PRESIDENT-ELECT OF U.S.A.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1929, Page 7

PRESIDENT-ELECT OF U.S.A.

J HERBERT llow VRK 'X CA R FEE. SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 10. While Americans have be*u rejoicin, at the success ol the tour of Herbert. Hoover in So am ..merman dimes, 1 li.lnerl.o unciiioiiided chapter in tli, umending career oi the Pivsiuoni-eieci ui llio Lulled States lias just been re >e;iled by Airs. Lucy r ic*i ..or Brown, ol New Yon* City.

Thirty-six year, ag.i tiiis autumn. Airs Brown was one 01 Hie ov.nois of i private school lor girls up in liic 1 ir fornian hills near Palo Alto, and Her'iiert Hoover, trcxiimau at i,eland Stan ford University, near .San Francisco, tom* care ol iier li'rsi.s. In the autumn of 1892—3 G years almost to the month, before Air Hoover was receiving the greatest popular and electoral vote ever given any candidate for the Presidency of the United States — a young man presented himself to Airs Brown, with a note from Air Davi . Starr Jordan, President of Stanford University. He was “a stocky, square-faced boy in a cheeked gingham shirt,” she said and silently he handed iier Dr. Jordan’s note, which read; “1 am sending you a young malt who lias just come down from Oregon. He is not fully prepared to enter tlie University, but lie is good stuff, so we are taking him in. He has to earn his way and he knows all about horses. 1 think he is just the boy you want. His mime is Herbert Hoover

Silently, Mrs Brown said, young Hoover listened to her instructions, and in silence lie went to work,

“And that,” she now said in New York “is the last 1 heard of him—almost literally— until the day several months after, when lie came and told me he had obtained enough work on ihe campus to support himself and that he would send a friend of his to work for 11s if we wanted him. The friend came, and, incidentally, eventually ,became .superintendent of schools in California. “HE NEVER TALKED. “In all the months lie worked for us ] don’t suppose 1 ever said more than’ half ta dozen words to him, beyond ‘Good-morning, Herbert,’ or •to give, him an order. And I can’t remember what his voice sounded like. He never talked, but—you should have seen the way lie took care of those horses.” At the solicitation of Dr. Jordan, Airs Brown went to California in 1892 and founded Castelleja Hall, a school for giris, which is still in existence. “\Ve were established,” she said, “in romantic old estate that had been built and later abandoned by a wealthy gardens and stables. Since we were several miles from anywhere, we had to have horses.

“I had ridden and driven a good deal so, with all the confidence in the world I went out and bought two fine horses. We called them Roderick Dint and Peg of Limavaddy. I found that I didn’t know anything at all about taking care of horses, however. Finally, one day when Mrs Louis Aggasiz, widow of the celebrated scientist and I).an of Radcliffe, came to visit iis and almost missed her train because I couldn’t catch those horses in the paddock, I told Dr. Jordan that “the horse business was too much for me” and asked hint to send a student to take care of them. He sent Herbert Hoover.

“Herbert’s job—or Air Hoover’s job, rather—was to feed them stable them, bring them around with the school bus in the morning, and put them away at night. We gave him a room somewhere up on the top floor, and gave him his meals. He ate breakfast and dinner in the kitchen, and our Chinese cook used to fix him up a lunch to carry to college, which was about three miles away. J can see him t<>«. almost, striding away up the road with his books under his arm, after bringing the horses to the door.”

When he left them, Air Brown says, voting Hoover went to live at Emma ilaii. tlie boys’ dormitory on the campus. and did old jobs and wailed at table. “I think that is where the • logan must have started, ‘Rend for Hoover.’ ” she said. Starting under a disadvantage, not l ully prepared s'bolasLically, and with bis own wa* lo make,- lie was very soon one of the best known students in college. H< bad a positive genius for accomplishing things—never worried, never said anything, but just went ahead and did things.

“Rome time after young Hoover lelt their employ, Mrs Brown remembers, a charming little girl named Jean Henry became a student at Castelleja Hall. And wry frequently her big sister, Lou, who also was a mother to her —I heir mother having died—used • o come to the school to see her. ‘•After the National Convention last summer,” Alls Brown said, “I wrote jo Lou Henry Hoover. 1 thought J wouldn’t bother Herbert, he’d be so busy. And 1 received from Airs Hoover a very delight!ul and cordial note, in her own writing.”