Chief Yeoman

Following a map drawn by the late Admiral George Dewey, the S. S. Maryland fetched up and hove to off Cape San Lucas, lower California. Two launches were lowered for a late-afternoon fishing expedition. Captain Victor A. Kimberley, the Maryland's commander, put off in a third boat to act as a patrol against unimaginable dangers from the desolate Mexican shore. In his hands rested the safety of his country's President-elect.

Tall though the tales of Fisherman Zane Grey et al. may be, and excellent though the map of Admiral Dewey, the waters off Cape San Lucas were not full of huge, hungry denizens that evening. Mr. Hoover trolled first with a spinner, then with a silver minnow, and watched the launch's wake for the mighty splash of marlin, yellowtail or amberjack. But the splashes that came were comparatively small--a 15-pound dolphin, a 5-pound Spanish mackerel. A third fish, the "biggest one," got away. Beside Mr. Hoover in his launch stood and fished grey-templed Mark Sullivan, political pundit of the arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune. Just as Mr. Hoover's "biggest one" struck, Pundit Sullivan hooked a small but active dolphin. Unaware of any call for etiquette, the Sullivan dolphin rushed across the Hoover line, fouled it, dragged the new Hoover reel off the new Hoover rod. As Pundit Sullivan landed his dolphin, the sun sank. The President-elect went home for supper. Allan Hoover, out fishing with Secretary George Akerson, caught nothing and thereby caused his mother to lose a bet.

In a Navy chief yeoman's cap, the chief yeoman of U. S. foreign trade and diplomacy whiled away the cruising days with constitutionals around the deck, reading detective stories, reclining on a cabin lounge to chat with the 20 newsmen aboard, observing naval mysteries such as range-finding and fire-control in the gun turrets, and in dictating memoranda to several stenographers. Mrs. Hoover sat on deck, knitting*.

Evenings, there was open-air cinema. Cecil B. De Mille had flown up from Hollywood before the Hoovers left Palo Alto to offer 50 of the industry's proudest new productions. The offer was accepted and the Maryland's tars came in, with the Hoovers, for special viewings of Clara Bow, Emil Jannings, Marion Davies, Janet Gaynor, et al. The film titles ranged from Three Week Ends (Paramount) to Felix in Jungle Bungle (Educational).

The Maryland's company took up deck golf, shuffleboard, trapshooting. Except for the President-elect's customary tall stiff collar, every one changed entirely to tropical clothes. Will Irwin, writing for the New York World, reported: "The atmosphere is courteous and pleasant, without formality, and everything is 'as easy as an old shoe.' " The Maryland's radio operators were busied, sending tens of thousands of idyllic press reports and receiving Associated Press flashes for publication in The Evening Hurricane, ship's daily.

Interpreter Sherwell from the State Department started classes in Spanish in the wardroom.

Two days out, the complete Hoover itinerary was announced (see Map, p. 18) --Amapala (Honduras), La Union (Salvador), Corinto (Nicaragua), Puntarenas (Costa Rica), Guayaquil (Ecuador), Callao and Lima (Peru), Valparaiso, Santiago and Los Andes (Chile), Mendoza and Buenos Aires (Argentina), Montevideo (Uraguay), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Havana, perhaps Mexico, perhaps Texas, to Florida.

Cartoonist Nelson Harding of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle made a sketch of the President-elect, right hand raised in greeting, hat held in left hand, and had it reproduced nine times, in nine panels of a strip cartoon entitled: "Anticipating the News Cameras--Pres.-Elect Hoover in Panama, in Colombia, in Chile, in Peru" . . . etc. etc.

P: Thos. Cook & Son, travel agents, reported an astonishing influx of queries and booking orders by U. S. business agents anxious to follow behind the Hoover party by the earliest possible ships, to explore new markets and capitalize Hoover Goodwill.

P: During the Friday evening cinema show on deck, a mustang wave leaped over the rail and soused part of the audience. An hour later, the Maryland was "in it"--a nor' caster in the Gulf of Tehuantepec ("Hatteras of the Pacific") roaring over from the Caribbean across Guatemala and lower Mexico. One comber smashed a port in the Hoovers' quarters in the fantail stern, flooding their dining room. "This is terrible," gasped an attache. "Oh, I've seen worse," shrugged Mr. Hoover. He was up, wandering about in a bathrobe, several times during the night. The clouds broke and the Southern Cross shone through. Soon after sunrise, Mrs. Hoover joined him and Capt. Kimberley on the bridge to admire the ship's handling, the towering seas.

P: Mr. Hoover and retinue went ashore at Amapala to the cheers of 4,000 Hondurasians. He made his first good-will speech: "We know that the nations and the institutions we have created can flourish only in peace and mutual prosperity."

* Friends of Mrs. Hoover last week smiled at a picture of her published in the London Illustrated News. The caption said: "It is reported that 'I want to be a background for Bertie' is Mrs. Herbert Hoover's chief ambition ... A possible musical refrain, 'I want to be a background for Bertie.' "