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Deal extravagance and unconstitutionality. Until the fifth, tenth or 15th ballots at Cleveland it seemed highly probable that not even Herbert Hoover would know whether he intended to be a king or a kingmaker. This week, with his ace publicity man Ben Allen, he was in St. Louis to discourse to the John Marshall Republican Club on "The New Deal Further Explored, Including Relief." Listening to this third Hoover barrage, wiseacres credited the fertile wit of onetime Newshawk Allen with the following: "When I comb over these [Relief] accounts of the New Deal my sympathy arises for the humble decimal point. His is a pathetic and hectic life, wandering around among regimented ciphers trying to find some of the old places he used to know."
Meantime Republican outsiders continued hopefully to expose themselves to the lightning. Michigan's Senator Arthur Vandenberg kept mum in Washington, but photographs of the Vandenberg home were beginning to circulate through the Press. In Columbus, Old Guardsman Ogden L. Mills pounded away at "demoralized" New Deal spending. In Manhattan, Representative Hamilton ("Ham") Fish Jr. hazarded an eight-point landing on the Republican platform. In Sacramento, Governor Frank Merriam announced that he was not opposing friends' efforts on his behalf. In Chicago, Publisher Bernarr ("Body Love") Macfadden opened up campaign headquarters.