AMERICAS NEW PRESIDENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18205, 5 March 1929, Page 9

AMERICAS NEW PRESIDENT.

Inauguration Ceremony. BROADCASTING TO BRITISH LISTENERS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received March 4, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY, March 3. Arrangements have been made by the British Broadcasting Corporation, to relay to British listeners, a portion of the ceremony at Washington tomorrow, when Mr Herbert Hoover will be inaugurated President of the United States in succession to Mr Calvin Coolidge. AT WHITE HOUSE. MR HOOVER’S INAUGURAL SPEECH. .United Press Association —Bj ElsctrU Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received March 4, 5.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 4. In his address on the occasion of his inauguration, Mr Henry Hoover said : Disregard of Law. “If w© survey the situation of the nation, both at home and abroad, we find many satisfactions; we find some causes for concern. The most malign ol all dangers is the disregard and disobedience of law. Crime is increasing and confidence in rigid and speedy justice is decreasing. 1 am not prepared to believe that it indicates the impotence of the Federal Government to enforce its laws. It is only in part due to tho additional burdens imposed upon our judicial system by the Eighteenth Amendment. The problem is much wider than that. Many influences had increasingly complicated and weakened our law enforcement organisation, long before the adoption of the ghteenth Amendment. Justice must not fail, because the agencies of enforcement are either delinquent or inefficiently organised. To consider these evils; to find their remedy, is tho most sore necessity of our times.” Views on Prohibition. Referring to Prohibition, Mr Hoover said: “Our whole system of selfgovernment will crumble, either if our officials elect what laws they will support. The worst evil of the disregard for some law, is that it destroys respect for all law. For our citizens to patronise the violation of a particular law on the ground that they are opposed to it, is destructive of the very basis of all that protection of life, home and property, which they rightly claim under other laws. If citizens do not like any law, their duty, as honest men and women, is to discourage the violation. Their right is openly to work for its repeal. I intend to appoint a National Commission for a searching investigation of the whole structure of the Federal system of jurisprudence, to include th© method of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment. and the cause of abuse under it.” Plea for World Peace. Referring to world peace, Mr Hoover said: “The United States freely accepts the profound truth that its own progress, prosperity, and peace are inter-locked with the progress, prosperity, and pace of all humanity. The whole world is at peace. The dangers to a continuation of this peace to-day are largely fear and suspicion, which still haunt the world. No suspicion or fear can rightly be directed toward our country. Those who have a true understanding of America know that wo have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom. Our form of government is ill-adapted to the responsibilities which inevitably follow the permanent limitation of independence of other peoples. Superficial observers seem to find no destiny for our abounding increase in population, wealth, and power, except- that of Imperialism. They fail to see that the American people are engrossed in building for themselves a new

economic system, a new social system, a new political system, all of which are characterised by the aspirations of freedom and opportunity, and thereby are the negation of Imperialism.” Pact to Outlaw War. Mr Hoover thus referred to the Kellogg Treaty: “Tho recent Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an instrument of national policy, sets an advanced standard in our conception of the relations between nations. Its acceptance should pave the way to tho greater limitation of armaments ” . World Court Approved. Referring to the World Court, Mr Hoover said : “American statesmen were among the first to propose, and have constantly urged upon the world, the establishment of a tribunal for the settlement of controversies of a justifiable character. A permanent Court of International Justice in its major purpose, is this peculiarly identified with American ideals and American statesmanship. No more potent instrumentality for this purpose has even even been conceived, and no other is practicable of establishment. The reservations placed upon our adherence should not be xnisinter- I preted. The United Slates seeks bjthese reservations no special privilege or advantage, but only to clarify our relation to advisory opinions and other matters which are subsidiary to the major purpose of the Court. The way should, and I believe will, be found by which we may take our proper place in a movement so fundamental to the progress of peace.” BEFORE THE INAUGURATION. SOME INTERESTING SIDELIGHTS. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph —Copyright.) WASHINGTON, March 3. That curious aftermath of tho the Presidential inauguratiqn, will occur here on Monday. The outward vagaries or intentions of the cere-

monial itself are one thing; th© inner political manoeuvres and leanings are another, and in the case of Mr Herbert Hoover’s induction into office the latter is by far the most important and without doubt the most interesting. Strange Cabinet-making. It cannot be forgotten that he i 9 nc-t a professional politician, and his choice of a Cabinet was more than faintly disconcerting to the stalwart politicians who inevitably are the backbone of the Republican Party. His choice of an avowed Democrat as Attorney-General, his far searchings for figures often little known, although, perhaps, technically competent, is the ferment that bubbles deep within the inauguration event. Washington is in the thrills of anticipation of the picturesque event. Vice-President Curtis will swear the oath on a German Bible 350 years old. The city itself is a mass of bunting, interlaced with miles of reviewing stands. It was mooted that Mr Hoover deprecated any ostentatious display. There will, therefore, during the celebrations, be only a touch of military procedure, accompanied by aeroplane stunting. Senator Dawes to-day received a salvor from his Senate associates, properly inscribed. It is reported that he was so affected by the speeches of eulogy that he was compelled to leave the reading of his reply to the Senate clerk. Preparing for the Change. The Coolidges have packed their belongings, which filled several railway cars, and early on Monday will return to tlieir modest house in Northampton, Massachusetts-. Mrs Coolidge has received a magnificent diamond broach from a group of lady admirers. A large supplementary force of Prohibition agents has been added to the regular corps to keep the city dry. Tickets to the charity ball to be held on the inaugural eve are now impossible to obtain. The city is jammed with visitors, particularly a large foreign contingent which has come to see the sights. Australia will he well represented by the Young Australians, who have been given a prominent place in the reviewing stands.

But what is the political reality behind this picture of outward semicarnival? The old Congress has been wrangling and filibustering over scandals involving wholesale frauds in the administration of the national uankruptcy law, and Mr Coolidge has been signing last-minute resolutions for inquiries into the activities of many well-known Federal judges. Hordes of Office-seekers. Hundreds of measures have been jammed through in the last hours of the Legislature and the mill continues to grind. Congress will sit on Sunday and early on Monday to- pass hundreds more of similar laws that will never receive too much publicity. I here is, moreover, a great crowd in the city of those people who are not merely visitors. There are hordes of office seekers who are waiting impatiently for March 4 to descend upon the White House and demand their snare in the spoils of victory. It is all a spectacle ol uneven but arresting character and, in the words of one observer, “It s a strange hippodrome ol legislation and politics, of tinsel and traders.”