McMullen said: "I will say that Mr. Hoover has quite a comprehensive understanding of this issue." He said he would have to wait to hear the Acceptance Speech before announcing whether he would help Hooverize Nebraska. He would stick like a mortgage to the farm issue, said Adam McMullen.

From North Platte, Neb., to Cheyenne, Wyo., the Nominee saw no more major statesmen. He reminisced for his press entourage about his first trip across Nebraska, 43 years ago, on his way from Iowa to Oregon. He peered and pointed out the window at the oldtime ranch of Col. William ("Buffalo Bill") Cody, which he well remembered.

At Cheyenne, Wyoming's Governor, Frank C. Emerson, got on the train. A lean, keen man, like the Nominee an engineer, he said that all the mining and cattle states would go Republican this year. This was something the Nominee was very glad to hear, since Montana, Colorado and Utah, the States flanking Wyoming on the north, south and southwest, all have Democratic governors.

Wyoming's Emerson, and Wyoming's Francis Emroy Warren, oldest living U. S. Senator (84) and "greatest shepherd since Abraham," who had also gotten on at Cheyenne, rode as far as Laramie, Wyo., where they left the Nominee to sleep contentedly the rest of the way across their State. The next big reception was at Ogden, Utah, but of course Governor George H. Dern, Democrat, did not put himself out to attend.

At Hazen, Nev., a hamlet northeast of

Carson City (Nevada capital), Governor Fred B. Balzar, onetime railroad conductor, was in attendance. He confirmed all that others had said about the West being against Smith "because he is an Easterner" and for Hoover because "he has slept under the same stars with us."

The Hoover special entered California near midnight. Nominee Hoover, sitting up late on purpose, issued a formal statement as the cars rumbled homeward: "Every Californian crosses the State line with gratitude that God made him this home State. I return this time with a deep sense of responsibility. . . ."

California's reception had been pared to a minimum because of something which had occurred as the Hoover special was leaving Minnesota--the death of Mrs. Hoover's father, Charles Delano Henry, 84, of paralysis following a heart attack which he had suffered on a mountain excursion with Mrs. Hoover's sister, Mrs. A. V. Large of Georgetown, Calif. Alan Hoover, the Nominee's youngest son, met the train at Oakland and all proceeded direct to Palo Alto for the funeral.

Next day, in the big stucco house on San Juan Hill, Hooverism's political conferences began again. The first caller was Clement Calhoun Young, California's Governor. The second caller was to be Senator Hiram W. Johnson, master of California's Republican machinery and the man whose hurt feelings cost Charles Evans Hughes the Presidency in 1916. Senator Johnson's feelings are all right this year. The Hoover schedule was planned as follows: finish Acceptance Speech, go fishing, accept nomination, tour California, go back to Iowa to visit West Branch (Hoover birthplace) and convince the farmers.

*About eight miles by boat, 20 miles by road, directly opposite Superior, across the tip end of Lake Superior; so handy that Mrs. Coolidge went there--and not just to Superior, as erroneously reported by TIME (July 2)--to patronize a Beauty Salon.

/-Governor Christiansen's popularity is based on his successful efforts to reduce Minnesota's taxes. His campaign slogan: "More Ted and less Taxes."