When House talked to Wilson, it was a weaker Wilson talking to the
real Wilson. Colonel House in retirement and since the breach, is
still Colonel House, kindhearted and unobtrusive. He has seen, and
he is satisfied. He has a fine and perhaps half-unconscious loyalty
to the great man from whose shoulders he surveyed the world. His is
an ego that brushes itself off readily after a fall and asks for no
alms of sympathy.

He does not, like Mr. Lansing, fill five hundred octavo pages with
"I told you so," and you can not conceive of his using that form of
self-justification.

I hope to see him some day playing Santa Claus in a children's
Christmas celebration at a village church!

HERBERT HOOVER

One reads in the press daily of Hughes and Hoover, or Mellen and
Hoover, or Davis and Hoover, or Wallace and Hoover. If it is a
question of foreign relations, it is the Secretary of State and
Hoover. If it has to do with using our power as a creditor nation
to compel the needy foreigners to buy here, in spite of the tariff
wall we are going to erect against their selling here, it is the
Secretary of the Treasury and Hoover. If strikes threaten, it is
the Secretary of Labor and Hoover. If the farmers seek more direct
access to the markets, it is the Secretary of Agriculture and
Hoover.

It is always "and Hoover." What Mr. Hughes does not know about
international affairs--and that is considerable--Mr. Hoover does.
What Mr. Mellen does not know about foreign finance--and that is
less--Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Davis does not know about labor--and
that is everything--Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Wallace does not
know about farm marketing--and that is nothing--Mr. Hoover does.

Herbert Hoover is the most useful supplement of the administration.
He possesses a variety of experiences, gained in making money
abroad, in administering the Belgian relief, in husbanding the
world's food supply after our entrance into the War, in helping
write the peace treaty, which no one else equals. He is as handy as
a dictionary of dates or a cyclopedia of useful information,
invaluable books, which never obtain their just due; for no one
ever signs his masterpiece with the name of its coauthor, thus, by
"John Smith and the Cyclopedia of Useful Information."

A bad particle to ride into fame behind, that word "and," begetter
of much oblivion! Who can say what goes after the "and" which
follows the name McKinley, or Hayes, or Cleveland, or e