No. 6 Man

The Secretary of the Navy is No. 6 Man in the Cabinet. As speechmakers, even No. 6 Men can make political troubles for their White House chiefs. In 1924, President Coolidge had to pipe in his No. 6 Man (Curtis Dwight Wilbur) from the stump for impolitic loquacity. Last week the speechmaking of President Hoover's No. 6 Man, Charles Francis Adams, stirred bad will between the executive and legislative branches of the government.

Secretary Adams went to Boston, his home, as prime guest at a Republican banquet and there spoke as follows:

"I know nothing of politics. However, I might give you a little gossip of Washington. There are two sides of the field there, a very brilliant administrative side and a legislative side which is--well, a little foggy. That is a nautical term. . . .

"The U. S. Senate is made up of a number of men . . . but there are about a dozen who call themselves Republicans who owe no real allegiance to our party. . . . We have seen the results in the agriculture bill*. . . . What is to be done? We can't blame the President. ... If he had nine lives, he might devote five of them to these men but he would not gain their votes.

"With the House, there is a different situation. Washington feels very cordial to Speaker Longworth. He has done a great job in organizing the House. It is a matter of personal charm. . . .

"There is always a joke about the tariff. . . . The measure is put through the House only to be torn to shreds in the Senate and finally turned into a bill that will muster votes by an obscure conference committee. . . .

"But a great figure emerges out of this fog--the President. He is a great pilot. He skillfully avoids the shoals and rocks. . . . He is willing to bend, if necessary. . . . He is really a great man. . . . What happens in the Cabinet is never disclosed. . . . However, Mr. Hoover has a group who will handle the executive end of the Government efficiently and very honestly. . . ."

Four hundred Republicans in Boston loudly applauded the President's No. 6 Man. But in Washington there was no applause. The speech made raw nerves rawer, set Senators and observers to wondering if President Hoover, through his No. 6 Man, had attempted to start a backfire of popular resentment against the Senate.

Quick to use the Adams speech as a wedge to drive farther apart the two elements of the Republican party was Mississippi's Senator Pat Harrison, archironist of the Democrats. Tongue in cheek, he prodded and pummeled the achy joints of the Senate G. O. P. Surely, he said, Secretary Adams did not mean to include in his list Senator Borah, who had "rendered greater service to the Republican party in the campaign and contributed more to its victory" than Herbert Hoover himself. Senator Brookhart, of all Republicans one of the least Regular, asked if Secretary Adams was not once himself "a distinguished insurgent in Massachusetts."

Senator Borah interposed: "He was not distinguished."

Of Speaker Longworth, Senator Harrison said: "He is approaching more nearly the tsarism of Speaker Reed than any speaker since those days. . . .* Is the Speaker praised . . . because his organization strangles and is now willing to kill the farm relief measure?"

"The obscure conference committee" that would write the Tariff Bill stirred Senator Harrison to ridicule. Explaining that Utah's Senator Reed Smoot would head that conference as chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Harrison cried: "Is he obscure? Why, children have lisped the name of Reed Smoot, have read it a million times. . . . Senator Reed of Pennsylvania? He is not obscure. . . He made his reputation by defending Mellon. . . . And that other Republican conferee, the senior Senator from Indiana [Watson, leader of the Republican majority in the Senate]--he is not obscure. He has been in public life or trying to break into it ever since he reached his majority."

Referring to the No. 6 Man as "Mr. Foghorn Adams," Senator Harrison quoted his remarks on the greatness of President Hoover and replied, with privileged Senatorial rudeness, that the President is "as negative a quantity ... as any we have ever had." Upon Secretary Adams's praise of the Cabinet of which he is a member Senator Harrison commented: "He recommends himself pretty highly, don't you think?" After his Boston speech, and the Harrison reply, Secretary Adams went to Newport, awarded diplomas at the Navy's War College, delivered the graduation speech. It was the shortest on record--two minutes.

*Reference to the 13 Republican Senators who helped to vote the Debenture Plan into the bill against the wishes of President Hoover.

*Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902) of Maine was twice Speaker of the House: 1889-91 and 1895-99. Strong of will, he, with William McKinley and Joseph Gurney Cannon, framed new parliamentary rules which provided that every Representative must vote, that members present but not voting could be counted for a quorum, that no dilatory or filibustering motion be entertained by the Speaker. Attacked as a "Tsar," he used his rules to rush through the House the McKinley (1890) and the Dingley (1897) tariff bills.

With McKinley and Cannon, Tsar Reed held control of the Rules Committee, framed programs which he would announce thus: "Gentlemen, William and Joseph and I have decided to perpetuate the following outrage." Speaker Reed once characterized his opponents as follows:

"The Democratic Party is like a man riding backward in a railroad car: it never sees anything until it has passed it."