New Ohio Gang

A political organization, unlike a business organization, generally closes ranks defensively about a member whose honesty comes in question. But last week the Republican party opened wide its ranks to let Claudius Hart Huston, chairman of the national committee, stalk out of office. Mr. Huston wondered aloud why the political pack had deserted him after the discovery of his temporary deposit of Muscle Shoals lobby funds in his private stock margin account.

It was a poorly attended committee meeting in Washington to which Mr. Huston finally tendered his resignation. Did the committee wish to hear his statement?

The committee, accepting the resignation "with thanks," did not. Mr. Huston thereupon passed around mimeographed copies. Excerpts:

"When I became chairman, I expected to bear philosophically the usual burden of criticism and abuse. . . . No man in political life has ever been subjected to more unjust and unwarranted attacks. ... I am conscious of my own integrity. I have never been accustomed to give ground under fire, every personal inclination I have is to fight this thing to a finish. . . . In the past it has been the policy of party leaders to maintain a solid front under enemy fire but as this has not been the policy in the present case, I have reached the conclusion, putting the interest of the Republican party ahead of personal consideration, that I should tender my resignation."

Two customary things were lacking from this high political retirement: 1) a public letter from the President praising the outgoing chairman's service; 2) a public pledge by the chairman to continue to support the President. It was perfectly clear that Claudius Hart Huston and Herbert Clark Hoover are no longer friends.

With Mr. Huston safely out, the G. O. P. committee proceeded to the selection of a new chairman. As prearranged with President Hoover's active approval, Senator Simeon Davison Fess of Ohio was chosen to head the national committee. As not prearranged this was done on a permanent basis, for Mr. Fess refused to take the job temporarily. Ousted Mr. Huston was reported as saying at once: "Enter the Ohio Gang again." If uttered, this bitter remark was aimed at Walter Folger Brown of Toledo as much as at Simeon Davison Fess. The latter was never a member of the Harding-Daugherty-Jesse Smith inner circle, though party and State loyalty required him to flay the Ohio Gang's critics in his maiden Senate speech. Postmaster General Brown was not a Harding Gangster, either, but he now controls the bulk of the party's patronage.

The committee cast about for a title for Robert Henry Lucas, now Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a Kentuckian of whom the Hooverites expect much. The title "executive assistant to the national chairman" was proposed. Senator Fess complained it was not sufficiently "illuminating and dignified" for Mr. Lucas. Finally chosen was the phrase: "Executive Director of the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee." The executive committee failed to fix Executive Director Lucas' salary at $25,000 as prearranged, left the matter to Chairman Fess and National Treasurer Joseph Nutt (also of Ohio).

Contrary to schedule the committee elected George de B. Keim of Edge water Park, N. J. as secretary of the national committee. Mr. Keim, a retired Philadelphia banker without political experience and unknown to most of the committee, is a New Jersey member of the Port of New York Authority. After Ernst Lee Jahncke, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had been named Republican National Committeeman from Louisiana, the committee trooped over to the White House to have lunch with President Hoover.

Chairman Fess was plainly overjoyed at his new job. "It's the greatest honor that has ever come to me," said he. A good-humored, red-faced, sandy little man who makes much of an undistinguished pedagogical background, he shifted sprily to the Hoover candidacy in 1928 after keeping the "draft-Coolidge" movement alive as long as possible. He made the keynote address at the G. O. P.'s Kansas City convention. Regular as the stars, a political Dry coddled by the Anti-Saloon League, he is neither as popular nor as powerful as big-party bosses usually have to be to produce election results.

In Washington it was deduced that Chairman Fess is to be simply a figurehead at national headquarters in the Barr Building in Washington, that Executive Director Lucas will supply the political blood-bones-&-brain for the G. O. P. campaign. Mr. Lucas was a political unknown until he carried Kentucky for Coolidge in 1924. He had served as Collector of Internal Revenue at Louisville. President Hoover rewarded him and his section of the country last year by putting him in charge of the government's vast and intricate tax collecting machinery. At the Treasury he has proved his mettle. Last week he returned to Louisville to celebrate his 42nd birthday before resigning his government position.

Mad Mann. The Republican chieftains in Washington last week made an elaborate display of ignoring a new party threat, nicely timed to catch their attention. In 1928, Col. Horace A. Mann of Tennessee emerged in Washington as Herbert Hoover's Southern Campaign manager. An old hand in the G.O. P., South, he helped Mr. Huston, also of Tennessee, round up black Hoover delegates for the national convention. During the campaign proper he conducted a separate, mysterious headquarters. The party advanced him $25,000 for undercover work. When Nominee Hoover carried Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas, Col. Mann stepped forward to claim credit and patronage. President Hoover spurned his claims, virtually exiled him from party councils. A special Southern patronage committee composed of Postmaster General Brown, Hoover Secretary Newton and General Counsel Burke of the Republican National Committee was set up by the President's order to dispense jobs, to "purify"' the G. O. P., South. More than 1,000 Federal appointments in the South have been passed out by this committee.

Last week Col. Mann emerged from a Savannah, Ga. meeting of disgruntled Republicans with a direct challenge to the Hoover administration. He referred to the President's patronage committee as "designing political hijackers" and "an interloping element of carpetbaggers." He proclaimed the purpose of his own "noble band": to manage the affairs of the G. O. P., South, without interference; to see that the 1932 Republican National Convention shall have "a solid delegation [from the South] uncontested and uninstructed."

Any large block of Southern delegates unpledged to President Hoover's renomination would constitute a real factor at the 1932 convention. As a result of its 1928 victories, the G. O. P., South, will have 250 delegates instead of 167 as in 1928. The idea spread that Mr. Huston, ousted by the forces to which Col. Mann objects, might well join with Col. Mann to make political war on the White House.

"Tissue Paper." President Hoover disdained to notice the Mann revolt. Postmaster General Brown declared that if the President's only chance for renomination in 1932 depended on Southern delegates, he had better give up the idea of a second term. Exclaimed Mr. Burke: "Mr. Hoover will be unanimously nominated at the next convention. If he isn't, everyone knows the nomination will not be worth tissue paper."

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