diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:22:24 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:22:24 -0700 |
| commit | 2a984f0fb03804b98872de9743d307bfdbebe7cb (patch) | |
| tree | 8ebc6050c20abfad4f08f827cd2012223cb4ec20 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 3812-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 112169 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 3812-h/3812-h.htm | 6736 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 3812.txt | 5444 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 3812.zip | bin | 0 -> 110452 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/tmrow10.txt | 5421 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/tmrow10.zip | bin | 0 -> 109636 bytes |
9 files changed, 17617 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3812-h.zip b/3812-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..37418f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/3812-h.zip diff --git a/3812-h/3812-h.htm b/3812-h/3812-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d09f82 --- /dev/null +++ b/3812-h/3812-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6736 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Mirrors of Washington, by Anonymous +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.intro {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 5% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirrors of Washington, by Anonymous + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mirrors of Washington + +Author: Anonymous + +Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3812] +Release Date: March, 2003 +First Posted: September 19, 2001 +Last Updated: March 21, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON +</H1> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES +</H3> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#harding"> +HARDING, Warren G., +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +President of the United States; b. Corsica, Morrow Co., O., Nov. 2, +1865; Educ. student of Ohio Central Coll. (now defunct), Iberia, +1879-82; engaged in newspaper business at Marion, O., since 1884; +pres. Harding Pub. Co., pubs. Star (daily); mem. Ohio Senate, +1900-4; lt.-gov. of Ohio, 1904-6; Rep. nominee for gov. of Ohio, 1910 +(defeated); mem. U. S. Senate, from Ohio, 1915-21; Baptist; +President of the United States, 1921 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#wilson"> +WILSON, Woodrow, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Twenty-eighth President of the United States; b. Staunton, Va., +Dec. 28, 1856; Educ. Davidson Coll., N. C., 1874-5; A.B., +Princeton, 1879, A.M., 1882; grad. in law, U. of Va., 1881; +post-grad, work at Johns Hopkins, 1883-5, Ph.D., 1886; (LL.D., Wake +Forest, 1887, Tulane, 1898, Johns Hopkins, 1902, Rutgers, 1902, U. +of Pa., 1903, Brown, 1903; Harvard, 1907, Williams, 1908, +Dartmouth, 1909; Litt. D., Yale, 1901); pres. Aug. 1, 1902—Oct. +20, 1910, Princeton U.; gov. of N. J., Jan. 17, 1911—Mar. 1, 1913 +(resigned); nominated for President in Dem. Nat. Conv. Baltimore, +1912, and elected Nov. 4, 1912, for term, Mar. 4, 1913-Mar. 4, +1917; renominated for President in Dem. Nat. Conv., St. Louis, +1916, and reelected, Nov. 7, 1916; for term Mar. 4, 1917-Mar. 4, +1921; Left for France on the troopship "George Washington", Dec. 4, +1918, at the head of Am. Commn. to Negotiate Peace; returned to U. +S., arriving in Boston, Feb. 24,1919; left New York on 2d trip to +Europe, Mar. 5; arrived in Paris, Mar. 14; signed Peace Treaty, +June 28, 1919 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#harvey"> +HARVEY, George (Brinton McClellan), +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Editor; b. Peacham, Vt., Feb. 16, 1864; Educ. Peacham Academy; +(LL.D., University of Nevada, University of Vermont, Middlebury +Coll. and Erskine Coll.). Consecutively reporter Springfield +Republican, Chicago News, and New York World, 1882-6; ins. commr. +of N. J., 1890-1; mng. editor New York World, 1891-93; constructor +and pres. various electric railroads, 1894-8; purchased, 1899, and +since editor North American Review, Pres. Harper & Bros., 1900-15; +North Am. Review Pub. Co., 1899-; editor and pub. Harvey's Weekly; +dir. Audit Co. of New York; Col. and a.-d.-c. on staffs of Govs. +Green and Abbett, of N. J., 1885-92; hon. col. and a.-d.-c. on +staffs of Govs. Heyward and Ansel, of S. C.; U. S. Ambassador to +Court of Saint James +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#hughes"> +HUGHES, Charles Evans, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Secretary of State; b. at Glens Falls, N. Y., Apr. 11, 1862; Educ. +Colgate U., 1876-8; A.B., Brown U., 1881, A.M., 1884; LL.B., +Columbia, 1884; (LL.D., Brown, 1906, Columbia, Knox, and Lafayette, +1907, Union, Colgate, 1908, George Washington, 1909, Williams +College, Harvard, and Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1910, Yale Univ., +1915); admitted to N. Y. bar, 1884; prize fellowship, Columbia Law +Sch., 1884-7; nominated for office of mayor of New York by Rep. +Conv., 1905, but declined; gov. of N. Y. 2 terms, Jan. 1, 1907-Dec. +31, 1908, Jan. 1, 1909-Dec. 31, 1910; resigned, Oct. 6, 1910; +apptd., May 2, 1910, and Oct. 10, 1910, became asso. justice +Supreme Court of U. S.; nominated for President of U. S. in Rep. +Nat. Conv., Chicago, June 10, 1916, and resigned from Supreme Court +same day; Secretary of State, 1921 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#house"> +HOUSE, Edward Mandell, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +B. Houston, Tex., July 26, 1858; Educ. Hopkins Grammar Sch., New +Haven, Conn., 1877; Cornell U., 1881; active in Dem. councils, +state and national, but never a candidate for office. Personal +representative of President Wilson to the European governments in +1914, 1915, and 1916; apptd. by the President, Sept., 1917, to +gather and organize data necessary at the eventual peace +conference; commd. as the special rep. of Govt. of U. S. at the +Inter-Allied Conference of Premiers and Foreign Ministers, held in +Paris, Nov. 29, 1917, to effect a more complete coordination of the +activities of the Entente cobelligerents for the prosecution of the +war; designated by the President to represent the U. S. in the +Supreme War Council at Versailles, Dec. 1, 1917; Oct. 17, 1918; +designated by the President to act for the U. S. in the negotiation +of the Armistice with the Central Powers; mem. Am. Commn. to +Negotiate Peace, 1918-19 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#hoover"> +HOOVER, Herbert Clark, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Secretary of Commerce; Engineer; b. West Branch, Ia., Aug. 10, +1874; Educ. B.A. (in mining engring.), Leland Stanford, Jr., U., +1895; (LL.D., Brown U., U. of Pa., Harvard, Princeton, Yale, +Oberlin, U. of Ala., Liege, Brussels; D.C.L., Oxford); Asst. Ark. +Geol. Survey, 1893, U. S. Geol. Survey, Sierra Nevada Mountains, +1895; in W. Australia as chief of mining staff of Bewick, Moreing & +Co. and mgr. Hannan's Brown Hill Mine, 1897; chief engr. Chinese +Imperial Bur. of Mines, 1899, doing extensive exploration in +interior of China. Took part in defense of Tientsin during Boxer +disturbances; Chmn. Am. Relief Com. London, 1914-15, Commn. for +Relief in Belgium, 1915-18; chmn. food com. Council of Nat. +Defense, Apr.-Aug. 1917; apptd. U. S. food administrator by +President Wilson, Aug. 10, 1917, resigned June, 1919. Secretary of +Commerce, 1921 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#lodge"> +LODGE, Henry Cabot, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Senator; b. Boston, May 12, 1850; Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1871, LL.B., +1875, Ph.D. (history), 1876; (LL.D., Williams, 1893, Yale, 1902, +Clark U., 1902, Harvard, 1904, Amherst, 1912, also Union Col., +Princeton U., and Dartmouth Coll., and Brown, 1918); Admitted to +bar, 1876; editor North American Review, 1873-6, International +Review, 1879-81; mem. Mass. Ho. of Rep., 1880, 81; mem. 50th to 53d +Congresses (1887-93), 6th Mass. Dist.; U. S. senator, since 1893; +mem. Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, 1903; mem. U. S. Immigration +Commn., 1907 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#baruch"> +BARUCH, Bernard Mannes, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Educ. A.B., Coll. City of New York, 1889; mem. of New York Stock +Exchange many yrs.; apptd., 1916, by Pres. Wilson, mem. Advisory +Commn. of Council Nat. Defense; was made chmn. Com. on Raw +Materials, Minerals and Metals, also commr. in charge of purchasing +for the War Industries Bd., and mem. commn. in charge of all +purchases for the Allies; apptd. chmn. War Industries Bd., Mar. 5, +1918; resigned Jan. 1, 1919; connected with Am. Commn. to Negotiate +Peace as member of the drafting com. of the Economic Sect.; mem. +Supreme Economic Council and chmn. of its raw materials div.; Am. +del. on economics and reparation clauses; economic adviser for the +Am. Peace Commn.; mem. President's Conf. for Capital and Labor, +Oct. 1919 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#root"> +ROOT, Elihu, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Ex-Secretary of State; senator; b. Clinton, N. Y., Feb. 15, 1845; +Educ. A.B., Hamilton Coll., 1864, A.M., 1867; taught at Rome Acad., +1865; LL.B., New York U., 1867; (LL.D., Hamilton, 1894, Yale, 1900, +Columbia, 1904, New York U., 1904, Williams, 1905, Princeton, 1906, +U. of Buenos Aires, 1906, Harvard, 1907, Wesleyan, 1909, McHill, +1913, Union U., 1914, U. of State of N. Y., 1915, U. of Toronto, +1918, and Colgate U., 1919; Dr. Polit. Science, U. of Leyden, 1913; +D.C.L., Oxford, 1913; mem. Faculty of Political and Administrative +Sciences, University of San Marcos, Lima, 1906); Admitted to bar, +1867; U. S. dist. atty. Southern Dist. of N. Y., 1883-5; Sec. of +War in cabinet of President McKinley, Aug. 1, 1899-Feb. 1, 1904; +Sec. of State in cabinet of President Roosevelt, July 1, 1905-Jan. +27, 1909; U. S. senator from N. Y., 1909-15; mem. Alaskan Boundary +Tribunal, 1903; counsel for U. S. in N. Atlantic Fisheries +Arbitration, 1910; mem. Permanent Court of Arbitration at The +Hague, 1910-; pres. Carnegie Endowment for Internat. Peace, 1910; +president Hague Tribunal of Arbitration between Great Britain, +France, Spain, and Portugal, concerning church property, 1913; +ambassador extraordinary at the head of special diplomatic mission +to Russia, during revolution, 1917. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize for +1912. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#johnson"> +JOHNSON, Hiram Warren, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Senator; b. Sacramento, Cal., Sept. 2, 1866; Educ. U. of Cal., +leaving in jr. yr.; began as short-hand reporter; studied law in +father's office; admitted to Cal. bar, 1888; mem. staff of pros. +attys. in boodling cases, involving leading city officials and +almost all pub. utility corpns. in San Francisco, 1906-7; was +selected to take the place of Francis J. Heney, after latter was +shot down in court while prosecuting Abe Ruef, for bribery, 1908, +and secured conviction of Ruef; gov. of Cal., 1911-15; reelected +for term, 1915-19 (resigned Mar. 15, 1917); a founder of +Progressive Party, 1912, and nominee for V.-P. of U.S. on Prog. +ticket same yr.; U. S. senator from Cal. for term 1917-23 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#knox"> +KNOX, Philander Chase, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Ex-Secretary of State; b. Brownsville, Pa., May 6, 1853; Educ. +A.B., Mt. Union Coll., Ohio, 1872; read law in office of H. B. +Swope, Pittsburgh; (LL.D., U. of Pa., 1905, Yale, 1907, Villanova, +1909); Admitted to bar, 1875; asst. U. S. dist. atty., Western +Dist. of Pa., 1876-7; Atty.-Gen. in cabinets of Presidents McKinley +and Roosevelt, Apr. 9, 1901-June 30, 1904; apptd. U. S. senator by +Governor Pennypacker, June 10, 1904, for unexpired term of Matthew +Stanley Quay, deceased; elected U. S. senator, Jan., 1905, for +term, 1905-11; Sec. of State in cabinet of President Taft, Mar., +1909-13; Reelected U. S. senator, for term 1917-23 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#lansing"> +LANSING, Robert, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Ex-Secretary of State; b. at Watertown, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1864; Educ. +A.B., Amherst, 1886; (LL.D., Amherst, 1915, Colgate, 1915, +Princeton, 1917, Columbia, 1918, Union, 1918, U. State of N. Y., +1919); Admitted to bar, 1889; Asso. counsel for U. S. in Behring +Sea Arbitration, 1892-3: counsel for Behring Sea Claims Commn., +1896-7; solicitor and counsel for the United States under the +Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, 1903; counsel, North Atlantic Coast +Fisheries Arbitration at The Hague, 1909-10; agent of United +States, Am. and British Claims Arbitration, 1912-14; counselor for +Dept. of State, Mar. 20, 1914-June 23, 1915; Secretary of State in +Cabinet of Pres. Wilson, June 23, 1915-Feb., 1920; mem. Am. Commn. +to Negotiate Peace, Paris, 1918-19 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#penrose"> +PENROSE, Boies, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Senator; b. Phila., Nov. 1, 1860; Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1881; +Admitted to the bar, 1883; mem. Pa. Ho. of Rep., 1884-6, Senate, +1887-97 (pres. pro tem., 1889,1891); U. S. senator, 4 terms, +1897-1921; Chmn. Rep. State Com., 1903-5; mem. Rep. Nat. Com. since 1904 +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#borah"> +BORAH, William Edgar, +</A> +</H4> + +<P CLASS="intro"> +Senator; b. at Fairfield, Ill., June 29, 1865; Educ. Southern Ill. +Acad., Enfield, and U. of Kan.; Admitted to bar, 1889; U. S. +senator from Idaho, Jan. 14,1903; elected U. S. senator for terms +1907-13, 1913-19, 1919-25 +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="harding"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +Every time we elect a new President we learn what a various +creature is the Typical American. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Roosevelt was in the White House the Typical American was +gay, robustious, full of the joy of living, an expansive spirit +from the frontier, a picaresque twentieth century middle class +Cavalier. He hit the line hard and did not flinch. And his laugh +shook the skies. +</P> + +<P> +Came Wilson. And the Typical American was troubled about his soul. +Rooted firmly in the church-going past, he carried the banner of +the Lord, Democracy, idealistic, bent on perfecting that old +incorrigible Man, he cuts off the right hand that offends him and +votes for prohibition and woman suffrage, a Round Head in a Ford. +</P> + +<P> +Eight years and we have the perfectly typical American, Warren +Gamaliel Harding of the modern type, the Square Head, typical of +that America whose artistic taste is the movies, who reads and +finds mental satisfaction in the vague inanities of the small town +newspaper, who has faith in America, who is for liberty, virtue, +happiness, prosperity, law and order and all the standard +generalities and holds them a perfect creed; who distrusts anything +new except mechanical inventions, the standardized product of the +syndicate which supplies his nursing bottle, his school books, his +information, his humor in a strip, his art on a screen, with a +quantity production mind, cautious, uniformly hating divergence +from uniformity, jailing it in troublous times, prosperous, who has +his car and his bank account and can sell a bill of goods as well +as the best of them. +</P> + +<P> +People who insist upon having their politics logical demand to know +the why of Harding. Why was a man of so undistinguished a record as +he first chosen as a candidate for President and then elected +President? +</P> + +<P> +As a legislator he had left no mark on legislation. If he had +retired from Congress at the end of his term his name would have +existed only in the old Congressional directories, like that of a +thousand others. As a public speaker he had said nothing that +anybody could remember. He had passed through a Great War and left +no mark on it. He had shared in a fierce debate upon the peace that +followed the war but though you can recall small persons like +McCumber and Kellogg and Moses and McCormick in that discussion you +do not recall Harding. To be sure he made a speech in that debate +which he himself says was a great speech but no newspaper thought +fit to publish it because of its quality, or felt impelled to +publish it in spite of its quality because it had been made by +Harding. +</P> + +<P> +He neither compelled attention by what he said nor by his +personality. Why, then, without fireworks, without distinction of +any sort, without catching the public eye, or especially deserving +to catch it, was Warren Harding elected President of the United +States? +</P> + +<P> +One plausible reason why he was nominated was that given by Senator +Brandegee at Chicago, where he had a great deal to do with the +nomination. "There ain't any first raters this year. This ain't any +1880 or any 1904. We haven't any John Shermans or Theodore +Roosevelts. We've got a lot of second raters and Warren Harding is +the best of the second raters." +</P> + +<P> +Once nominated as a Republican his election of course inevitably +followed. But to accept Mr. Brandegee's plea in avoidance is to +agree to the eternal poverty of American political life, for most +of our presidents have been precisely like Warren G. Harding, +first-class second raters. