The Bismarck Tribune

THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE
-And He Used to Be the 'Bad Little Boy' of the Class!

WASHINGTON LETTER
BY RODNEY DUTCHER
NEA Service Writer

Washington, Feb. 28,-If Herbert Hoover should be nominated without the open support of President Coolidge and subsequently elected he would be just about the first American so honored who ever used a cabinet post as his principal stepping stone to the White House without previously having been elected to important public office. It is interesting to note that most members of the cabinet are behind Hoover. But of course there are no sharply drawn lines among the government branches in the preconvention campaigns.

The fact that Hoover, who took over control of such vital new factors as aviation and radio along with his many other duties, has done a good job as an executive and has met with less protest than most of the other secretaries is one factor of his present strength. He is charged with "the work of promoting the commerce of the United States and its mining, manufacturing, shipping, fishery and transportation interests" and he has devoted himself to that job with considerable success.

That he has never been a senator or a governor-or a politician-probably will not militate against him with the voters. The point is that no other cabinet officer has been able to make himself president, least of all a secretary of commerce and that Hoover may open up a new era of things if he makes the grade.

His Democratic opponent is likely to be a governor or a senator. Coolidge was a governor, owing his first presidential job to Harding's death. Harding was a senator. Wilson was governor of New Jersey. Taft, who was neither senator nor governor, stepped from his job as secretary of war to the White House only through Roosevelt's influence. Roosevelt was a governor buried in the vice presidency only to be elevated by McKinley's assassination. McKinley was governor of Ohio. Benjamin Harrison was first a soldier and later an Ohio senator. Cleveland was governor of New York. Arthur was given the vice-presidential nomination in a political deal and would have been no more had not Garfield, a soldier and a senator, been shot. Hayes was governor of Ohio and Tilden, who beat him in all but the final count, was governor of New York. Grant, of course, was a soldier an Andrew Johnson had been governor of Tennessee. Lincoln was a congressman. Buchanan had been successively minister to Russia, senator, secretary of state and minister to England. Pierce was senator and soldier. Fillmore had been a congressman, a state official in New York and a vice president. Taylor was a soldier, Polk speaker of the House, Harrison a soldier and senator, and so on back to Washington.