Hoover Progress

(See front cover)

Publicity is a prime requisite of any Goodwill trip. When the Hoover-bearing battleship Maryland passed down South America's west coast, it was found that the high Andes were an obstacle to telling the world by ship's radio what the traveller was saying and doing. The Navy Department therefore obligingly ordered the cruiser Rochester to steam westward from Panama to the vicinity of Galapagos and thence relay the Maryland's rebounding messages to the big naval radio station at Balboa.* Notwithstanding this assistance, the Maryland found Andean ether conditions so bad that no messages could be sent for six hours one day. George Barr Baker, the chief Hoover censor and publicist, explained matters to the world's press when he could. The broadcast of Goodwill dropped from 16,000 words per day to about 10,000.

Antofagasta. Down out of the mountains which are Bolivia went 70 dignitaries and notables (including many ladies) from La Paz, across the nitrate plain which is Chile and so aboard the Maryland in the harbor of Antofagasta. Mr. & Mrs. Hoover lunched them all on the quarterdeck. In his speech, Mr. Hoover stated that the history of Bolivia and its hero, Simon Bolivar, are as familiar to U. S. schoolchildren as to Bolivian schoolchildren.

It had been explained that Mr. Hoover longed to visit La Paz but did not like to step on Chilean soil, as would have been necessary, before paying his respects to Chile's highest officials at Santiago. The Bolivians had come to him after requesting permission from Chile to travel through what used to be Bolivia's corridor to the sea, the long-disputed Tacna-Arica district at the juncture of Bolivia, Chile & Peru.

President Hernando Siles of Bolivia was sorry not to be able to join the goodwill party. He was occupied at La Paz by an impending war with Paraguay (see page 13).

Reasons making the Antofagasta stop worthwhile for all concerned: 1) More U. S. capital is invested in Bolivia (tin, oil) than in any other S. A. country; 2) the U. S. holds all Bolivia's external debt bonds. 3) the Tacna-Arica dispute might be settled some day by letting Bolivia buy back her road-to-the-sea, as suggested by Secretary Kellogg in 1925.

Chile. Through the cool, north-rushing Humboldt current the Maryland plowed on towards Valparaiso.

The usual squad of resplendent officials was at the harbor. The Hoovers said goodbye to the Maryland and a state train sped them 110 miles inland from Valparaiso to Santiago, where President Carlos Ibaniez of Chile in a generalissimo's regalia was waiting with an open carriage and four spanking bay horses. While Mr. Hoover visited the U. S. Embassy, President Ibaniez went on to the National Palace. There Mr. Hoover visited him after lunch, the first of a two-day series of meetings, partings and re-meetings.

Andean Christ. After Santiago, the itinerary called for a special train to Santa Rosa de Los Andes (Chile), whence the narrow gauge Transandine Railway climbs up to burrow through the Cumbre tunnel at an altitude of 10,452 feet. Half a mile higher, on a ridge in the oldtime Cumbre pass, stands "Christ of the Andes," the peace statue which Chile and Argentine cast from their cannon after Edward VII of England arbitrated their last quarrel in 1902. "Peace to all nations" says that statue's pedestal. And:

"Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than the people of Argentina and Chile break the peace which they have sworn to maintain at the feet of Christ the Redeemer" As a bearer-of-goodwill from the U. S. approached the Cumbre, in the Christmas season, on the southernmost swing of his South American pilgrimage, the lofty Andean Christ seemed to attain a new significance, perhaps: "Peace on high, goodwill to continents."

Mr. Hoover decided he would not have time to climb up and inspect the monument.

The Hoover Cabinet was picked, it was reported, but would not be announced until a few weeks before inauguration.*Those weeks will be spent by the President-Elect on Belle Isle, off Miami Beach, Fla., in the mansion of James C. Penney, chainstore man, intimate friend. A proud parent, the city of Miami proper last week invited Calvin Coolidge to come there too, to stay permanently.

* A faint chorus of critics asked by what token the U. S. Navy Department was bearing the cost of the wholly unofficial Hoover trip. The Prince of Wales, it was pointed out, paid $25,000 out of his own pocket for his African tour, though he went as an official ambassador from Britain.

* Extension Magazine, official missionary monthly of the Roman Catholic Church, facetiously recommended the following Hoover Cabinet in an editorial: "For Secretary of State, the Hon. Jim Vance, President and publisher of the Fellowship Forum; for Secretary of the Treasury, the Hon. F. Scott McBride, Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League; for Secretary of Labor, Bishop James Cannon Jr., of the Methodist Church South; for Attorney General, the Hon. Mabel Willebrandt; for Postmaster General, the Hon. Billy Sunday; for Secretary of the Navy, the Hon. Hiram Wesley Evans, Imperial Wizard of the K. K. K.; for Secretary of the Interior, the Hon. Ella A. Boole, National President of the W. C. T. U.; for Secretary of Agriculture, the Hon. Dr. J. Roach Straton; for Secretary of Commerce, the Hon. Dr. Ernest H. Cherrington, General Secretary of the World League against Alcoholism; for Secretary of War, the Hon. J. Thomas Heflin."