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Harding, a woman of sound sense and much energy, had an +excellent instructive answer to the "why." The pictures of the +house in Marion, the celebrated front porch, herself and her +husband were taken to be exhibited by cinema all over the land. She +said, "I want the people to see these pictures so that they will +know we are just folks like themselves." +</P> + +<P> +Warren Harding is "just folks." A witty woman said of him, alluding +to the small town novel which was popular at the time of his +inauguration, "Main Street has arrived in the White House." +</P> + +<P> +The Average Man has risen up and by seven million majority elected +an Average Man President. His defects were his virtues. He was +chosen rather for what he wasn't than for what he was,—the +inconspicuousness of his achievements. The "just folks" level of +his mind, his small town man's caution, his sense of the security +of the past, his average hopes and fears and practicality, his +standardized Americanism which would enable a people who wanted for +a season to do so to take themselves politically for granted. +</P> + +<P> +The country was tired of the high thinking and rather plain +spiritual living of Woodrow Wilson. It desired the man in the White +House to cause it no more moral overstrain than does the man you +meet in the Pullman smoking compartment or the man who writes the +captions for the movies who employs a sort of Inaugural style, +freed from the inhibitions of statesmanship. It was in a mood +similar to that of Mr. Harding himself when after his election he +took Senators Freylinghuysen, Hale, and Elkins with him on his trip +to Texas. Senator Knox observing his choice is reported to have +said, "I think he is taking those three along because he wanted +complete mental relaxation." All his life Mr. Harding has shown a +predilection for companions who give him complete mental +relaxation, though duty compels him to associate with the Hughes +and the Hoovers. The conflict between duty and complete mental +relaxation establishes a strong bond of sympathy between him and +the average American. +</P> + +<P> +The "why" of Harding is the democratic passion for equality. We are +standardized, turned out like Fords by the hundred million, and we +cannot endure for long anyone who is not standardized. Such an one +casts reflections upon us; why should we by our votes unnecessarily +asperse ourselves? Occasionally we may indulge nationally, as men +do individually, in the romantic belief that we are somebody else, +that we are like Roosevelt or Wilson—and they become typical of +what we would be—but always we come back to the knowledge that we +are nationally like Harding, who is typical of what we are. "Just +folks" Kuppenheimered, movieized, associated pressed folks. +</P> + +<P> +Men debate whether or not Mr. Wilson was a great man and they will +keep on doing so until the last of those passes away whose judgment +of him is clouded by the sense of his personality. But men will +never debate about the greatness of Mr. Harding, not even Mr. +Harding himself. He is modest. He has only two vanities, his vanity +about his personal appearance and his vanity about his literary +style. +</P> + +<P> +The inhibitions of a presidential candidate, bound to speak and say +nothing, irked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I could make better speeches than these" he told a +friend during the campaign, "but I have to be so careful." +</P> + +<P> +In his inaugural address he let himself go, as much as it is +possible for a man so cautious as he is to let himself go. It was a +great speech, an inaugural to place alongside the inaugurals of +Lincoln and Washington, written in his most capable English, +Harding at his best. It is hard for a man to move Marion for years +with big editorials, to receive the daily compliments of Dick +Cressinger and Jim Prendergast, without becoming vain of the power +of his pen. It is his chief vanity and it is one that it is hard +for him who speaks or writes to escape. He has none of that egotism +which makes a self-confident man think himself the favorite of +fortune. +</P> + +<P> +He said after his nomination at Chicago, "We drew to a pair of +deuces and filled." He did not say it boastfully as a man who likes +to draw to a pair of deuces and who always expects to fill. He said +it with surprise and relief. He does not like to hold a pair of +deuces and be forced to draw to them. He has not a large way of +regarding losing and winning as all a part of the game. He hates to +lose. He hated to lose even a friendly game of billiards in the +Marion Club with his old friend Colonel Christian, father of his +secretary, though the stake was only a cigar. +</P> + +<P> +When he was urged to seek the Republican nomination for the +Presidency he is reported to have said, "Why should I. My chances +of winning are not good. If I let you use my name I shall probably +in the end lose the nomination for the Senate. (His term was +expiring.) If I don't run for the Presidency I can stay in the +Senate all my life. I like the Senate. It is a very pleasant +place." +</P> + +<P> +The Senate is like Marion, Ohio, a very pleasant place, for a +certain temperament. And Mr. Harding stayed in Marion all his life +until force—a vis exterior; there is nothing inside Mr. Harding +that urges him on and on—until force of circumstances, of +politics, of other men's ambitions, took him out of Marion and set +him down in Washington, in the Senate. +</P> + +<P> +The process of uprooting him from the pleasant place of Marion is +reported to have been thus described by his political transplanter, +the present Attorney General, Mr. Daugherty: "When it came to +running for the Senate I found him, sunning himself in Florida, +like a turtle on a log and I had to push him into the water and +make him swim." +</P> + +<P> +And a similar thing happened when it came to running for the +Presidency. It is a definite type of man who suns himself on a log, +who is seduced by pleasant places like Marion, Ohio, whom the big +town does not draw into its magnetic field, whose heart is not +excited by the larger chances of life. Is he lazy? Is he lacking in +imagination? Does he hate to lose? Does he want self-confidence? Is +he over modest? Has he no love for life, life as a great adventure? +Whatever he is, Mr. Harding is that kind of man, that kind of man +to start out with. +</P> + +<P> +But this is only the point of departure, that choice to remain in a +pleasant place like Marion, not to risk what you have, your sure +place in society as the son of one of the better families, the +reasonable prospect that the growth of your small town will bring +some accretion to your own fortunes, the decision not to hazard +greatly in New York or Chicago or on the frontier. Life asks little +of you in those pleasant places like Marion and in return for that +little gives generously, especially if you are, to begin with, well +placed, if you are ingratiatingly handsome, if your personality is +agreeable—"The best fellow in the world to play poker with all +Saturday night," as a Marionite feelingly described the President +to me, and if you have a gift of words as handsome and abundant as +your looks. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harding is a handsome man, endowed with the gifts that +reinforce the charm of his exterior, a fine voice, a winning smile, +a fluency of which his inaugural is the best instance; an ample +man, you might say. But he is too handsome, too endowed, for his +own good, his own spiritual good. The slight stoop of his +shoulders, the soft figure, the heaviness under the eyes betray in +some measure perhaps the consequences of nature's excessive +generosity. Given all these things you take, it may be, too much +for granted. There is not much to stiffen the mental, moral, and +physical fibers. +</P> + +<P> +Given such good looks, such favor from nature, and an environment +in which the struggle is not sharp and existence is a species of +mildly purposeful flanerie. You lounge a bit stoop-shoulderedly +forward to success. There is nothing hard about the President. I +once described him in somewhat this fashion to a banker in New York +who was interested in knowing what kind of a President we had. +</P> + +<P> +"You agree," he said, "with a friend of Harding's who came in to +see me a few days ago. This friend said to me 'Warren is the best +fellow in the world. He has wonderful tact. He knows how to make +men work with him and how to get the best out of them. He is +politically adroit. He is conscientious. He has a keen sense of his +responsibilities. He has unusual common sense.' And he named other +similar virtues, 'Well,' I asked him, 'What is his defect?' 'Oh,' +he replied, 'the only trouble with Warren is that he lacks +mentality.'" +</P> + +<P> +The story, like most stories, exaggerates. The President has the +average man's virtues of common sense and conscientiousness with +rather more than the average man's political skill and the average +man's industry or lack of industry. His mentality is not lacking; +it is undisciplined, especially in its higher ranges, by hard +effort. There is a certain softness about him mentally. It is not +an accident that his favorite companions are the least intellectual +members of that house of average intelligence, the Senate. They +remind him of the mental surroundings of Marion, the pleasant but +unstimulating mental atmosphere of the Marion Club, with its +successful small town business men, its local storekeepers, its +banker whose mental horizon is bounded by Marion County, the value +of whose farm lands for mortgages he knows to a penny, the lumber +dealer whose eye rests on the forests of Kentucky and West +Virginia. +</P> + +<P> +The President has never felt the sharpening of competition. He was +a local pundit because he was the editor. He was the editor because +he owned the Republican paper of Marion. There was no effective +rival. No strong intelligence challenged his and made him fight for +his place. He never studied hard or thought deeply on public +questions. A man who stays where he is put by birth tends to accept +authority, and authority is strong in small places. The acceptance +of authority implies few risks. It is like staying in Marion +instead of going to New York or even Cleveland. It is easier, and +often more profitable than studying hard or thinking deeply or +inquiring too much. +</P> + +<P> +And Mr. Harding's is a mind that bows to authority. What his party +says is enough for Mr. Harding. His party is for protection and Mr. +Harding is for protection; the arguments for protection may be +readily assimilated from the editorials of one good big city +newspaper and from a few campaign addresses. His party is for the +remission of tolls on American shipping in the Panama Canal and Mr. +Harding is for the remission of tolls. Mr. Root broke with his +party on tolls and Mr. Harding is as much shocked at Mr. Root's +deviation as the matrons of Marion would be over the public +disregard of the Seventh Commandment by one of their number. His +party became somehow for the payment of Colombia's Panama claims +and Mr. Harding was for their payment. +</P> + +<P> +A story tells just how Senator Kellogg went to the President to +oppose the Colombia treaty. After hearing Mr. Kellogg Mr. Harding +remarked, "Well, Frank, you have something on me. You've evidently +read the treaty. I haven't." +</P> + +<P> +A mind accepting authority favors certain general policies. It is +not sufficiently inquiring to trouble itself with the details. Mr. +Harding is for all sorts of things but is content to be merely for +them. A curious illustration developed in Marion, during the visits +of the best minds. He said to the newspaper men there one day, "I +am for voluntary military training." +</P> + +<P> +"What would you train, Mr. President," asked one of the +journalists, "officers or men?" +</P> + +<P> +The President hesitated. At last he said, "I haven't thought of +that." +</P> + +<P> +"But," said one of his interlocutors, "the colleges are training a +lot of officers now." +</P> + +<P> +This brought no response. +</P> + +<P> +Another who had experience in the Great War remarked, "In the last +war we were lacking in trained non-coms; it would be a good idea to +train a lot of them." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," rejoined Mr. Harding eagerly, "That would be a good idea." +</P> + +<P> +A more inquiring mind would have gone further than to be "for +voluntary military training." A quicker, less cautious, if no more +thorough mind would have answered the first question, "What would +you train, officers or men?" by answering instantly "Both." +</P> + +<P> +In that colloquy you have revealed all the mental habits of Mr. +Harding. He was asked once, after he had had several conferences +with Senator McCumber, Senator Smoot, Representative Fordney, and +others who would be responsible for financial legislation, "Have +you worked out the larger details of your taxation policy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally not!" was his reply. That "naturally" sprang I suppose +from his habit of believing that somewhere there is authority. +Somewhere there would be authority to determine what the larger +details of the party's financial policy should be. +</P> + +<P> +Now, this authority is not going to be any one man or any two men. +The President, his friends tell us, is jealous of any assumption of +power by any of his advisers. He is unwilling to have the public +think that any other than himself is President. A man as handsome +as Harding, as vain of his literary style as he is, has an ego that +is not capable of total self-effacement. He will bow to impersonal +authority like that of the party, or invoke the anonymous +governance of "best minds," calling rather often on God as a well +established authority, but he will not let authority be personal +and be called Daugherty, or Lodge or Knox or whomever you will. +</P> + +<P> +The President's attitude is rather like that of the average man +during the campaign. If you said to a voter on a Pullman, "Mr. +Harding is a man of small public experience, not known by any large +political accomplishment," he would always answer optimistically, +"Well, they will see to it that he makes good." Asked who "They" +were he was always vague and elusive, gods on the mountain perhaps. +There is an American religion, the average man's faith: it is +"Them." "They" are the fountain of authority. +</P> + +<P> +As Mr. Harding knew little competition in Marion so he has known +little competition in public life which in this country is not +genuinely competitive. Mr. Lloyd George is at the head of the +British government because he is the greatest master of the House +of Commons in a generation and he is chosen by the men who know him +for what he is, his fellow members of the House of Commons. An +American President is selected by the newspapers, which know little +about him, by the politicians, who do not want a master but a +slave, by the delegates to a national convention, tired, with hotel +bills mounting, ready to name anybody in order to go home. The +presidency, the one great prize in American public life, is +attained by no known rules and under conditions which have nothing +in them to make a man work hard or think hard, especially one +endowed with a handsome face and figure, an ingratiating +personality, and a literary style. +</P> + +<P> +The small town man, unimaginative and of restricted mental horizon +does not think in terms of masses of mankind. Masses vaguely appall +him. They exist in the big cities on which he turned his back in +his unaudacious youth. His contacts are with individuals. His +democracy consists in smiling upon the village painter and calling +him "Harry," in always nodding to the village cobbler and calling +him "Bill," in stopping on the street corner with a group, which +has not been invited to join the village club, putting his hand on +the shoulder of one of them and calling them "Fellows." +</P> + +<P> +Politics in the small town is limited to dealing with persons, to +enlisting the support of men with a following at the polls. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harding once drew this picture of his idea of politics. "If I +had a policy to put over I should go about it this way," he said. +"You all know the town meeting, if not by experience, by hearsay. +Now if I had a program that I wanted to have adopted by a town +meeting I should go to the three or four most influential men in my +community. I should talk it out with them. I should make +concessions to them until I had got them to agree with me. And then +I should go into the town meeting feeling perfectly confident that +my plan would go through. Well it's the same in the nation as in +the town meeting, or in the whole world, if you will. I should +always go first to the three or four leading men." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harding thinks of politics in this personal way. He does not +conceive of it as the force of ideas or the weight of morality +moving the hearts of mankind. Mankind is only a word to him, one +that he often uses,—or perhaps he prefers humanity, which has two +more syllables—a large loose word that he employs to make his +thought look bigger than it really is, something like the stage +device for making an ordinary man seem ten feet tall. +</P> + +<P> +Thus he will never try to move the mass of the people as his +predecessors have. He will not "go to the country." He will not +bring public opinion to bear as a disciplinary force in his +household. He will treat the whole United States as if it were a +Marion, consulting endless "best minds," composing differences, +seeking unity, with the aid of his exceptional tact. +</P> + +<P> +This attitude has its disadvantages. If you have a passion for +ideas and an indifference for persons you can say "yes" or "no" +easily; you may end by being dictatorial and arrogant, as Mr. +Wilson was; but you will not be weak. If, on the contrary, you are +indifferent to ideas and considerate of persons you find it hard to +say "Decided" to any question. And somewhere there must be +authority, the passing of the final judgment and the giving of +orders. +</P> + +<P> +But he compensates for his own defects. Almost as good as greatness +is a knowledge of your own limitations; and Mr. Harding knows his +thoroughly. Out of his modesty, his desire to reinforce himself, +has proceeded the strongest cabinet that Washington has seen in a +generation. He likes to have decisions rest upon the broad base of +more than one intelligence and he has surrounded himself for this +purpose with able associates. His policies will lack imagination, +which is not a composite product, but they will have practicality, +which is the greatest common denomination of several minds; and he, +moreover, is himself unimaginative and practical. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever superstructure of world organization he takes part in, +behind it will be the reality, a private understanding with the +biggest man in sight; for this reason the fall of Lloyd George and +the succession of a Labor government in England will disconcert him +terribly. The democratic passion for equality, which dogs the +tracks of the great, he mollifies by reminding the nation always +that he is "just folks," by opening the White House lawn gates, by +calling everyone by his first name. So constant is his aim to +appease it that I wonder if he is not sometimes betrayed into +addressing his Secretary of State as "Charley." