Jingle Bells

President Hoover had an opportunity last week to bring into play his intense interest in child welfare and happiness. Not since the romping Roosevelts has the White House had such a Christmas celebration as was given the Hoover grandchildren--Peggy Anne, 4, Herbert III, 3, Joan, six months. No one worked harder for their good time than Grandfather Hoover. On Christmas Eve when President Hoover returned to the White House from Sherman Square where he had lighted Washington's community tree and broadcast a 37-word holiday greeting to the land, there was a dinner for the children of the President's secretaries and aides-- the three Akerson boys, John Marshall Newton, French Strother Jr., Dr. Boone's daughter Suzanne, and the son of Capt. Train. Afterwards all the White House lights were extinguished and President Hoover, carrying a candle like the others, led his small guests round and about through the darkened rooms singing carols. Mrs. Hoover at the end of the procession rounded up stragglers. When the lights Hashed up in the East Room, the President's son Allan, home from Harvard Business School, officiated in the distribution of presents and gimcracks from a huge star-topped tree. Next morning the Hoovers, old and young, were at the breakfast table in the State Dining Room when a sudden jingling of bells up the chimney produced a hush of surprise. While Peggy Anne and Herbert III watched in pop-eyed amazement, a round, red-cheeked, flesh-&-blood Santa Claus with a heavy toy pack stepped out on the hearth, approached them.

(Mrs. Hoover could have readily identified him as Lawrence Richie, a Hoover secretary who was once a detective, knows the art of disguise.) When Santa Claus Richie offered him a doll from his pack, Herbert III scorned it, declared:

"I'm no girl." A railroad train set matters right.

P:Later in the day President Hoover received a large delegation of newsboys from all over the land. One youngster began to roister noisily before the President. Reprimanded, he apologized to President Hoover who said:

"That's all right. There are still too few of us who laugh."

P: As Christmas presents from President & Mrs.

Hoover, employes of the White House and the Executive Offices received wooden ashtrays, penholders, cigaretes, jewel cases, paper cutters, etc. All were made from the 100-year-old timber taken from the White House roof when it was renewed during the Coolidge era. With each gift went a card engraved with a bit of free verse. Though unsigned, every recipient knew that Mrs. Hoover had written it:

A pine tree on the hills of Maryland--through many summers' heats and winters' snows, Felled, carted, quartered, sawn, a metamorphosis within a week. And then a century buried deep within the White House walls, Unseen, unsung, but one of myriads holding firm together the storied structure. Until, a new age came and replaced steel for wood, then months upon the dump, The dump cart actually arrived jor one last ride-- And then a rescue!

Now here I rest upon Your desk for a short space; until--the waste basket and the fire. Then once again I'll go--free smoke before free wind--to touch again the hills of Maryland.

P: President Hoover last week announced he was ready to accept an invitation to dedicate the Harding Memorial at Marion, Ohio. The White House explanation of why he had ignored a previous invitation (TIME, July 28)'was that it had not come officially under "proper auspices" from all "the peoples of Ohio." Another reason given was that he did not wish to participate until litigation growing out of the oil scandals was completed.* Hoke Donithen, secretary of the Harding Memorial Asso ciation, at first exclaimed: "Mr. Hoover was invited.

He refused. He'll never get another invitation. We'll wait for Governor Roosevelt to dedicate if necessary."

Later however the Association ordered a meeting for this week at which invitations were to be framed under "proper aus-pices" not only for President Hoover but also for Calvin Coolidge.

P: Out of the White House last week came a report that George Akerson would shortly resign as President Hoover's No. 1 private secretary to take a better-paying position with a cinema company. If Secretary Akerson should quit, wiseacres predicted that Raymond Benjamin/- would be taken into the Hoover secretariat. Mr. Benjamin is one of that large, faithful group who, while not nationally famed themselves, are blindly devoted to Herbert Hoover, believe he is an administrative genius, desire to serve him in any capacity. A tall, softspoken, bushy-browed son of a carpenter, he was a union fiddler in San Francisco while studying law. He performed conspicuous relief work in the 1906 earthquake. With a big local reputation as a smart politician, he was a Hiram Johnson man until 1912 when he split to stick to Taft. A political sponsor for Senator Shortridge he fought Johnson openly in 1926, beat his candidate for the Senate. To him as a lawyer has been given credit for California's first act regulating public utilities, for its alien land law excluding Japanese and for its harsh criminal syndicalism act. Mr. Benjamin mystified political Washington last month when he dropped his California law practice and without any summons from the White House crossed the continent to see what he could do for his troubled friend and President. He was given desk room at G. O. P. headquarters with the unofficial rating of another political adviser and liaison officer.

* The bribery conviction of Albert Bacon Fall is still on appeal to the Supreme Court.

/-TIME last week misprinted his name as "Benjiamin Day."

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