(2 of 3)
autocracy learned "among the coolies of China and the wage-slaves of the Far East"; 3) political ineptitude; 4) fear, vacillation and a petty personal temper. Apparently the author of this Merry-Go- Round chapter was in close cooperation with the writer of the Mirrors of 1932 be cause in almost identical words they both declare that Engineer Hoover received $5,000 per year as a "mining expert," $95,000 as a "financial expert." Of the White House Secretariat (called "The Vestal Virgins") only "Larry" Richey ("the closest man to the President in or out of Washington") gets a word of praise. Vice President Curtis ("Egg Charley") is roundly ridiculed for his presidential ambitions, for his ornate office ("a cross between a tribal wickiup and a Sultan's seraglio"), for his official and unwonted toploftiness. Henry Lewis Stimson, as Secretary of State, is depicted as a vic tim of his aristocratic lineage and poor nervous resistance. He is dubbed "Wrong Horse Harry" because he failed to guess the winner of last year's Brazilian revolt (TIME, Sept. 22 et seq.}. Secretary of the Treasury Mellon ("the man who stayed too long") is set forth as a fiscal monarch whom Depression has toppled from his throne. Recounted in cruel detail are the unhappy incidents of his divorce from beauteous Nora McMullen Mellon. Says Merry-Go-Round of the Senate Insurgents: "The strongest and weakest element in national affairs. . . . Individually they fight gallant battles in the public interest. Collectively they have floundered about hopelessly, without program, unity or leadership. ..." The House of Representatives ("the Monkey House") : "The greatest organ ized inferiority complex in the world. . . . The 435 members, with a few exceptions, are the lowest common denominator of the ignorance, prejudices and inhibitions of their districts. . . . Assembled, it looks and acts like a section of the bleachers in a bush league town. . . . [Leader Tilson] has the agility of a flat bottomed mud scow. ... He conducts a floor fight like a religious revival."
Unspared in the general criticism is the Press. This chapter is widely attributed to short, red-headed "Bob" Allen of the Christian Science Monitor of whose Washington bureau the chapter says: "It is manned by competent and conscientious reporters who are held down by the conservative views and many prohibitions of their organization. Robert S. Allen, head of the staff, is the youngest large bureau chief in the capital."