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="wilson"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +WOODROW WILSON +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +The explanation of President Wilson will be found in a certain +inferiority. When all his personal history becomes known, when his +papers and letters have all been published and read, when the +memoirs of others have told all that there is to be told, there +will stand clear something inadequate, a lack of robustness, mental +or nervous, an excessive sensitiveness, over self-consciousness, +shrinking from life, a neurotic something that in the end brought +on defeat and the final overthrow. He was never quite a normal man +with the average man's capacity to endure and enjoy but a strange, +impeded, self-absorbed personality. +</P> + +<P> +History arranged the greatest stage of all time, and on it placed a +lot of little figures, "pigmy minds"—all save one, and he the +nearest great, an unworldly person summoned from a cloister, with +the vision of genius and the practical incapacity of one who has +run away from life, hating men but loving all mankind, eloquent but +inarticulate in a large way, incapable of true self expression in +his chosen field of political action, so self-centered that he +forgot the world's tragedy and merged it into his own, making great +things little and little things great, one of "life's ironies," the +everlasting refutation of the optimistic notion that when there is +a crisis fate produces a man big enough to meet it. +</P> + +<P> +The world finds it hard to speak of Mr. Wilson except in superlatives. +A British journalist called him the other day, "the wickedest man in +the world." This was something new in extravagance. I asked, "Why +the wickedest?" He said, "Because he was so unable to forget himself +that he brought the peace of the world down in a common smash with +his own personal fortunes." +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand General Jan Christian Smuts, writing with that +perspective which distance gives, pronounces it to be not Wilson's +fault but the fault of humanity that the vision of universal peace +failed. Civilization was not advanced enough to make peace without +vindictiveness possible. +</P> + +<P> +This debate goes on and on. Mr. Wilson is either the worst hated or +the most regretted personality of the Great War. The place of no +one else is worth disputing. Lloyd George is the consummate +politician, limited by the meanness of his art. Clemenceau is the +personification of nationality, limited by the narrowness of his +view. Mr. Wilson alone had his hour of superlative greatness when +the whole earth listened to him and followed him; an hour which +ended with him only dimly aware of his vision and furiously +conscious of pin pricks. +</P> + +<P> +You observe this inadequacy in Mr. Wilson, this incapacity to +endure, at the outset of his career. It is characteristic of +certain temperaments that when they first face life they should run +away from it as Mr. Wilson did when, having studied law and having +been admitted to the bar, he abandoned practice and went to teach +in a girls' school. That was the early sign in him of that sense of +unfitness for the more arduous contacts of life which was so +conspicuous a trait during his presidency. He could not endure +meeting men on an equal footing, where there was a conflict of +wills, a rough clash of minds, where no concession was made to +sensitiveness and egotism. +</P> + +<P> +Some nervous insufficiency causes this shrinking, like the quick +retreat from cold water of an inadequate body. Commonly a man who +runs away from life after the first contact with it hates himself +for his flight and there begins a conflict inside him which ends +either in his admission of defeat and acknowledgment of his +unfitness or in his convincing himself that his real motive was +contempt of that on which he turned his back. If he admits to +himself that he is really a little less courageous, a little more +sensitive, a little less at home in this world, then he is gone. If +he does satisfy himself that he is superior, has higher ideals, +worthier ends, despises the ordinary arts of success he becomes +arrogant, merely in self defense. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Wilson's "intellectual snobbism" was this kind of arrogance, +acquired for moral self preservation, like that of the small boy +who when his companions refuse to play with him says to himself +that he is smarter than they are, gets higher marks in school, that +he has a better gun than they have or that he, when he grows up, +will be a great general while they are nobody. Almost everyone who +feels himself unequal in some direction can satisfy himself that he +exceeds in others. It is a common and human sort of arrogance, and +Mr. Wilson had it inordinately. +</P> + +<P> +He hated and contemned the law, in which life had given him his +first glimpse of his frailty. He would have no lawyers make the +peace or draft the covenant of the league of nations. Lawyers were +pitiful creatures,—he kept one of them near him, Mr. Lansing, +admirably chosen, to remind him of how contemptible they were, +living in fear of precedents, writing a barbarous jargon out of +deeds and covenants, impeding the freedom of the imagination with +their endless citations. +</P> + +<P> +He despised politicians, he despised business men, he despised the +whole range of men who pursue worldly arts with success. He +despised the qualities which he had not himself, but like all men +who are arrogant self protectively he was driven to introspection +and analyzed himself pitilessly. +</P> + +<P> +The public got glimpses of these analyses. Sometimes he called that +something in him which left him less fit for the world than the +average, a little regretfully, "his single track mind." Sometimes +it leaped to light as an object of pride, his arrogance again, a +pride that was "too great to fight," like the common run of men,—in +the law courts or on the battlefields. He kept asking himself +the question, "Why am I not as other men are?", and sometimes his +nature would rise up in protest and he would exclaim that he was as +other men were and would pathetically tell the world that he was +"misunderstood," that he was not cold and reserved but warm and +genial and kindly, only largely because the world would see him as +he was. +</P> + +<P> +But always the one safe recourse, the one assurance of personal +stability was arrogance. Contempt was the most characteristic habit +of his mind. Out of office he is no sage looking charitably at the +fumbling of his successor. +</P> + +<P> +A friend who has seen him since his retirement describes him as +watching "with supreme contempt" the executive efforts of Mr. +Harding. Washington gossip credits him with inventing the phrase, +"the bungalow mind," to describe the present occupant of the White +House. Another remark of his about the new President is said to +have been "I look forward to the new administration with no +unpleasant anticipations, except those caused by Mr. Harding's +literary style." +</P> + +<P> +There is always his contrast of others with himself to their +disadvantage, mentally or morally, as writers, or leaders, or +statesmen. So full a life as Mr. Wilson led in the last dozen or +more years ought to have made him less self-conscious. A robuster +person would have hated with a certain zest, continued with a +certain gaiety, laughed as he fought, found something to respect in +his foes, seen the curtain fall upon his own activities with a +certain cheerfulness. +</P> + +<P> +He seems deficient in resources. He had not that gusto which richly +endowed natures ordinarily have. He found no fun in measuring his +strength with other men's. There was a certain overstrain about +him, which made him cushion himself about with non-resistant +personalities. He lacked curiosity. His fine mind seemed to want +the energy to interest itself in the details of any subject that +filled it, and this was one of his fatal weaknesses at the Peace +Conference. Perhaps it was a deficiency of vital force. Moreover he +came to his great task tired. His life till he was past fifty was +one of defeat. There was the early disappointment and turning back +from law practice, the giving up of his youthful ambition for a +public career to which he had trained himself passionately by the +study of public speaking. Dr. Albert Shaw, who was his fellow +student at Johns Hopkins, says that in the University Mr. Wilson +was the finest speaker, except possibly the old President of the +College, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman. +</P> + +<P> +Then there were the long years of poverty as a college professor, +when he overworked at writing and university extension lectures, to +make his small salary as a teacher equal to the support of his +family, his three children and his aged parents. There was his +failure at literature, for his "History of the United States" +brought him neither fame nor money, the public finding it dull and +unreadable. +</P> + +<P> +Then the crowning unsuccess as President of Princeton; for when his +luck changed and a political career opened to him as Governor of +New Jersey, with trustees and alumni against him, nothing seemed to +be before him but resignation and a small professorship in a +Southern College. It was a straightened life that he had led when +he came to Washington for the first time as President, scandalizing +the servants of the White House with the scantness of his personal +effects. There had been neither the time nor the means nor probably +the energy for larger human contacts. And something inherent always +held him back from the world, something which diverted him to +academic life, which when he was writing his "Congressional +Government", his best book, held him in Baltimore, almost a suburb +of Washington, where he read what he wrote to his fellow-students +at Johns Hopkins, whose livelier curiosity took them often to the +galleries of the House and the Senate about which he was writing +from a distance. +</P> + +<P> +Those to whom life is kinder than it was during many years to Mr. +Wilson have naturally a zest for it. Robuster natures than his even +though life averts her face, often preserve a zest for it. +Conscious of his powers he seems to have fortified himself against +failure with scorn. He had a scorn for the intellects of those who +succeed by arts which he did not possess. He had scorn for +politicians. He had a scorn for wealth. He had a scorn for his +enemies. He had a scorn for Republicans. He had a scorn for the men +with whom he had to deal in Europe, the heads of the Allied +Governments. +</P> + +<P> +Above all he scorned Lloyd George, an instinct telling him that the +British Premier had a thousand arts where he himself, unschooled in +conference with equals, had none. He said of Lloyd George just +before he sailed for Paris, suspecting him of treachery to the +League of Nations, "I shall look him in the eye and say to him Damn +you, if you do not accept the League I shall go to the people of +Great Britain and say things to them that will shake your +government." +</P> + +<P> +When he made this threat he could not foresee that the compromise +of the Peace would leave him with so little character that British +Liberals, their faith destroyed, should in the end couple his name +with their own Premier's and exclaim, "Your man Wilson talks like +Jesus Christ, but he acts like Lloyd George!" +</P> + +<P> +More than all others he scorned Lodge. The Massachusetts Senator +who had put by scholarship for politics and had won the opportunity +to do menial service for a political machine hated the man who had +chosen scholarship, for whatever motive, and come out with the +Presidency. You hate the man you might perhaps have been if you had +chosen more boldly, more according to your heart—if you are like +Mr. Lodge. +</P> + +<P> +A life of demeaning himself to politicians, of waiting for dead +men's shoes in the Senate, had, however, brought some compensations +to Lodge, among others an inordinate capacity to hurt. The +Massachusetts Senator could get under the President's skin as no +other man could. Washington is a place where every whisper is heard +in the White House. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge's favorite private charge uttered in a tone of withering +scorn was that the President failed to respond as a man would to +the national insult offered by Germany in sinking the Lusitania +because there was something womanish about him and he would tell, +to prove it, how Wilson went white and almost collapsed over the +news that blood had been shed through the landing of American +marines at Vera Cruz. +</P> + +<P> +The President hardly failed to hear this. Perhaps it reminded him +of that something in him which he was always trying to forget, that +something which diverted his life toward failure at the outset, +which once betrayed him, with a strange mixture of the arrogance +and inferiority, into his famous words "too proud to fight." +</P> + +<P> +At any rate mutual comprehension and hatred between these two men +was instinctive, each having the opposite choice in the beginning +and neither in his heart perhaps ever having forgiven himself +wholly for his choice. Mr. Wilson could never get Mr. Lodge wholly +out of his mind in the last two years of his Presidency, a +disability which prevented him from looking quite calmly and sanely +at public questions. +</P> + +<P> +The story of the President's appeal for a Democratic Congress in +1918 which has never been fully told, illustrates the bearing this +Lodge obsession had upon Mr. Wilson's later fate. When the +Congressional election was approaching ex-Congressman Scott Ferris, +then acting as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, went +to the President and told him that there was danger of losing both +houses of Congress, the lower house not being important, but the +Senate as a factor in foreign relations, Mr. Ferris suggested, was +indispensable to the Democratic party. Mr. Wilson was more hopeful +but agreed to take under advisement some sort of appeal to the +country. It was not desired that this should be anything more than +a letter, perhaps to Mr. Ferris, intended for publication, and +pointing out the need of support for the President's policies in +the next Congress. +</P> + +<P> +Shortly afterward Mr. Tumulty, the President's Secretary, brought +to the Shoreham Hotel in Washington an appeal to the country for a +Democratic Congress and read it to several Democrats gathered there +for the purpose, including Homer S. Cummings, who, by that time, +had become acting Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and +was in charge of the campaign. Mr. Cummings doubted the wisdom of +an appeal, couched in such terms as the one Mr. Tumulty read. He +took it to Vance McCormick, Chairman of the Democratic National +Committee, who, because he was Chairman of the War Trade Board, was +not taking part in the election. Mr. McCormick agreed with Mr. +Cummings that the appeal as written would do more harm than good to +the Democratic party, saying that the war had not been conducted on +a partisan basis, that some of his own associates on the War Trade +Board were Republicans and that Mr. Wilson should ask for the +reelection of all who had been loyal supporters of the war, whether +Republicans or Democrats. +</P> + +<P> +The appeal to the country as it then stood contained a bitter +denunciation of Senator Lodge. What Wilson chiefly saw in a +Republican victory was himself at the mercy of the man he hated +worst, the Massachusetts Senator. Mr. McCormick thought that if the +President was going to name names he must, at least, denounce +Claude Kitchen, the Democratic leader of the House, as well as +Senator Lodge. If Mr. Wilson would ask for the reelection of those +who had been loyal, of whatever party, listing the offenders, of +both parties, including Mr. Lodge if he must, Mr. McCormick +believed that the impression on the country would be favorable and +thus a Democratic Congress might be elected. +</P> + +<P> +Being agreed, Mr. Cummings and Mr. McCormick went to the White +House and argued for a less partisan appeal. All they accomplished +was the striking of Mr. Lodge's name out of the appeal by +convincing Mr. Wilson that he could not attack the Republican +Senator while ignoring the worse offenses of Mr. Kitchen and Champ +Clark in his own party. +</P> + +<P> +For the rest, the President made the appeal more purely personal +and more partisan than before. He could not get the Lodge obsession +out of his mind. He could not bring himself to ask for the election +of members of Mr. Lodge's party. The wisdom of Mr. Cummings and Mr. +McCormick was soon vindicated. The appeal with Mr. Lodge's name out +was only a shade less impolitic than it would have been with his +name in. It gave Mr. Lodge his majority in the Senate and turned +the peace into a personal issue between the two "scholars in +politics." +</P> + +<P> +By this time Mr. Wilson had lost his sense of actuality. He could +ask the nation for a Congress to his liking as a personal due. He +could condemn Mr. Lodge as an enemy of those purposes with which we +entered the war, simply because Mr. Lodge could hurt him as no +other man could. The President had been talking for some months to +the whole world and the whole world had listened with profound +attention. His mission had taken, unconsciously perhaps, a +Messianic character. His enemies were the enemies of God. The +ordinary metes and bounds of personality had broken down. The state +of mind revealed in the appeal as originally written was the state +of mind of the Peace Conference and of the fight over the Treaty +and the League which succeeded the Peace Conference. All that +happened afterwards, including the pitiful personal tragedy, had +become inevitable. +</P> + +<P> +For a while at Paris amid the triumphs of his European reception +and the successes of the first few months up to the adoption of the +League covenant Mr. Wilson forgot Mr. Lodge, forgot him too +completely. +</P> + +<P> +It was my fortune to see him at the apex of his career. He was +about to sail for America on that visit which he made here in the +midst of the treaty making. His League covenant had just been +agreed to. The world had accepted him. Fate had led him far from +those paths of defeat and obscurity into which his sensitiveness +and shyness had turned him as a youth. He was elated and confident. +He looked marvelously fresh and young, his color warm and youthful, +his eye alive with pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +He talked long and well, answered questions freely, told stories of +his associates at the peace table, especially of one who never read +the memoranda his secretaries prepared, who was so deaf that he +could not hear a word spoken in conference and who spoke so loudly +that no one could interrupt him. "What could one do," Mr. Wilson +asked, "to penetrate a mind like that?" M. Clemenceau, who unlike +this other commissioner, had eyes and saw not, had ears and neither +would he hear, had said to him once, in response to a firm +negative, "You have a heart of steel!" "I felt like replying to +him," flashed Mr. Wilson, "I have not the heart to steal!" +</P> + +<P> +So well poised, so sure of himself he felt that he could do an +extraordinary thing. He could laugh off a mistake. Robuster natures +accept mistakes as a child accepts tumbles. Mistakes for Mr. Wilson +were ordinarily crises for his arrogancy. +</P> + +<P> +You may judge, then, how confident he was at that supreme moment. +He could brush aside a great mistake lightly. Someone asked him, +"What about the freedom of the seas?" +</P> + +<P> +"The freedom of the seas!" he answered, "I must tell you about +that. It's a great joke on me. I left America thinking the freedom +of the seas the most important issue of the Peace Conference. When +I got here I found there was no such issue. You see the freedom of +the seas concerns neutrals in time of war. But when we have the +League of Nations there will be no neutrals in time of war. So, of +course, there will be no question of the freedom of the seas. I +hadn't thought the thing out clearly." +</P> + +<P> +From that moment the decline began. Mr. Wilson had unwisely chosen +to have his victory first and his defeats afterward, always bad +generalship. +</P> + +<P> +Compromise followed compromise, each one destructive. The fourteen +points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them +by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. +The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind +cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. +</P> + +<P> +The President saw only slowly the consequences of that chaffering +to which Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau led him. He was a poor +merchant. He dealt in morals and could cast up no daily balance. He +was busy with details for which his mind had no sufficient +curiosity or energy. Mr. Keynes, in his remarkable description of +Mr. Wilson making peace, says that his mind was slow. +</P> + +<P> +Doubtless it was slow in political trading about the council table, +just as a philosopher may be slow in the small talk of a five +o'clock tea. