HOOYKIt ancl CURTIS,
COMMONERS
Such is the title of an able edit
or al contained in the Portland Ore
gonian. For a long time, we have
disagreed with the fish policies of
Mr. Hoover. We still believe that
a continuance of these policies wi’l
nu an the destruction of this great
industry. If not, it will mean tha
d- druction of our fishing popula
tion and the upbuilding of a great
non-resident population which will
come in the spring with the geese
and depart with them in the fall
leaving only the drippings for those
who are unfortunate enough to re
main.
And yet, we have some hope that
the-e will be a change in Mr. Hoov
er’s treatment of Alaska, for we
are expecting the election of the Re
pel lican ticket, thru the influence of
nharles Curtis.
While the influence of a vice-Pres
ident is usually very small, we an
ticipate that it will be large this
time for the reason that if Hoover
is . lected, it will be largely through
t1 e personal popularity of Charles
Curtis who is just as much a man of
■ he people as Hoover is an aristo
crat.
The article follows:
Hoover and Curtis Commoners
Kqual opportunity for all is no
mere dream of the idealist in free
America. Ours is the true democ
r * y, wherein men rise by merit
and not by fortune and family. The
nominations of Herbert Hoover for
presidency, and Charles Curtis for
the vice-presidency, by the republic
an national convention, confirm
again the first tenet of our faith.
All men are created free and equal.
The whiner has only himself to re
p*oach. The failures fail not be
cause opportunity has been denied
them in the United States, but for
the reason that they have proved
somehow unworthy of their oppor
tunities. Neither riches nor station,
whatever the firebrands may say, are
requisite to advancement and re
cognition in this country. The men
who head the republican ticket are
commoners to the core, and their or
igins were marked by no bright
stars of particular benovelence and
concern. Hoover the farm boy, son
of Quaker parents. Curtis the jockey
who aforetime had been a ward of
the government on an Indian Reser
vation. These records should suf
Pce to splinter every soapbox in the
bind.
Herbert Hoover is the son of plain
Ohio townsfolk. His father was a
blacksmith. He was an orphan at
9 vears, and thereafter dependent
on kindly relatives. As a chore boy
on the farm he performed all the
ho'iely tasks with which farm boy3
are familiar. He rose before sun
up for the milking. He curried
horses and followed the plows. As
a stripling in Oregon he earned his
education by sweeping out the old
academy at Newberg, and by bubbl
ing furnace fires. Later he was an
office boy in Salem, and still later
he studied at Stanford—winning hi3
way through that university not on
ly hy dint of study, but by delivei
ing newspapers and running a laun
dry agency. Surely this early re
cord nowhere discloses the least
Mace of favoritism or exceptional
good fortune.
There is Indian blood in the veins
of Charlie Curtis, bequeathed by the
d "taff side, and tracing back to
Pawhuska, chief of the Osage tribe
With the death of his parents he
made his home, throughout the
years of boyhood with his grand
mother on a reservation near Tope
ka She it was who encouraged
him to acquire an education. He sold
fru t at trains. He worked in stores.
He was a jockey, riding a Kentucky
throughbred. When he entered
upon the study of law he was driv
ing a hack, and read his law books
while waiting for fares. A pictur
esqre boyhood, you say? And that
is true. He witnessed Indian war
fare, when the Cheyennes attacked
his people, and his was the danger
o js mission of eluding the enemy
and summoning aid. Picturesque
enough, we’ll grant you but scarcely
the environment in wliieli one would
expect to find that youth who was t •
become a great party leader, and to
be signally and repeatedly honored.
The quaint parents of yesteryear
used to dream that their sons would
attain to the presidency. As every
foot soldier of Napoleon’s army car
ribd, in a manner speaking, a held
marshal’s baton in his haversack,
co every young male American was
potentially the president. They be
lieved very earnestly in this doc
trine, did the fathers and mothers
v ho are gone. What career could
possibly have had more inauspicious
beg?nnings than that of Lincoln*:
But as time went on this faith some
how declined or became dimmed
At least people did not cleave to it
so zealously, though nothing had
oecured to disprove it. It became
the fashion to smile indulgently
at the occasional visionary who in
sisted that his son might be presi
dent. Such ambitious were consid
ered to be absurdly old-fashioned.
But the fact persists though the
dream is derided by the more soph
isticate times. The fact persists.
It is a land of equal opportunity,
wherein men attain by virtue of
their manhood.
Those who say they never had a
chance, and that the golden spoon
was not in their mouths at birth,
have the careers of Hoover and Cur
tis to dismay them—if they will be
honest about it. Such chances a3
these heads of the republican tick
et and party ever obtained, and few
enough chances were at the outset,
were created by themselves. As for
golden spoons, we have only to
tl ink of the one boy with his head
pressed against the cow’s flank, and
she a stubborn milker, and of the
other boy perched atop his hack,
waiting for a laggard fare. We
have only to think of these circum
stances, and then to reflect that of
the thousands of Americans who
were born with golden spoons in
thtir mouths none happens to be
heading the ticket this year—the
ticket that Is headed by two com