"I can make no adequate expression of gratitude for the overwhelming confidence of our people, who without regard to section or interest have selected me for President of the whole United States.
"There has been a vindication of great issues and a determination of the true road of progress. The Republican Party has again been assessed with a great responsibility.
"In this hour there can be for me no feeling of victory or exultation. Rather it imposes a sense of solemn responsibility of the future and of complete dependence upon divine guidance for the task which the greatest office in the world imposes.
"That task is to give the best within me to interpret the common sense and the ideals of the American people.
"I can only succeed in my part by the co-operation and unity of all leaders of opinion and of action for the common service of our country."
—HERBERT HOOVER.
> There was no definite Cabinet news (see p. 9). Inauguration news, too, was sparse. The President-elect said he hoped the ceremony would be "one of the extremest in simplicity that we have ever had." At Tipton, Iowa, one John W. Reeder, 92, hoped that the ceremony would not be too simple. He had asked to be, and been promised that he might be official holder of the Hoover hat on March 4.
> "Look at that picture—Mr. Hoover and myself sitting together. We both accomplished careers." So, according to Correspondent Prince Pignatelli of Universal Service (Hearst), said His Holiness Pope Pius XI the day after election, in Rome. When he was Achille Ambrogio Domiano Ratti, Apostolic Delegate to Poland, Pius XI was photographed in Warsaw with Herbert Hoover and Marshal Josef Pilsudski.
Another compliment to the man whose victory was causing people to say, "A Catholic can't be elected President of the U. S.," was published on the front page of the Osservatore Romano, quasi-official Vatican daily—a letter from the late Pope Benedict XV, dated 1920, congratulating Herbert Hoover on U. S. relief efforts in Europe.
> David Lawrence, able publisher of the United States Daily, writing in the Chicago Daily News, retold an historic remark uttered in the winter of 1920 by President-elect Harding to his private secretary, George Christian. The Harding Cabinet was being selected, under much political stress & strain. The Christian-Lawrence version of Harding's remark: "George, I've just got a hunch that it's the best thing to do and a big thing to do —to pick Hoover. This fellow can be a big factor in a big constructive way in this reconstruction period."
> Not until the second Wednesday in February will the Hoover election be officially recorded by the formal counting of the votes of the Electoral College. Nevertheless, early on Nov. 7, Herbert Hoover & family were taken into safe-keeping by the Federal Secret Service. Chief William H. Moran presented himself at Palo Alto to acquaint the Hoovers with his plans for their protection. Two detectives followed the President-elect's first postelection stroll with Mrs. Hoover.