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Wilson was out of his element in the conference; Mr. Lloyd +George and M. Clemenceau were in theirs. Gradually the conviction +entered Mr. Wilson's soul that what was being destroyed at Paris +was Mr. Wilson. The figure of Senator Lodge began to rise across +the Atlantic, malevolent and evil, the Lodge against whom he had +wanted to appeal to the American people. +</P> + +<P> +The strain was telling upon him. He had to sit beside his +destroyers with that smiling amiability which Mr. Lansing records +in his book. He had to deal with men on a basis of equality, a +thing which he had run away from doing in his youth, which all his +life had made too great demands upon his sensitive, arrogant +nature. +</P> + +<P> +One whose duty it was to see him every night after the meetings of +the Big Three reports that he found him with the left side of his +face twitching. To collect his memory he would pass his hand +several times wearily over his brow. The arduousness of the labor +was not great enough to account for this. M. Clemenceau at nearly +eighty stood the strain and an assassin's bullet as well. Mr. Lloyd +George thrived on what he did. But the issue was not personal with +them. Neither was assisting, with difficult amiability, at his own +destruction. The time came when he might have had back some of the +ground he had given. Mr. Lloyd George offered it to him. He would +not have it. What it was proposed to amend was not so much the +peace treaty as Mr. Wilson himself, and he could not admit that he +needed amendment. +</P> + +<P> +The issue had become personal and Mr. Lodge, upon Mr. Wilson's +return, with malevolent understanding, kept it personal. The +Republicans made their fight in the one way that made yielding by +the President impossible. They made it nominally on the League but +really on Mr. Wilson. The President might have compromised on the +League, but he could not compromise on Mr. Wilson. Of such +involvement in self there could be only one end. +</P> + +<P> +Like a poet of one poem, Mr. Wilson is a statesman of one vision, +an inspiring vision, but one which his own weakness kept him from +realizing. His domestic achievements are not remarkable, his +administration being one in which movements came to a head rather +than one in which much was initiated. He might have cut the war +short by two years and saved the world much havoc, if he had begun +to fight when the Lusitania was sunk. Once in the war he saw his +country small and himself large; he did not conceive of the nation +as winning the war by sending millions of men to France; he saw +himself as winning the war by talking across the Atlantic. At the +Peace Conference he did not conceive of his country's winning the +peace by the powerful position in which victory had left it; he saw +himself as winning the peace by the hold he personally had upon the +peoples of Europe. Like Napoleon, of whom Marshal Foch wrote +recently, "Il oublia qu'un homme ne peut etre Dieu; qu'au-dessus de +l' individu, il y a la nation," he forgot that man can not be God; +that over and above the individual there is the nation. +</P> + +<P> +In politics he knew at first better than any other, again to quote +Foch, that "above men is morality." This knowledge brought him many +victories. But at critical junctures, as in his 1918 appeal to the +voters and in the treaty fight, he forgot that morality was above +one man, himself. He excelled in appeals to the heart and +conscience of the nation, a gift Mr. Harding has not; the lesser +arts of the politician, tact and skill in the handling and +selecting of men, were lacking. +</P> + +<P> +He forgot in his greatness and aloofness the national passion for +equality; which a more brilliant politician, Mr. Roosevelt, +appeased by acting as the people's court jester, and which a +shrewder politician, Mr. Harding, guards against by reminding the +country that he is "just folks"; and in the end the masses turned +upon him, like a Roman mob on a defeated gladiator. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="harvey"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +GEORGE HARVEY +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +There is something inscrutably ludicrous in the anxiety, bordering +upon consternation, that lurks in the elongated and grotesque +shadow that George Harvey casts upon Washington. The Republican +fathers, who now feel a sense of responsibility, after a lapse of +many years, for the future of party and country, do not yet know +how to take him. +</P> + +<P> +As a campaign asset his value could be expressed in intelligible +terms. But as a party liability, or asset,—many a good Republican +wishes he knew which,—he remains an enigma. There is not one of +the array of elders of either political persuasion who, while +laughing at his satirical sword-play, does not watch him covertly +out of the corner of the eye, trembling at the potential ruin they +consider him capable of accomplishing. +</P> + +<P> +With all his weaknesses,—principally an almost hilarious political +irregularity,—but two Republican hands were raised against him in +the Senate when he was nominated for the Court of Saint James. When +he rather unbecomingly filliped John Bull on the nose in his maiden +speech as the premier ambassador, incidentally ridiculing some of +his own countrymen's war ideals, President Harding and Secretary +Hughes, gravely and with rather obvious emphasis, tried to set the +matter aright as best they could. But there was no hint of +reprimand; only a fervent hope that the mercurial Harvey would +remain quiescent until the memory of the episode passed. +</P> + +<P> +The quondam editor, now the representative of his country on the +Supreme Council, in which capacity he is even more important than +as Ambassador, represents a new strain in American politics. His +mental habits bewilder the President, shock the proper and somewhat +conventional Secretary of State, and throw such repositories of +national divinity as Senators Lodge and Knox into utter confusion. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey plays the game of politics according to his own rules, the +underlying principle of which is audacity. He knows very well that +the weak spot in the armor of nearly all politicians of the old +school is their assumption of superiority, a sort of mask of +benignant political venerability. They dread satire. They shrink +from ridicule. A well-directed critical outburst freezes them. +Such has been the Harvey method of approach. Having reduced his +subjects to a state of terror, he flatters them, cajoles them, and +finally makes terms with them; but he always remains a more or less +unstable and uncertain quantity, potentially explosive. +</P> + +<P> +There is not much of the present Harvey to be gleaned from his +earlier experiences, except the pertinacity that has had much to do +with his irregular climb up the ladder. He was born in Peacham, +Vermont, where as a boy after school hours he mounted a stool in +his father's general store and kept books. At the end of the year +his accounts were short a penny. Because of this he received no +Christmas gift not, as he has said, because his father begrudged +the copper more than any other Vermont storekeeper, but because he +was meticulously careful himself and expected the younger +generation to be likewise. +</P> + +<P> +This experience must have been etched upon Harvey's memory; no one +can be more meticulous when his interest is aroused. To money he is +indifferent, but a misplaced word makes him shudder. Writing with +him is an exhausting process, which probably accounts for the fact +that his literary output has been small. But the same power of +analysis and attention to detail have been most effective in his +political activities. In these his divination has been prophetic +and in his manipulation of contending elements he shows a dexterity +that has baffled even the professional politicians. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey began his journalistic career upon the Peacham Patriot. +Thence, with a borrowed ten dollar bill, he went to Springfield, +serving his apprenticeship on the Republican, the best school of +journalism in the country at that time. Later, on the Chicago +Evening News, on the staff of which were Victor Lawson, Eugene +Field, and Melville Stone, he completed his training. +</P> + +<P> +When he joined the staff of the New York World at the age of +twenty-one he was a competent, if not a brilliant newspaper man. +His first important billet was the New Jersey editorship. This +assignment across the river might very easily have been the first +step toward a journalistic sepulcher, but not for Harvey. He made +use of the post to garner an experience and knowledge of New Jersey +politics that were to have an important bearing upon the career of +Woodrow Wilson later. At the same time he attracted the attention +of Joseph Pulitzer who appointed him managing editor of the World +before he was thirty. +</P> + +<P> +While directing the World's policy during the second Cleveland +campaign, Harvey met Thomas F. Ryan and William C. Whitney, the +financial backers of the Democratic party. This prepared the way +for his step from Park Row to Wall Street after his break with +Pulitzer. +</P> + +<P> +But the ways of Wall Street were not for Harvey. Nevertheless he +was cautious enough to help himself to some of the profits that +were forthcoming in those days of great amalgamations. With +commendable foresight, however much he might have despised the +methods then prevalent in the fields of high finance, he acquired +enough to make him independent, to follow his own bent, and +strangely enough, in the acquiring he came to the conclusion that +the Republic could not survive if the plundering of the people by +the "interests" continued as it was proceeding at that time. +</P> + +<P> +He withdrew from the Street and eventually purchased The North +American Review. In the meantime J. P. Morgan and Company had +underwritten the bonds of the Harper publishing house and the elder +Morgan asked Harvey to take charge of the institution. This he +agreed to do with the understanding that he should be permitted to +direct the policy of Harper's Weekly, one of the assets of the +firm, without interference from the bankers. +</P> + +<P> +With his peculiar faculty for detecting the weaknesses of +financiers and politicians, Harvey now had before him an +opportunity which was not afforded by the sedate old North American +Review and he promptly took advantage of it. He had seen enough of +the union of finance and politics to place little faith in either +of the old parties. One was corrupt and powerful; the other was +weak and parasitical. In both organizations money was a compelling +consideration. Not being accustomed to think in terms of party +allegiance Harvey decided that the only remedy for a very bad +situation was a militant Democracy. He had the organ; next he +needed the leader. +</P> + +<P> +About this time, quite accidentally, he was present at Woodrow +Wilson's inauguration as president of Princeton University. The +professor appealed to the editor,—why, one can only conjecture. +Perhaps it was a common abhorrence of machine politics, a passion +for phrase turning, for there is a similarity in the methods of the +two which separates them from the rank and file of ordinary +politicians. Harvey scrutinized Wilson more carefully, making a +political diagnosis by a careful examination of his works, and +decided that he was the man to turn the trick. +</P> + +<P> +But the gap between the presidency of Princeton and the Presidency +of the United States was too wide to be taken at one leap. Harvey +concluded that the governorship of New Jersey must be the +intermediate step. The Democratic year of 1910 provided the +opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +The New Jersey politicians did not care about the college +professor. They had already chosen a candidate, but Harvey induced +them to change their minds. How this was accomplished is an +absorbing political tale, too long to be narrated here. The New +Jersey political leaders of that period will tell you that if Mr. +Wilson's "forward-looking" men had controlled the convention he +never would have been nominated. They will also tell you how Joseph +Patrick Tumulty opposed the nomination. They will even whisper that +the contests were settled rather rapidly that memorable evening. +After the nomination was announced, Mr. Wilson's managers escorted +him to the convention hall where he addressed a group of delegates +who were none too enthusiastic. +</P> + +<P> +As they motored back to the hotel Mr. Wilson is reported to have +asked: "By the way, gentleman, what was my majority?" +</P> + +<P> +To which Mr. Nugent replied cryptically: "It was enough." +</P> + +<P> +The question, at least in the presence of these gentlemen, it is +said was never asked again. +</P> + +<P> +Much has been said about the break between Mr. Harvey and Mr. +Wilson. The published correspondence gives a fairly accurate +picture of what happened at the Manhattan Club on the morning of +the parting. I do not believe that Mr. Wilson dropped Colonel +Harvey because he feared he was under Wall Street influence. The +Harvey version sounds more plausible. According to this the +erstwhile university professor had learned the technique of +political strategy. He no longer felt that he was in need of +guidance. +</P> + +<P> +"I was not surprised at the excuse he gave a little later when the +break came," said Harvey. "I would not have been surprised at any +excuse he offered." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harvey retired from the campaign. Harper's Weekly had been +wrecked, whether or not by the espousal of the Wilson cause, and he +sold it to Norman Hapgood who buried it in due course. George +Harvey might or might not have had visions of an appointment to the +Court of St. James at that time. It is at least certain that his +disappointment was keen, taking a form of vindictiveness which will +survive as a distinct blot upon his career. In the preconvention +campaign he aligned himself with the Champ Clark forces, but it was +too late to undo the work he had done. +</P> + +<P> +This episode is necessary to an understanding of what happened +later. His transfer from the Democratic to the Republican party was +a characteristically bold move. How genuine his later allegiance +may be is a question which more than one Republican would like to +have answered, but there is no doubt of the success of his coup. He +is, at least where he wanted to be, occupying the post which he +considers, in point of importance, next to the presidency itself, +Mr. Hughes notwithstanding. +</P> + +<P> +When the United States entered the war Harvey found himself in the +secluded position of editor of the North American Review. This did +not suit his disposition at all and he was very unhappy. He was too +old to fight and it was not likely that he would be invited to +Washington. In the meantime stories of mismanagement in the conduct +of the war began to trickle out of the capital in devious +undercurrents. The press, in a passive spirit of patriotism, was +silent. Here was the opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +In January, 1918, the first edition of the "North American Review +War Weekly" appeared. Its editor announced that its purpose was to +help win the war by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing +but the truth. He defied the Creels, the Daniels, and the +Burlesons, adopting the motto, "To hell with the censors and +bureaucrats." +</P> + +<P> +The journal was an instant success. Not only was it read with +avidity but the Washington politicians were flabbergasted at the +audacity of a man who dared to print what the press associations +and the dailies would not touch. I do not think there can be any +doubt of the genuineness of Harvey's motives at this time. His +journal was rigidly non-partisan. He spared no one whom he +considered as an encumbrance in the winning of the war. +</P> + +<P> +The most striking evidence of his attitude toward the Republican +party at this time is found in the edition of the "Weekly" of March +9, 1918. Will H. Hays had just been elected chairman of the +Republican National Committee. He made a speech extolling the +virtues of his party. Of this Harvey made a stinging analysis +denouncing Hays for invoking partisan spirit at so perilous an +hour, concluding with this paragraph: +</P> + +<P> +"As for Mr. Hays, with his insufferable claptrap about absolute +unity as a blanket under which to gather votes while the very +existence of the nation is threatened more ominously than anybody +west of the Alleghanies—or in Washington, for that matter,—seems +to realize, the sooner he goes home and takes his damned old party +with him, the better it will be for all creation." +</P> + +<P> +Surely no uncertain language! One might have supposed that the +Chairman of the Republican Committee would have done nothing of the +kind, but he did. Again the Harvey method was effective. Hays +instead of resenting the denunciation wrote Harvey a rather abject +letter, expressing the fear that he might have made a mistake in +discussing politics during the war and asked for an interview. +</P> + +<P> +Here another Harvey characteristic came into play. He did not +assume the lofty role of mentor or prophet; he very tactfully and +gently tucked the young Indianian under his wing. Thenceforth there +were no more oratorical blunders. