Practical Idea

To the barnlike Washington Auditorium went President Hoover and his retinue on Armistice night. Before him on the hard seats were American Legionaires. Beyond was a world-wide listening audience. The President raised his voice, spoke many a familiar word. He dissected the causes of war, the practicalities of peace. He discussed competitive armament and his hopes for the London Naval Conference. He also said:

"Another of these age-old controversies . . . is the so-called freedom of the seas. ... It is simply the rights of private citizens to trade in time of war. ... I am going to have the temerity to put forward an idea ... a practical step which would solve a large part of the intrinsic problem. I offer it only for the consideration of the world. I have not made it a governmental proposition to any nation. . . . This is not a proposition for the forthcoming conference. . . .*

"Food ships should be made free of any interference in time of war. ... I would place all [such] vessels on the same footing as hospital ships. . . . The fear of an interruption in seaborne food supplies has powerfully tended toward naval development. . . . We cannot condemn anyone nation. . . . Starvation should be rejected among the weapons of warfare."

Another excerpt: "I have no faith in the reduction of armament by example alone. . . . We will reduce our naval strength in proportion to any other. It only remains for the others to say how low they will go. It cannot be too low for us."

P: President Hoover last week overhauled and expanded the White House social calendar. He planned to inaugurate separate dinners for the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, thereby escaping any tangle of precedence between Mrs. Edward Everett Gann and Mrs. Nicholas Longworth. The House and Senate were likewise to be given separate receptions. Three new state affairs were listed, for the six departments, in pairs (Treasury and Post Office, Interior and Agriculture. Commerce and Labor), heretofore neglected in the White House social program.

P: Promoted last week by President Hoover was Sheldon Whitehouse, Counselor of the U. S. Embassy at Madrid, to be U. S. Minister to volcano-cursed Guatemala. For Mr. Whitehouse. long-time career diplomat, it was a step up professionally, down socially.

P: Last week President Hoover issued three official proclamations: Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28); Armistice Day; the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. Said he in his Thanksgiving proclamation: "God has greatly blessed us as a nation in the year now drawing to a close." Four times in all did the President mention God. thus answering last fortnight's startling request of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism that, in the name of Thomas Jefferson, presidential utterances be kept as godless as the U. S. Constitution (TIME, Nov. 11).

*James Ramsay MacDonald last week assured his Parliament that he and President Hoover did not discuss freedom-of-the-seas .