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The President's action led to an immediate controversy: Had he the power under the law to delay cruiser construction once started? The cruiser bill authorized him to suspend any or all construction in the event of a new international limitation agreement, but no such agreement had been reached. The White House explained that President Hoover had acted under another clause of the bill which provided that if construction on any vessel was not undertaken in a specific year, "such construction may be undertaken in the next succeeding fiscal year."
Senator Frederick Hale of Maine, Chairman of the Senate's Naval Affairs Committee, declared, however, that the President was legally powerless to interpose an undue delay in carrying out the will of Congress. The altercation harked back to the last administration, when President Coolidge vainly sought to induce Congress to eliminate the mandatory time-clause from the building bill to meet just such an emergency. (TIME, Feb. 18).
* First-line cruisers built, building, about to be built: U. S. 255,000 tons; Britain 400,300.