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hays began to exhibit some capacity for leadership; his +speeches improved. From that day until the election of 1920 he +never made one without George Harvey's counsel and approval. +</P> + +<P> +This is as typical of Harvey as his audacity. He has a gentleness +and charm quite unexpected in so savage a commentator. He will +discuss and advise but he will not argue; and all of the time he +will probe with uncanny accuracy for the weaknesses of those with +whom he is dealing. It is rather by the weaknesses of others than +by his own strength that he triumphs. +</P> + +<P> +Eight months after his meeting with Hays, Harvey came to Washington +where his shadow was cast over the destinies of the Republican +party, which at that time consisted of a dozen elements with little +in common except a hatred of Woodrow Wilson. +</P> + +<P> +It was an ideal situation for the exercise of Harvey's peculiar +talents. He met various factional leaders and before many weeks his +house became their rendezvous, the G. H. Q. of the forces who were +to encompass the defeat of Wilson. Harvey flattered and cajoled and +counselled, enjoying himself immensely all of the time. This +diversion was much more to his liking than the academic dignity of +the editorship of the "North American Review". +</P> + +<P> +When President Wilson sailed away on his disastrous mission to +Paris, Harvey's "Weekly" threw aside all restraint. It cut and +slashed indiscriminately the President's policies. For the first +time Harvey took on the guise of a Republican among Republicans. He +even aided and abetted, with amused cynicism, the groping and +fumbling of Republican leaders who were dazzled at the sudden break +in the political clouds which had so long enshrouded them. He +helped raise the funds used to counteract the league propaganda and +toured the country in opposition to it. +</P> + +<P> +The next shift in scenes was as much beyond Mr. Harvey's power of +manipulation as it was beyond most of the Republicans who now +sagaciously give the impression that their hands were on the ropes. +Stories have been told of the great part Mr. Harvey played in the +nomination of Mr. Harding. Mr. Harvey did not go to Chicago with +the intention of supporting Mr. Harding any more than any other of +the candidates, except Wood and Hiram Johnson, whom he despised. +</P> + +<P> +He and the Senate oligarchy that coyly took the credit for +nominating Mr. Harding turned to him when it was manifest that the +machinery was stalled. Mr. Harding owes his nomination to a mob of +bewildered delegates. It was not due to a wisely conceived nor +brilliantly executed plan. +</P> + +<P> +I doubt very much that George Harvey and President Harding had much +in common until Harvey was invited to Marion. At that time the +"irreconcilables" were beginning to be afraid that Elihu Root and +William H. Taft were about to induce Mr. Harding to accept a +compromise on the League of Nations. Harvey served the purpose of +restoring the equilibrium. At the same time it is quite probable +that the President was impressed by a mind so much more agile than +his own. It was reasonably certain that it would not be diverted or +misled by the intricacies of European diplomacy. And there was +never any doubt of Harvey's Americanism. +</P> + +<P> +The President's selection of Mr. Harvey for the London post is, of +course, accounted for in other ways. There are some persons who +profess to believe that Mr. Harding preferred to have the militant +editor in London and his "Weekly" in the grave rather than to have +him as a censor of Washington activities under the new regime. It +can be said definitely that a sigh of relief went up from many a +Republican bosom when the sacrilegious journal was brought to a +timely end. And this did not happen, it is to be observed, until +the nomination of George Harvey to the Court of St. James was duly +ratified and approved by the Senate of the United States. +</P> + +<P> +But if the "Weekly" has passed, the Republicans are still acutely +conscious that Mr. Harvey is alive,—has he not reminded them of it +in his first ambassadorial utterances?—and the journal is not +beyond resuscitation. That is why Washington does not know whether +to be chagrined or angry, whether to disavow or to condone. The +discomfited Republicans frankly do not know what to think of it and +probably will not so long as the amazing ambassador makes his own +rules. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="hughes"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CHARLES EVANS HUGHES +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Mais resiste-t-on a' la vertu? Les gens qui n'eurent point de +faiblesses sont terribles," observed Sylvestre Bonnard of the +redoubtable Therese. +</P> + +<P> +This fearsomeness of the good is an old story. Horace remarked it, +when, walking about near Rome, pure of heart and free from sin, he +met a wolf. The beast quailed before his virtue and ran away,—to +bark at the statue of the she wolf giving suck to Romulus, by way +of intelligent protest. +</P> + +<P> +A similar prevalence of virtue and a similar romantic quality, +where it is least to be expected, was disclosed in a recent +encounter between Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State, and one +of the irreconcilables, when Mr. Hughes, integer vitae scelerisque +purus had just commissioned Colonel George Harvey to take the seat +once occupied by Woodrow Wilson in the Supreme Council. +</P> + +<P> +When the news of this appointment reached the Capitol, Senator +Brandegee, of Connecticut, hurried down to that structure across +the street from the White House whose architectural style so +markedly resembles the literary style of President Harding, the +State War and Navy Building, official residence of Mr. Hughes. +</P> + +<P> +Harvey being, in a sort, Brandegee's ambassador to the Court of +Saint James, the Senator's object was to tell Mr. Hughes what +Harvey should do in the Supreme Council. Mr. Brandegee has the gift +of direct and forceful speech. In his earnestness, he dispenses +with the elegancies and amenities. The upper ranges of his voice +are not conciliatory. +</P> + +<P> +In this tone, he developed views regarding this country's foreign +relations with which Mr. Hughes could not agree. The Secretary of +State combatted the Senator from Connecticut precisely as he +combats counsel of the other side when a $500,000 fee is at stake. +The discussion was energetic and divergent. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Brandegee hurried back to the Capitol and summoned other +senators to his office, all those who were especially concerned +about the exposure of Colonel Harvey to European entanglements. +</P> + +<P> +He was excited. His voice was nasal. His language, in that select +gathering, did not have to be parliamentary. He told the senators +that they could expect the Versailles treaty by the next White +House messenger; that "that whiskered,"—but nothing lies like +direct quotes,—that "that whiskered" Secretary of State would soon +get us into the League of Nations, being able for his purposes to +wind President Harding about his little finger! +</P> + +<P> +His excitement in such an emergency naturally communicated itself +to his hearers. What to do? It was unanimously decided that the +only adequate course was for Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to resign as +Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by way of +protest. +</P> + +<P> +Henry Cabot Lodge running away from his chairmanship would be Henry +Cabot Lodge behaving as romantically as Horace's wolf. The good are +terrible, as Anatole France said in the words with which this +sketch begins. It is not so much that you can not resist them, as +that they lead you to make such fools of yourselves. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes prevails, however, not merely by his virtue, but by his +intelligence. His is the best mind in Washington; to this everyone +agrees, and it is not excessive praise, for minds are not common in +the Government. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harding has not a remarkable one, the people having decided by +seven million majority that it was best not to have one in the +White House, choosing instead, a good heart, excellent intentions, +and reasonable common sense. Mr. Hoover has a fine business +instinct, great but diffused mental energy, but hardly an organized +mind. From this point the Cabinet grades down to the Secretary of +Labor, who, when Samuel Gompers, Jr., his Chief Clerk, addressed +him before visitors as, "Mr. Secretary," said, "Please don't call +me, 'Mr. Secretary,' Sam. Call me, 'Jim.' I'm more used to it." +</P> + +<P> +"Call me Jim" is the mental sea level of the Administration, by +which altitudes are measured, so let us not exalt Mr. Hughes' mind +unduly, but merely indicate what its habits are. Its operations +were described to me by a member of the Cabinet, who said that no +matter what subject was up for discussion at a Cabinet meeting, it +was always the Secretary of State who said the final convincing +word about it, summing it all up, saying what everyone else had +been trying to say but no one else had entirely succeeded in +saying, simplifying it, and all with an air of service, not of +self-assertion. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harding, speaking to an intimate friend, said he had "two +strong advisers,—Hughes and Hoover." +</P> + +<P> +It is a satisfaction, even though it is not a delight, to come in +contact with a mind like Mr. Hughes'; it is so definite, so hard +and firm and palpable. You feel sure that it rests somewhere on the +eternal verities. It is never agnostic. It has none of the malaise +of the twentieth century. Mr. Justice Brandeis, when Mr. Hughes was +governor of New York and a reformer and progressive, said of him, +"His is the most enlightened mind of the eighteenth century." +</P> + +<P> +I think the Justice put it a century or two too late, for by the +eighteenth century skepticism had begun to undermine those firm +foundations of belief which Mr. Hughes still possesses. For him a +straight line is the shortest distance between two points,—Einstein +to the contrary, notwithstanding. +</P> + +<P> +Conclusions rest upon the absolute rock of principle, as morality +for his preacher father rested upon the absolute rock of the Ten +Commandments. There is no doubt, no uncertainty, no nuance, no on +the one hand, on the other, no discursiveness, no yielding to the +seductions of fancy, but a stern keeping of the faith of the +syllogism; a thing is so or it is not so. Mr. Hughes never +hesitates. He never says, "I must think about that." He has thought +about it. Or he turns instantly to his Principle and has the +answer. +</P> + +<P> +You speak of Mr. Hughes to ten men in the Capitol, and nine of them +will say to you, "Of course it is easy to understand; his is the +one real mind in Washington." +</P> + +<P> +Everyone is impressed, for, starting with no other initiation into +the mysteries of foreign relations than having had a father born in +Wales and having spent his vacations in England, probably in the +lake region studying the topography of Wordsworth's poetry,—a +certain oft detected resemblance to Wilson must make Wordsworth his +favorite poet, as he was Wilson's,—in ten days was he not a great +Secretary of State; and in three months the greatest Secretary of +State? To be sure, back of him was the strongest nation on the +earth, left so by the war, the one nation with resources, the +creditor of all the others, to which a successful foreign policy +would be naturally easy if it could only decide what that policy +should be. +</P> + +<P> +It was left to Mr. Hughes to say what it should be. His discovery +of the word "interests," amazed Washington; it was so obvious, so +simple that no one else had thought of it. Mr. Hughes' mind works +like that;—hard, cold, unemotional, not to be turned aside, it +simplifies everything, whether it be a treaty fight that has +confused everyone else in the land, or a rambling Cabinet +discussion; whether it be the mess in which the war left Europe, or +the chaos in which watchful waiting left Mexico. His is a mind that +delights in formulae. He has one for Europe. He has one for Mexico. +It is an analytical, not a synthetical mind, a lawyer's mind, not a +creator's, like Wilson's, with, perhaps it may turn out, a fatal +habit of over-simplification. Life is not a simple thing after +all. +</P> + +<P> +But effective simplification is instantly overwhelming; and he made +his brief announcement, a few days after taking office, that the +United States had won certain things as a belligerent, that it had +not got them, that he was going after them, that other countries +could expect nothing from us until they had recognized our rights +and our interests; he had completely routed the Senate, which had +been opposing Wilson's ideals with certain ideals of its own, +pitting Washington's farewell address against "breaking the heart +of the world," in a mussy statement of sentimentality. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes talked of islands and oil and dollars; and the country +came to its senses. Mr. Wilson had pictured us going into world +affairs as an international benefactor; it was sobby and suggested +a strain on our pocketbooks. The Senate had pictured us staying out +of them because our fathers had warned us to stay out and because +the international confidence men would cheat us; it was +Sunday-school-booky and unflattering. Mr. Hughes said we should go +in to the extent of obtaining what was ours, and that we should stay +out to the extent of keeping the others from obtaining what certainly +was not theirs. It sounded grown-up; as a Nation we belonged not to +the sob-sisterhood, neither were we tied to the apronstring of the +Mothers of the Constitution. +</P> + +<P> +Our national self-respect was restored. Truly, it required a mind +to discover "interests" in the cloud of words that Mr. Wilson and +the Senate had raised. Of course, it is all clear now, when +everybody scorns idealism and talks glibly of interests. "Hobbs +hints blue, straight he turtle eats; Nobbs prints blue, claret +crowns his cup." But it was Hughes who "fished the murex up," who +pulled "interests" out of the deep blue sea of verbal fuddlement. +</P> + +<P> +And thinking of our dollars, thanks to Mr. Hughes, we are made sane +and whole, clearsighted and unafraid, standing erect among the +nations of the earth asking lustily for Yap. +</P> + +<P> +Our foreign relations had been the subject of passion. Mr. Hughes +made them the subject of reason. Mr. Wilson could think of nothing +but his hatred of Lodge, which rendered an agreement with the +Senate impossible, and his hatred of Lloyd George and Marshal Foch, +which rendered cooperation with the Allies and through it +achievements in the foreign field that would have reconciled the +public to his policies, equally impossible. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes looked at his task objectively. He saw the power of the +United States. He saw how easy it was to exert that power +diplomatically. He saw the simple and immediate concerns of the +United States. Foch says that he won the war, "by smoking his +pipe," meaning by keeping cool and regarding his means and ends +with the same detachment with which he would study an old campaign +of Napoleon. I do not know on what sedative Mr. Hughes wins his +diplomatic victories, as he does not smoke a pipe;—perhaps by +reading the Sunday School Times. But like the French Marshal, he +knows the secret of keeping his head. It is a great quality of mind +not to lose it when you most need it. Mr. Hughes has it. Perhaps +this is why Washington remarks his mind; he always has it with him. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not thinking of myself in my work here," he said once. "I +don't care about immediate acclaim. I am counsel for the people of +this country. If a generation from now they think their interests +have been well represented, that will be enough." +</P> + +<P> +He is coldly objective. