For more than six decades the little (pop. 791) Iowa town of West Branch has listened to old Newt Butler tell the same storyhow he licked Herbie Hoover in a scrap at the swimming hole. Last week, as ex-President Herbert Clark Hoover returned to West Branch to celebrate his 74th birthday, Newt reminded his old schoolmate of the bout. Hoover just grinned.
Some 10,000 other lowans flocked to the trim Quaker town to honor its only famous son. Hoover dutifully examined the two-room frame cottage where he was born, nodded as the old wooden cradle was pointed out to him,...
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