GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE

The new regime has begun. The brilliant banners that waved along the Avenue are already forgotten in the dark cellars along with the other relics of the inauguration. The visitors have departed, for now the overture is ended and the citizenry settles down to watch the drama proper. The optical nerves of the nation, the newspapers, have sent their outstanding reporters to the scene; foreign governments watch the proceedings through the eyes of discerning diplomats, while the unemployed cultivate westernisms as they hopefully peep through the presidential windows.

But the thoughts that are uppermost in the minds of the public are not whether this country shall sell arms to Mexico or enter the World Court. Instead, filled with the spirit of human kinship, they prefer to read the accounts of astute newspaper men who have bribed the White House cook to discover if the President prefers two or three minute eggs. It is their desire to know if the Hoovers intend to keep dogs or cats, not whether there are going to be any further developments in the disarmament situation. The great question is, will President Hoover look well in a ten gallon hat?

Telegrams of congratulations to the happy parents of Herbert Hoover Smith of Vinton, Iowa take precedence over massacres in the Balkans. The wife of the President receives a delegation of the Camp Fire Girls in the Blue room; the President waves a fond farewell to the friends from home while the Secretary of the Navy is detained in the anteroom as a suspicious character. Far away is the echo of a voice, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."