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes comes by his coolness naturally. He was born to it, +which is the surest way to come by anything. Men have hated him for +it, coolness being a disconcerting quality, ever since he emerged +from obscurity in New York during the insurance investigation, +calling it his "coldness" and adding by way of good measure the +further specification, his "selfishness." +</P> + +<P> +If the last characterization is to stand, it should be amended to +read, his "enlightened selfishness." He has a good eye for his own +interests. Roosevelt disliked him for it, because when governor and +again when candidate for president, he refused to gravitate into +the Roosevelt solar system, taking up his orbit like the rest of +them about the Colonel. But think what happened to that system when +the great sun of it went out! +</P> + +<P> +His political associates in New York hated him, accused him of +being "for nothing but Hughes," when he quit them in the fight "to +hand the government back to the people" and went, on the invitation +of President Taft, upon the Supreme Bench. But it was his only way +out. If he had gone on working with them, he would still be +"handing the government back to the people" along with,—but who +were the great figures of 1910? He knows an expiring issue and its +embarrassments by an unerring instinct. He finds a new one, such as +"our national interests," with as sure a sense. +</P> + +<P> +It is worth while casting a glance at him "smoking his pipe," when +other real and false opportunities presented themselves to him; one +finds discrimination. He refuses a Republican nomination for Mayor +of New York City when there is not a chance of electing a +Republican Mayor of New York City. He accepts a Republican +nomination for Governor of New York State, when the putting up of +Hearst as the Democratic candidate makes the election of a +Republican as Governor of New York State morally certain. He +refuses the Republican nomination for President, in 1912, when +another, viewing himself and his party less objectively, through +vanity perhaps, might have believed that his own nomination was the +one thing needed to prevent that year's Republican cataclysm. Four +years later he accepts the Republican nomination for President, +when as the result showed, there is at least a reasonable chance to +win. He takes the post of Secretary of State when neglected +opportunities lie ready to his hand and when the force of world +events requires little more than his intelligent acquiescence to +bring him diplomatic success. +</P> + +<P> +His discovery of "interests" was no accident. It sprang from that +hard unemotional simplifying habit of his mind. +</P> + +<P> +When one writes of Mr. Hughes, men ask, pardonably, "Which Mr. +Hughes? The old Mr. Hughes, or the new Mr. Hughes?" for he has had, +as the literary critics would say, his earlier and his later +manner. +</P> + +<P> +But it is chiefly manner, a smile recently achieved, a different +way of wearing the beard, a little less of the stern moralist, a +little more of the man of the world. A connoisseur of Hughes, who +has studied him for nearly twenty years, after a recent +observation, pronounced judgment: "It's the same Hughes, a trifle +less cold, but just as dry." And the Secretary of State himself, +when one of the weeklies contained an article on "The New Mr. +Hughes," remarked, "People did not understand me then, that is +all." +</P> + +<P> +These two eminent authorities being substantially agreed for the +first time during many divergent years, there must be something in +it. Mr. Hughes must be a gradually emerging personality. You take +that new warmth, recently detected; Mr. Hughes himself knows it was +always there. It is like the light ray of a star which has needed a +million years to reach the earth; it was always there but it +required a long time to get across. +</P> + +<P> +Then the beard:—when Mr. Hughes was "handing the government back +to the people" in New York, it was a preacher's beard; you might +have encountered its like anywhere among the circuit riders. Now it +is a foreign secretary's beard; you might encounter it in any +European capital,—a world statesman's beard. The change of beard +reveals the smile, which was probably always there, and the +splendid large teeth. The nose, standing out in bolder relief, is +handsomer and more distinguished. You see more of Mr. Hughes than +you used to and you gain by the improved vision. +</P> + +<P> +Something has dropped from him, however, beside the ends of the +whiskers. I met him first when he was about to run for President in +1916. An icy veil, like frozen mist, seemed to hang between us. We +talked through it ineffectively. When I saw him again as Secretary +of State, that chill barrier had fallen away; to recur to my +figure, he gradually emerges. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes of the later manner is, however, I am persuaded after +long familiarity with his career, more truly Hughesian than the +Hughes of the earlier manner; just as the Henry James of the later +manner is more explicitly Jamesian than the James of the earlier +manner, and the Cabot Lodge of the present is much more +irretrievably Cabotian than the Cabot Lodge who years ago stood +with reluctant feet where the twin paths of scholarship and +politics meet,—and part. +</P> + +<P> +I should say that Mr. Hughes was Bryan plus the advantages, which +Mr. Bryan never enjoyed, of a correct Republican upbringing and a +mind. The Republican upbringing and the mind have come of late +years to preponderate. Looking at Mr. Hughes to-day, you could not +tell him from a Republican, except perhaps by his mind, though such +esoteric Republicans as Brandegee, Cabot Lodge, and Knox profess an +ability to distinguish. +</P> + +<P> +But when he was "handing the government back to the people" in New +York, there was too much Bryan about him. The Republicans would +have none of him, except as a choice of evils,—the greater evil +being defeat. They called him ribald names. They referred to him +scornfully as "Wilson with whiskers," when they ran him, +reluctantly, for the Presidency in 1916. His opponent being also of +the Bryan school, and a minister's son at that, Hughes striving for +an issue, failed to make it clear which was which, a doubt that +remained until the last vote from California was finally counted +after the election. This was the Mr. Hughes of the earlier manner. +</P> + +<P> +Latterly, Mr. Hughes has succeeded in establishing the distinction +which he did not succeed in making during that campaign. When he +confronted the task of Secretary of State, he carefully studied the +international career of Woodrow Wilson, as a sort of inverse +Napoleon, a sort of diplomatic bad example. +</P> + +<P> +"This," he said to himself, "was a mistake of Wilson," and he noted +it. "And this," he observed thoughtfully, "was another mistake of +Wilson. I shall avoid it." "This," he again impressed on his +memory, "was where Lloyd George and Clemenceau trapped him. I shall +keep out of that pit." +</P> + +<P> +His head, like a book of etiquette, is full of "Don'ts," diplomatic +"Don'ts," all deduced from the experience of Wilson. +</P> + +<P> +The former President met Europe face to face. Mr. Hughes thanks his +stars for the breadth of the Atlantic. The former President put his +League of Nations first on his program. Mr. Hughes puts his League +of Nations last, to be set up after every other question is +settled. +</P> + +<P> +The former President tried to sell the Country pure idealism. Now +as a people we have the habit of wars in which we seek nothing, but +after which, in spite of ourselves, a little territory, a few +islands, or a region out of which we subsequently carve half a +dozen States, is found adhering to us. Mr. Wilson offered us a war +in which, of course, we sought nothing and found, at the end of it, +not the customary few trifles of territory, but the whole +embarrassing, beggarly world adhering to us. The thumbscrew and the +rack could not wring from Mr. Hughes the admission that we are +after anything more lofty than our interests. +</P> + +<P> +One of the present Secretary's "Don'ts" of similar derivation is +"Don't have a fight with the Senate unless you make sure first that +you have the public with you." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes does not run away from fights; he likes them. But +believing God to be on the side with the most battalions, and +intending scrupulously to observe this last "Don't," in order to +secure the necessary popular support, he is as Secretary of State, +"handing the government back to the people," just as he did when +governor,—a little less self-consciously, perhaps, a little less +noisily, but still none the less truly. +</P> + +<P> +He is the most democratic Secretary of State this Country has ever +had, and this includes Bryan to whose school, as has just been +remarked, he originally belonged. If we are ever to have democratic +control of foreign relations, it will be by the methods of Mr. +Hughes, because of the training and beliefs of Mr. Hughes, and as a +consequence of the most undemocratic control of foreign relations +which our Constitution attempted to fasten upon us. +</P> + +<P> +A successful foreign policy requires public understanding and +support. The makers of the Constitution established in our +government a nice balance of powers between the various +departments, beautifully adjusted until someone thought of putting +a stone into one side of the balance. That stone is the people. The +Fathers of the Constitution had not noticed it. The executive put +it into its end of the balance some years ago, and the legislative +has been kicking the beam ever since. One nice bit of balancing was +that between the Senate and the Executive on treaty making. In +foreign relations, the President can do everything, and he can do +nothing without the approval of two thirds of the Senate. It is a +nice balance, which broke the heart of John Hay, frittered away the +sentimentalities of Mr. Bryan, and destroyed Mr. Wilson. +</P> + +<P> +No one ever thought of putting the stone into it until the Senate +did so two years ago, by discussing the Versailles treaty in the +open, right before the public. The people got into the scale, and +Mr. Wilson hit the sky. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hughes observed what happened. He is determined that the stone +this time shall go in on his end of the balance. He talks to the +country daily. He takes the people into his confidence, telling all +that can be told and as soon as it can be told. He makes foreign +relations hold front pages with the Stillman divorce case. He makes +no step without carrying the country with him. He comes as near +conducting a daily referendum on what we shall do for our +"interests" as in a country so big as ours can be done; and that is +democratic control of foreign relations, initiated by the Senate, +for its own undoing. +</P> + +<P> +Into that balance where he is placing the stone, he will put more +of mankind's destinies than any other man on earth holds in his +hands to-day. His has been a long way up from the shy, sensitive +youth that one who knew him when he was beginning the law describes +to me. He was then unimaginably awkward, incapable of unbending, a +wet blanket socially. An immense effort of will has gone into +fashioning the agreeable and habitual diner-out of to-day, into +profiting by the mistakes of the New York governorship, of the +campaign of 1916. +</P> + +<P> +One sees still the traces of the early stiffness; the face is +sensitive; the eyes drop, seldom meeting yours squarely; when they +do, they are the mild eyes of the Church! I suppose the early +experiences of the Church help him. +</P> + +<P> +His attitude toward Colonel Harvey's and other of the President's +diplomatic appointments takes its color from his good father's +attitude toward the problem of evil. God put evil in the world, and +it is not for man to question. The President sends the Harveys +abroad; they are not Mr. Hughes', but his own personal representatives. +It is not for Mr. Hughes to question. +</P> + +<P> +He grows a better Republican every day. And the Republicans of the +Senate are not reconciled. They feel like the man who saw the +hippopotamus: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + If he should stay to tea, I thought,<BR> + There won't be much for us.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +There won't be much for them. Enthusiasm grows among them over his +admirable fitness for reinterment on the Supreme Bench. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="house"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +EDWARD M. HOUSE +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +The nature of Colonel Edward M. House was fully revealed by a story +of his youth, which he told me at Paris in the concluding moments +of the Peace Conference. He was elated and confident. The +compromises in which he delighted had been made. The gifts had all +been bestowed—of territory which men will have to fight for to +keep, of reparations which will never be paid, of alliances which +will never be carried out, of a League of Nations which the +Colonel's own Nation will never enter. +</P> + +<P> +Looking the work over with that blindness with which men are struck +who are under the dominion of another and stronger man's mind, his +gentle soul was flooded with happiness. He was as near boasting as +one of his modest habits could be, as his mind turned to the wisdom +of his youth which had brought forth this excellent fruit. +</P> + +<P> +"I got my first real sight of politics," he said, "when I was a boy +in Cornell University. My great chum there was young Morton, a son +of the Republican war governor of Indiana. The Hayes-Tilden +contest over the Presidency was being decided. Morton and I used to +run away from Ithaca to Washington during that absorbing fight. By +reason of his father's position in the Democratic party, he could +get in behind the scenes as few young men could; and he took me +with him. I saw the whole amazing thing. I made up my mind then and +there that only three or four men in this country counted, and that +there was little chance of rising to be one of those three or four +by the ordinary methods." +</P> + +<P> +He was, when he said this, at the apex of his career, behind the +scenes of the greatest World Congress ever held, following the +greatest War the world had ever known. And he had been behind the +scenes as had no other man, in Europe as a privileged onlooker with +both belligerents, and in America as the confidant of tremendous +events. +</P> + +<P> +He was there, as in his college days, at the Hayes-Tilden contest, +by grace of a friend whose influence had been sufficient to secure +him his opportunities. The parallel was in his mind, and he +regarded it with self-approval. He had chosen his course and chosen +it wisely. It had led him to the greatest peace-making in history. +</P> + +<P> +There was a little more self-revelation. He and Morton had prepared +for college with Yale in view. But Morton had flunked his entrance +examinations at Yale and afterward succeeded in passing the Cornell +tests. House had gone to Cornell to be with his friend, an early +indication of a capacity for self-effacement, for attachment to the +nearest great man at hand who could take him behind the scenes. +</P> + +<P> +The mystery of Colonel House is that he has been possessed all his +life, almost passionately, with that instinct which makes boys run +to fires. His fastening upon the favorably placed, whether it was +Morton in his youth, or Wilson in his maturity, was not ordinary +self-seeking, not having for its object riches or power or +influence. It was merely desire to see for the pure love of seeing. +</P> + +<P> +His is a boundless curiosity about both men and events. His eyes +are the clue to his character. Boardman Robinson, with the +caricaturist's gift for catching that feature which exhibits +character, said to me one day during the War, "I just passed +Colonel House on the street. The most wonderful seeing eyes I ever +saw!" +</P> + +<P> +Nature had made Colonel House all eyes—trivial in figure, +undistinguished, slightly ludicrous, almost shambling, shrinking +under observation so that he gained a reputation for mystery, with +only one feature to catch your attention, a most amazingly fine +pair of eyes. It was as if nature had concentrated on those eyes, +treating all the puny rest of him with careless indifference. They +are eyes that delight in seeing, eyes to seek a place in the first +row of the grand stand of world events, eyes that turn steadily +outward upon objective reality. Not the eyes of a visionary—House +got his visions of the brotherhood of man and the rest of it at +second-hand from Wilson—eyes that glow not with the internal fires +of a great soul, but with the intoxication of the spectacle. +</P> + +<P> +And with the eyes nature had given House an unerring instinct for +getting where, with his small figure, he could see. The ego of the +passionate spectator is as peculiar as that of the book collector +or the curiosity hunter. Given a shoulder tall enough the +diminutive House perches upon it, like a small boy watching a +circus parade from his father's broad back, whether the shoulder be +Morton's in his youth, or Wilson's in his maturity. +</P> + +<P> +Some have tried to explain House by saying that he had the vanity +of loving familiarity with the great; but I doubt if House cared +for kings, as kings, any more than a bibliomaniac cares for jade. +He wanted to see; and kings were merely tall objects on which to +perch and regard the spectacle. +</P> + +<P> +He remained simple and unaffected by his contacts with Europe, did +none of the vulgar aping of the toady, coming away from the Peace +Conference an unconscious provincial, who said "Eye-talian" in the +comic-paper way, and Fiume pronouncing the first syllable as if he +were exclaiming "Fie! for shame!"—an unspoiled Texan who must have +cared as little what kings and potentates thought of him as a +newsboy watching a baseball game cares for the accidental company +of a bank president. +</P> + +<P> +The world has been good to Colonel House, according to his +standards. He has realized his ambition to the fullest. Life has +given him all he wanted, the privilege of seeing, more abundantly +than to any other in his generation, perhaps in all time; for he is +history's greatest spectator. +</P> + +<P> +He is glad. His heart is full. He wishes to give in return. He is +the kindest-hearted man who has ever had empires at his disposal. +He wants to give, give, give. He wants to make happy. He was the +fairy godmother of Europe, the diplomatic Carnegie, who thought it +a disgrace to die diplomatically rich. +</P> + +<P> +For many months I saw him almost daily at Paris. His was a heart of +gold, whether in personal or international relations; but a heart +of gold does not make a great negotiator. Perverse and nationalistic +races of men, incredulous of the millenium, keep their hearts of gold +at home when they go out to deal with their neighbors. +</P> + +<P> +It was difficult for Colonel House to say no. He might go so far as +to utter the first letter of that indispensable monosyllable; but +before he accomplished the vowel, his mind would turn to some happy +"formula" passing midway between no and yes. He was fertile in +these expedients. Daily he would talk of some new "formula," for +Fiume, for Dantzig, for the Saar Valley, for the occupation of the +Rhine, for Shantung, always happily, always hopefully. The amiable +William Allen White hit off his disposition perfectly when he said +House's daily prayer was, "Give us this day our daily compromise." +</P> + +<P> +When he split a hair between the south and southwest side, it was +not for logistic pleasure; it was to divide it with splendid +justice and send each of two rival claimants away happy in the +possession of exactly half of the slender filament, so that neither +would be empty handed. I never saw a man so overjoyed as he was one +day late in April or early in May when M. Clemenceau had left his +rooms in the Hotel Crillon with the promise of Franco-American +defensive alliance. +</P> + +<P> +"The old man," he said, "is very happy. He has got what he has been +after. I can't tell you just now what it is. But he has got it at +last." +</P> + +<P> +He had been the donor, for Mr. Wilson, of the exact southwest side +of a hair, the promise to submit, without recommendations, an +alliance to the United States Senate, which had little prospect of +ever being accepted by this country. The sight of the French +Premier's happiness made him radiant. +</P> + +<P> +It was not merely because representatives of foreign governments +found Colonel House easy to see when they could not gain access to +President Wilson that kept a throng running to his quarters in the +Crillon; it was because there they found the line of least +resistance. There was the readiest sympathy. There was the greatest +desire to accommodate. He sought always for a formula that would +satisfy the claims of all. +</P> + +<P> +A man so ready to compromise is actuated by no guiding principle. +Mr. Scott, the editor of the "Manchester Guardian", said when +President Wilson was in England; "Yes, Lloyd George is honestly for +the League of Nations. But that won't prevent him from doing things +at Paris which will be utterly inconsistent with the principle of +such a league. It isn't intellectual dishonesty; but Lloyd George +hasn't a logical mind. He doesn't understand the implications of +his own position." +</P> + +<P> +Neither did Colonel House at Paris. The League of Nations was an +emotion with him, not a principle. It was a tremendous emotion. He +spoke of it in a voice that almost broke. I remember his glowing +eyes and the little catch in his throat as he said, at Paris, "The +politicians don't like the League of Nations. And if they really +knew what it would do to them, they would like it still less." +</P> + +<P> +But, for all that naive faith in the wonders it would do, Colonel +House had not thought out the League of Nations, and was quite +incapable of thinking it out, for he is not a man of analytical +mind; and what mental power he had was inhibited by the glow of his +feelings. His temperature was above the thinking point. Thus, like +Mr. Lloyd George, he could make compromises that played ducks and +drakes with his general position, since he had no real +understanding of the League, which was not an intellectual +conviction with him, arduously arrived at, but which possessed his +soul as by an act of grace, like an old-fashioned religious +conversion. +</P> + +<P> +He was loyal at heart to Mr. Wilson and to everything that was Mr. +Wilson's, his mind being absorbed into Mr. Wilson's, and having no +independent existence. There are natures which demand an utter and +unquestioning loyalty in those to whom they yield their confidence, +and Mr. Wilson's was of that sort, as a remark of his about +Secretary Colby will indicate. