The Hoover Week

Out of the White House last week came a recommendation for yet another commission of investigation. This time President Hoover asked Congress in a special message to help solve the Prohibition Enforcement problem by appointing a joint committee to study it.

No one had forgotten that at inaugural President Hoover had recommended the transfer of Prohibition Enforcement from the Treasury to the Department of Justice.* Now he was prepared to pass the whole troublesome question to Congress for solution. With the Law Enforcement commission and the proposed congressional commission at work on the same subject, many an observer thought he saw a gradual stifling of Prohibition as an issue for political agitation.

P: A task dear to the President's heart last week was laying the cornerstone for the new Department of Commerce Building (TIME, May 6). He made a speech, wielded the same trowel George Washington used in laying the cornerstone of the Capitol (1793).

P: Another task equally pleasant for the Engineer-President was his appointment of 17 delegates, famed engineers all, to represent the U. S. at the World Engineering Congress at Tokyo next October.

P: At their bi-weekly conferences with the Press, Presidents often say many a confidential thing designed only for the discreet ears of working newsmen. Last week President Hoover tightened the admission to these conferences, caused all newsmen to sign pledges that they were not connected with any brokerage tipping service.

P: Last week President Hoover spent evenings poring over a newspaper made especially for him. It was compiled by Clerk John McCabe, who had gathered together a vast assortment of press clippings on the pending Tariff and Farm Relief Bills, pasted them in large scrap books. The President was disturbed to find that 90% of the press sentiment was against the House's Tariff handiwork. Around Washington sped the gossip that he would veto the Tariff Bill unless the Senate altered it to conform more nearly to popular desires.

P: A believer in presidential dignity, rarely does President Hoover lend himself to advertising publicity. Last week however he did, when Washington's Senator Dill brought to the White House for a presidential greeting Miss Helen Brenton of Tacoma, Wash., Smart Set's choice of a "Typical American Girl."

* Though he skipped the paragraph in the printed text of his speech, its omission was explained later as inadvertent, unintentional.