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Lansing was removed from office, the country was astounded +to learn that he was to be succeeded by Bainbridge Colby. The +President communicated his decision first to one of the few who +then had access to his sick room. This adviser ventured to +expostulate. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Colby," he said, "is brilliant, but he is uncertain. His whole +career has lacked stability. He is not known to have the qualities +which the Nation has been taught to expect in a Secretary of +State." +</P> + +<P> +"At any rate," replied the President sharply, "he is loyal." +</P> + +<P> +At any rate, Colonel House was loyal. +</P> + +<P> +The ego of Mr. Wilson demanded and received utter loyalty from him, +a loyalty that forbade thinking, forbade criticism, forbade +independence of any sort. Moreover, Colonel House was in contact +with a mind much stronger than his, with a personality much more +powerful than his. He was caught into the Wilson orbit. He revolved +about Mr. Wilson. He got his light from Mr. Wilson, who had that +power, which Colonel Roosevelt had, of irradiating minor +personalities. Colonel House was nothing until he gravitated to Mr. +Wilson. He is going back to be nothing to-day, nothing but a kind, +lovable man, a gentle soul rather unfitted for the world, with an +extraordinary capacity for friendship and sympathy, and that fine +pair of eyes. +</P> + +<P> +I remember at Paris the affecting evidences of the little man's +loyalty to his great friend, of whom he could not speak without +emotion. He was never tired of dilating upon the wonder of +President Wilson's mind: +</P> + +<P> +"I never saw," he would say, "so quick a mind, with such a capacity +for instant understanding. The President can go to the bottom of +the most difficult question as no one else in the world can." +</P> + +<P> +House's endless "formulae" always bore the self-effacing condition, +"if Mr. Wilson approves." "If Mr. Wilson approves" was the D. V. of +Colonel House's religion. Too much awe of another mind is not good +for your own, or carries with it certain implications about your +own. +</P> + +<P> +Colonel House's loyalty to Mr. Wilson did not, however, make him +hate the men at Paris who stood across the President's path. The +personal representative's heart was too catholic for that. He— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Liked what e're he looked on<BR> + And his looks went everywhere.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +He had a kindly feeling for the "old man," Clemenceau. He was a +warm friend of Orlando, with whom Mr. Wilson had his quarrel over +Fiume. He though well of Lloyd George, whom Mr. Wilson went abroad +hating. +</P> + +<P> +The Peace Conference was to him a personal problem. Peace was peace +between Wilson and Clemenceau and Lloyd George and Orlando. +Compromises were an accommodation among friends. +</P> + +<P> +I never saw a man so utterly distressed as he was when President +Wilson threatened to break up the Peace Conference and sent for the +George Washington to take him home from Brest. It was as if his own +dearest friends had become involved in a violent quarrel. He did +not see the incident in terms of the principles involved, but only +as the painful interruption of kindly personal relations. Men speak +of him sometimes as the one of our commissioners who knew Europe; +and Europeans, appreciating his sympathy, have fostered this idea +by referring to his understanding of European problems. +</P> + +<P> +But the Europe Colonel House knew was a personal Europe. The +countries on his map were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando. +The problems of his Europe were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and +Orlando. He knew what Lloyd George wanted. He knew what Clemenceau +wanted. He knew what Orlando wanted. That was enough. +</P> + +<P> +His kindness of heart, his desire for pleasant personal relations, +his incapacity to think in terms of principles, whether of the +League of Nations or not, betrayed him in the matter of Shantung. +Whether the Peace Conference should return Shantung to China, or +leave it to Japan to return to China was to him, he often said, +"only a question of method. There is no principle involved." The +Japanese were a sensitive people, why should a kind heart question +the excellence of their intentions with respect to China? Shantung +would of course be returned. It was only a question of how. +</P> + +<P> +The simple heart of Colonel House did not save him, either as a +diplomat or as a friend. The failures at Paris plunged Mr. Wilson +into depression in which he went as far down into the valley as he +had been up on the heights during his vision—of a world made +better by his hand. In his darker moments he saw nothing but enmity +and disloyalty about him—even, a little later, "usurpation" in the +case of the timorous and circumspect Mr. Lansing. +</P> + +<P> +Colonel House says that he does not yet know what caused the breach +between the President and himself. Relations stopped; that was all. +</P> + +<P> +This is what occurred: Shortly after Colonel House had convinced +the President that the disposal of Shantung was only a question of +method he disappeared from Paris "to take a rest"; and it became +known that after all he was not to sit in the Council of the League +of Nations representing America, as Mr. Wilson had originally +intended. +</P> + +<P> +At this time, a close friend of President Wilson and one of his +most intimate advisers, said to me, "The most insidious influence +here is the social influence." +</P> + +<P> +British entertainment of members of the House family had been +marked and assiduous, and the flattery had had its effect, though +not probably upon the Colonel, who remained unspoiled by social +contacts to the last. Nevertheless, a member of Mr. Wilson's family +had called the President's attention to the social forces that the +British were bringing to bear. The President by this time was in a +mood to be made angry and suspicious. Doubt was lodged in his mind. +And when he found this country critical of the Shantung settlement, +that doubt became a conviction; the British through social +attentions, had wheedled House into a position favorable to their +allies, the Japanese. The loyal House was convicted of the one +unforgivable offense, disloyalty. +</P> + +<P> +When the casting off of House became, later, in this country +unmistakable, I inquired regarding it of the friend and adviser of +the President whom I have just mentioned, and he repeated to me, +forgetting that he used them before, the exact words he had said at +Paris, "The most insidious influence at the Peace Conference was +the social influence." +</P> + +<P> +The most insidious influence with Colonel House was the kindness of +his own heart. He had too many friends. His view of international +relations was too personal. Principles will make a man hard, cold, +and unyielding, and Colonel House had no principles, or had them +only parrot-like from Mr. Wilson. He was the human side of the +President, who for those contacts which his office demanded had +found a human side necessary and accordingly annexed the amiable +Texan. +</P> + +<P> +Wilson's human side had offended him, and he cut it off, +accordingly to the scriptural injunction against the offending +right hand. The act was cruel, but it was just, as just as the +dismissal of Mr. Lansing; for House failed Wilson at Paris, being +one of Wilson's greatest sources of weakness there. His excessive +optimism, his kindheartedness, his credulity, his lack of +independence of mind, his surrender of his imagination to a +stronger imagination, his conception of politics not as morals but +as the adjustment of personal differences, left Wilson without a +capable critical adviser at the Conference. +</P> + +<P> +When House talked to Wilson, it was a weaker Wilson talking to the +real Wilson. Colonel House in retirement and since the breach, is +still Colonel House, kindhearted and unobtrusive. He has seen, and +he is satisfied. He has a fine and perhaps half-unconscious loyalty +to the great man from whose shoulders he surveyed the world. His is +an ego that brushes itself off readily after a fall and asks for no +alms of sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +He does not, like Mr. Lansing, fill five hundred octavo pages with +"I told you so," and you can not conceive of his using that form of +self-justification. +</P> + +<P> +I hope to see him some day playing Santa Claus in a children's +Christmas celebration at a village church! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="hoover"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HERBERT HOOVER +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +One reads in the press daily of Hughes and Hoover, or Mellen and +Hoover, or Davis and Hoover, or Wallace and Hoover. If it is a +question of foreign relations, it is the Secretary of State and +Hoover. If it has to do with using our power as a creditor nation +to compel the needy foreigners to buy here, in spite of the tariff +wall we are going to erect against their selling here, it is the +Secretary of the Treasury and Hoover. If strikes threaten, it is +the Secretary of Labor and Hoover. If the farmers seek more direct +access to the markets, it is the Secretary of Agriculture and +Hoover. +</P> + +<P> +It is always "and Hoover." What Mr. Hughes does not know about +international affairs—and that is considerable—Mr. Hoover does. +What Mr. Mellen does not know about foreign finance—and that is +less—Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Davis does not know about labor—and +that is everything—Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Wallace does not +know about farm marketing—and that is nothing—Mr. Hoover does. +</P> + +<P> +Herbert Hoover is the most useful supplement of the administration. +He possesses a variety of experiences, gained in making money +abroad, in administering the Belgian relief, in husbanding the +world's food supply after our entrance into the War, in helping +write the peace treaty, which no one else equals. He is as handy as +a dictionary of dates or a cyclopedia of useful information, +invaluable books, which never obtain their just due; for no one +ever signs his masterpiece with the name of its coauthor, thus, by +"John Smith and the Cyclopedia of Useful Information." +</P> + +<P> +A bad particle to ride into fame behind, that word "and," begetter +of much oblivion! Who can say what goes after the "and" which +follows the name McKinley, or Hayes, or Cleveland, or even +Roosevelt? Who has sufficient "faith in Massachusetts" to remember +long the decorous dissyllable connected by "and" with the name +Harding? The link, "and," is not strong enough to hold. You recall +the "and"; that is all; as in the case of that article of food, +origin of many "calories," to use Mr. Hoover's favorite word, in +the quick-serve resorts of the humble, where it supplements ably +and usefully, but without honorable mention, slender portions of +beef, pork, and ham. +</P> + +<P> +To describe briefly, in a phrase, what has happened to Hoover; two +years ago, it was "Hoover"; to-day, it is "and Hoover." +</P> + +<P> +Why the connective? Because, to put it bluntly, however great his +other gifts are—and they are remarkable—he lacks political +intelligence. He reminds one now of a great insect caught in the +meshes of a silken web. He struggles this way and that. He flutters +his wings, and the web of politics fastens itself to him with a +hundred new contacts. +</P> + +<P> +Facing possible elimination from public life, he accepted a dull +and unromantic department under President Harding. He was told that +he could "make something of it." Modern Greeks bearing gifts always +bring you an opportunity which "you, and you alone, can make +something of." He is trying to make something of it, something more +than Mr. Harding and the party advisers intended when they gave him +the Secretaryship of Commerce. He is trying to dramatize some turn +of fate and be once more a "big figure." He is tireless. He arrives +at his office fabulously early. Clerks drop in their tracks before +he leaves at night. He has time to see everyone who would see him; +for he can never tell when "the man with the idea" will knock at +his door. Unlike the British naval officer charged with the duty of +examining inventions to win the War, who is described by Guedalla as +sitting like an inverted Micawber "waiting for something to turn +down," he is waiting for something to turn up. He does more than +wait; he works twenty hours a day trying to turn something up. +</P> + +<P> +And he will turn something up. The chances are that he will do as +much for the infant foreign trade of this country as Alexander +Hamilton did for the infant finances of this country. He promises +to be the most useful cabinet officer in a generation. But this is +less than his ambition. If he were an unknown man, it would be +enough; but you measure him by the stature of Hoover of the Belgian +Relief. Like the issue of great fathers, he is eclipsed by a +preceding fame. As well be the son of William Shakespeare as the +political progeny of Hoover, The Food Administrator! +</P> + +<P> +The War spoiled life for many men; for Wilson, for Baruch, for +Hoover. After its magnificent amplifications of personality, it is +hard to descend to every day, and be not a tremendous figure, but a +successful secretary of an unromantic department. +</P> + +<P> +He might concentrate with advantage to his future fame. A brief +absence from front pages, under the connective "and," would cause +the public heart to grow fonder when he did "make something" of his +own department. +</P> + +<P> +But two disqualifications stand in his way;—his lack of political +intelligence, and his consequent inability to make quick decisions +in a political atmosphere. His present diffusion of his energies +springs, I think, from indecision; for in politics he can not make +up his mind, as he can in business, where the greatest profit lies. +</P> + +<P> +I first heard of this weakness of his when he was Food +Administrator in Washington, and when other members of the Wilson +War Administration, equal in rank with him and having to cooperate +with him, complained frequently of his slowness. He had able +subordinates, they said, the leading men in the various food +industries, and they had to make up his mind for him. I set this +charge down, at the time, to jealousy and prejudice, Mr. Hoover +being always an outsider in the Wilson administration; but the long +delay and immense difficulty he made over deciding, although all +his life a Republican, whether he was or was not a Republican in +the campaign of 1920, seemed all the proof of indecision that was +needed. +</P> + +<P> +It sounds like heresy about one who has been advertised as he has; +but remember that we know little about him except what the best +press agents in history have said of him. He achieved his +professional success in the Orient, far from observation, and his +financial success far from American eyes. His public career in the +relief of Belgium and in the administration of food was the object +of world-wide good will. And, moreover, indecision in politics is +common enough among men who are strong and able in other activities. +Mr. Taft was a great judge but wrecked his administration as +President by inability to make up his mind. Senator Kellogg was a +brilliantly successful lawyer; but in public life he is so hesitant +that Minnesota politicians speak of him as "Nervous Nelly," and +even Mr. Taft, during the Treaty fight, rebuked him to his face +for lack of courage. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hoover's face is not that of a decisive character. The brow is +ample and dominant; there is vision and keen intelligence; but the +rest of the face is not strong, and it wears habitually a wavering +self-conscious smile. This smile, as if everybody were looking at +him, makes him remind one as he comes out of a Cabinet meeting of a +small boy in a classroom carrying a bouquet of flowers up to his +teacher. He has, moreover, a strain of pessimism in his nature, +which may account for his indecision. You catch him in moods of +profound depression. He was in one just before his appointment to +the Cabinet, when his European relief work was not going to his +liking, and when the politicians, he felt, were forcing him into a +position of little scope and opportunity. +</P> + +<P> +In politics, he has enough vanity and self-consciousness to be +aware constantly of forces opposed to him, covert, hostile, +unscrupulous, personal forces—forces that he does not understand. +Give him a mining problem, he can reckon with the forces of nature +that have to be overcome. Give him a problem of finance, he knows +the enmities of finance. He is in his element. In politics he is +not. He is baffled. +</P> + +<P> +An illustrative incident occurred in the spring of 1920, when both +parties were talking of him as their candidate for President and he +was uncertain whether he was a Republican or not. Mr. Hearst, in +his newspapers, published an attack upon him, saying that he was +more Briton than American, and to prove it printed a list of +British corporations of which he was a director. +</P> + +<P> +All his suspicions were aroused over this everyday occurrence of +politics. Where had Mr. Hearst obtained the unfortunate +information? He saw plots and treachery. Someone in his confidence +must have betrayed him for money. A careful investigation was made, +and it was discovered that the editor had drawn upon "Who's Who," +to which Mr. Hoover himself had furnished the information before he +began thinking of the Presidency. +</P> + +<P> +The politicians tricked him so completely in the preconvention +campaign of 1920 that he has the best reasons for distrusting +himself. He was always, during that campaign, a candidate for the +Republican nomination to the Presidency. At the very time when his +spokesman, Julius Barnes, was saying for him that he could not +choose between the two parties until he had seen their candidates +and read their platforms, and when the Democrats were most +seriously impressed with his availability, the manager of his paper +in Washington said to me, "This talk of Hoover for the Democratic +nomination is moonshine. He won't take it." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not," I asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Because," he replied, "he does not think it is worth having," a +quite practical reason which differed wholly from the official +explanation that Mr. Hoover was waiting to see which party was +progressive so that he might oppose reaction. +</P> + +<P> +His subsequent support of the more conservative candidate and the +more conservative party bore out the truth of what his newspaper +manager had said. And in reality, Mr. Hoover is as conservative as +Mr. Harding himself, being a large capitalist with all the +conservatism of the capitalist class. +</P> + +<P> +A little while ago, Mr. Roosevelt had made it unfashionable to +admit that you were conservative. You wished it to be understood +that you were open-minded—"forward looking," as Mr. Wilson, who +turned reactionary at the test, called it; that you were broad, +sympathetic, free from mean prejudices, progressive, in short. Our +very best reactionaries of to-day all used to call themselves +progressive. Some still do. +</P> + +<P> +The young editor of a metropolitan newspaper, born to great wealth, +and imbibing all the narrowness of the second generation, once +asked me in those bright days when everybody was thrilling over his +"liberality," "Would you call me a radical, or just a progressive?" +He was "just a progressive." In a somewhat similar sense, Mr. +Hoover was quite unconsciously "just a progressive"—a belated +follower of a pleasant fashion, having lived abroad too long when +he made his announcement to note the subtle changes that had taken +place in our thinking—the rude shock that Russia had given to our +"liberality." +</P> + +<P> +But living abroad, it is only fair to add, has created a difference +between his conservatism and that, let us say, of Judge Gary. He +has grown used to labor unions and even to labor parties, so that +they do not frighten him. His is conservatism, none the less, +definite conservatism, if more enlightened than the obscurant +American variety. +</P> + +<P> +His hesitation and indecision in the spring of 1920 thus did not +spring from doubt of the Republican party's progressiveness. He +always desired the Republican nomination; but his vanity would +suffer by the open seeking of it and the defeat which seemed +likely; and his sensitiveness would suffer from the attacks, like +that of Mr. Hearst, which an open candidacy would entail; for he is +at once vain and thin-skinned. +</P> + +<P> +Springing thus from reluctance to make up his mind, the +announcement was received as the evidence of a very large mind. +Among the public, Mr. Hoover was taken for a man who cared more for +principle than for party or for politics. Among the politicians, he +assumed the proportions of a portent, with a genius for politics +second only to that of Roosevelt himself, who in a difficult +situation could take the one position and say the one thing that +might force his nomination. +</P> + +<P> +The Democrats pricked up their ears. Mr. Wilson, sick and +discouraged, began to entertain hopes of a candidate who would save +the Democracy from ruin. Homer Cummings, National Chairman of Mr. +Wilson's party, began to regard Mr. Hoover's possible nomination +favorably. The Republican managers became alarmed. They knew from +Mr. Hoover's friends that he, as his Washington newspaper manager +had said, thought the Democratic nomination not worth having; but +they feared lest by the course he was pursuing he might make it +worth having, might take it, and might rob them of the election +which they felt safely theirs. If they could induce him to declare +his Republicanism, the Democrats would drop him, the public would +cease to be interested in him as a dramatic personality too big for +party trammels, and they themselves could ignore him. +</P> + +<P> +It was decided to have him read out of the Republican party as a +warning to him of how he was imperiling his hopes of the only +nomination he valued, and at the same time have Republican leaders +go to him or his friends and advise him and them that if he would +only declare his Republicanism, a popular demand would force his +nomination at Chicago. +</P> + +<P> +Senator Penrose was chosen as the Republican whose pontifical +damnation would most impress Mr. Hoover. The late W. Murray Crane, +whom I have heard described at Mr. Roosevelt's dinner table as "the +Uriah Heap of the Republican party," was the emissary who would +advise Mr. Hoover to confess the error of his ways and seek the +absolution of Penrose. A diary kept at Republican National +Headquarters in New York reveals the visits there at the time the +plan was made of Mr. Crane and others who took part in the +enterprise. Mr. Penrose got up from a sick bed and thundered: under +no circumstances would he permit the nomination of Mr. Hoover. +</P> + +<P> +The plot succeeded. In a few days, Mr. Hoover declared that he +would not take the Democratic nomination. The Democrats dropped +him. The public was bewildered by his finding out that he was a +Republican after saying that he could not tell whether he was one +or not until he had seen the Republican candidate and the platform. +</P> + +<P> +At the Chicago Convention he received the support of Mr. Crane, +Governor Miller, of New York, and, on the last ballot, of William +Allen White, who having voted for Harding on the just previous +ballot, said he wanted to "leave the bandwagon and ride with the +undertaker." +</P> + +<P> +This guilelessness of Mr. Hoover in politics will prevent him from +realizing his larger ambitions; but is a source of strength to him +in his present position, with American business men who have +learned to distrust politicians. At any rate, he is no politician; +he thinks as business men think; his interests are their interests; +and when he comes to them bearing gifts,—the aid and cooperation +of the United States Government in their efforts to win foreign +trade,—they do not take him for a Greek. +</P> + +<P> +He possesses great special knowledge which they desire: he knows +much about economics and enjoys the advantage of believing that he +knows all; he has immense prestige, as a result of all the +advertising he received during the War; they come to Washington and +sit at his feet like children; he gives them fatherly lectures, +even upon the morals of their business, which must be clean, to +enter this foreign trade of his, with the Government behind it. +They make mental resolutions of reform. To no politician, to no +one, even with an instinct for politics, would they listen as they +listen to him. He speaks to American business with immense +authority. His selection is an example of that unusual instinct for +putting the right man in the right place which President Harding +has, when he chooses to exercise it. +</P> + +<P> +The post was disappointing to Mr. Hoover; but it was the one in +which he will be most useful. Not a lawyer, he would hardly have +done for Secretary of State, in spite of his exceptional knowledge +of foreign conditions. Not a banker, he lacked the technical +equipment for Secretary of the Treasury. Not a politician, he +should have, and he has a place in which there are the least +possible politics. Mr. Harding denatured him politically by giving +him the one business department in the Cabinet. Even Hiram Johnson +may come no longer to hate him. +</P> + +<P> +For his present task, besides his special knowledge, his remarkable +industry, his tireless application to details, he has one great +gift, his extraordinary talent for publicity. There is no one in +Washington, not even Mr. Hughes, who knows so well as he does how +to advertise what he is doing. +</P> + +<P> +As business recovers and foreign trade develops, the magazine pages +will blossom with articles about what American enterprise is +achieving in foreign lands, about the cooperation between American +business and the American government, and, once more, about Mr. +Hoover. Finding markets for American wares all over the earth will +be made a romance only second in interest to the feeding of +Belgium. +</P> + +<P> +It was not an accident that he was better advertised than any +general, admiral, or statesman of the War. It was not all due to +the good will of the public, to the work which he did in Belgium +and in this country, nor to the extraordinary press agents whose +services he was able to command because of that good will. Back of +it all was his own instinct for publicity, his sense of what +interests the people, his assiduous cultivation of editors and +reporters. He has magazine and newspaper contacts only exceeded by +those of Roosevelt in his time, and a sense of the power of +publicity only exceeded by Roosevelt's. +</P> + +<P> +When he was threatening to win the Democratic nomination for the +Presidency in spite of the fact that he was not a Democrat, a +supporter of McAdoo complained bitterly to me, "Confound him! He +has a genius for self-advertising. He is not half the man McAdoo +is. He hasn't McAdoo's courage, optimism, force, or general +statesmanship; but he has this infernal talent for getting himself +in the papers. There is not much to him but press agenting; but how +can you beat that?" +</P> + +<P> +But though his own name has come to count for more than the causes +he represents, so that the best way to obtain aid is to ask for it +with "Hoover" in big letters and with the suffering children of +Central Europe in small letters, still he remains only a name to +the American people. They know that he always wears a blue suit of +clothes cut on an invariable model, which he adopted years ago. +They know that he worked his way through college as a waiter. They +know that he grew rich as a mining engineer in the East. That is +all. They think of him as a symbol of efficiency, as one who may +save their money, as one who may find markets for them and develop +their trade, as one who may help the world upon its feet again +after the War, as a superman, if you will; but not as a man, not as +a human being. +</P> + +<P> +All his advertising has made him appeal to the American +imagination, but not to the American heart. He is a sort of +efficiency engineer, installing his charts and his systems into +public life,—and who loves an efficiency engineer? There are no +stories about him which give him a place in the popular breast. It +is impossible to interest yourself in Hoover as Hoover; in Hoover +as the man who did this, or the man who did that, or the man who +will do this or that, yes,—but not in Hoover, the person. +</P> + +<P> +The reason is that he has little personality. On close contact, he +is disappointing, without charm, given to silence, as if he had +nothing for ordinary human relations which had no profitable +bearing on the task in hand. His conversation is applied efficiency +engineering; there is no lost motion, though it is lost motion +which is the delight of life. At dinner, he inclines to bury his +face in his plate until the talk reaches some subject important to +him, when he explodes a few facts, and is once more silent. +</P> + +<P> +Had he a personality with his instinct for publicity, he would be +another Roosevelt. But he is a bare expert. +</P> + +<P> +I doubt if he really thinks of human beings as human beings; on the +contrary, some engineering graph represents humanity in his mind. +It is characteristic of him that he always speaks of the relief of +starving populations not in terms of human suffering, but in terms +of chemistry. The people, of whatever country he may be feeding, +have so many calories now, last month they had so many calories; if +they had ten calories more, they could maintain existence. Many +times have I heard this formula. It is a weakness in a democracy to +think of people in terms of graphs, and their welfare in terms of +calories; that is, if you hope to be President of that democracy— +not if you are content to be its excellent Secretary of Commerce. +</P> + +<P> +When he came to Washington as a Food Administrator, he brought with +him an old associate, a professor from California. A few days later +the professor's wife arrived and went to live at the same house +where Mr. Hoover and her husband resided. Mr. Hoover knew her well. +She and her husband had long been his friends. He met her in the +hall, shook hands with her, welcomed her and then lapsed into +silence. After some moments, he said, "Well,—" and hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Hoover," she said, "I know you are a busy man. You don't have +to stand here trying to think of something to say to me. I know you +well enough not to be offended if you don't talk to me at all while +I am here." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed and took her at her word. He had the habit of too great +relevancy to be human. If he could have said more than "Well" to +that woman, he might have been President. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="lodge"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HENRY CABOT LODGE +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +When Henry Cabot Lodge was elected to Congress thirty-four years +ago there were no portents in the heavens, but there was rejoicing +in his native city of Boston and in many other places. It was +hailed as the dawn of a new era. Young, he was only thirty-seven, +well educated, a teacher of history, and with six serious books to +his credit, he was a new figure in politics; Providence, moving in +its mysterious way, had designed him to redeem politics from its +baseness and set a shining example. +</P> + +<P> +Everything was in his favor; he was not only learned, so learned, +in fact, that he was promptly dubbed the "scholar in politics," but +he was rich, and therefore immune from all sordid temptation; he +was a gentleman. Mr. Lodge's forbears had been respectable +tradesmen who knew how to make money and to keep it—and the latter +trait is strongly developed in their senatorial descendant. From +them he inherited a fortune; he had been educated in a select +private school and then gone through Harvard, whence he emerged +with an LL.B. and a Ph.D. attached to his name. By all the +established canons he was a "gentleman" as well as a scholar. In +the intervals between teaching and writing he had found time to be +admitted to the Boston bar. +</P> + +<P> +With that equipment it could be safely predicted Mr. Lodge would go +far. He has. To-day he is the leader of the Republican party in the +Senate of the United States. +</P> + +<P> +He early justified the promise. While still a Congressional +freshman he drafted and introduced into the House the "Force Bill," +which came to a violent death in the Senate. That Bill was not only +a prophecy but it is a resume of Mr. Lodge's career. It is +partisanship gone mad. +</P> + +<P> +On the pretense that it was intended to secure fair elections in +the South, but actually, as described by a member of the House at +the time, to prevent elections being held in several districts, it +placed the election machinery in the control of the Federal +Government, which, through the Chief Supervisor of Elections, to be +appointed by the President, and his Praetorian Guard of Deputy +Marshals, would have controlled every election and returned an +overwhelming Republican majority from the Southern States. +</P> + +<P> +The Bill was typical of Mr. Lodge and the way he plays politics. +The Force Bill would probably have ended ingloriously the political +career of any other man, but Mr. Lodge had the luck of being a +gentleman born in Boston. Boston is slow to forget. A quarter of a +century after the Civil War, Boston still remembered that conflict, +its heart still bled for the negro deprived of his vote; and a +Boston gentleman could do no wrong—to the Democratic Party. +</P> + +<P> +The House amused Mr. Lodge, but it was too promiscuous for a person +of his delicate sensibilities who shrank from intimate contact with +the uneducated and the socially unwashed. Henry Cabot Lodge always +creates the impression that it is a condescension on his part to +God to have allowed Him to create a world which is not exclusively +possessed by the Cabots and the Lodges and their connections. +</P> + +<P> +All that is only an unfortunate manner. He is really the friend of +the people, abominating snobbishness and aristocratic pretensions; +in his younger days, when he was campaigning for Congress, he was +known to have slapped a constituent on the back and called him +familiarly by his first name; even now, although he has long ceased +to be a politician and has been canonized as a statesman, the old +impulses are strong in him. When the time draws near for his +reelection to the Senate, he goes back to Massachusetts, there to +take part with the common people in their simple pleasures, and +affably to extend a cold and clammy hand to voters, who still +venerate him as a scholar in politics and a gentleman. So it will +be easily understood why one of Mr. Lodge's temperament should +early have cast his covetous eye on the Senate, and at the first +opportunity moved over to that more select atmosphere, which he did +in 1893. +</P> + +<P> +When Senator Lodge entered public life the flagrant spoils system +was rampant. A little band of earnest men was fighting to reform +the civil service so as to make it a permanent establishment with +merit and fitness the tests for appointment instead of political +influence. It was a cause naturally to appeal to the "best people" +of Boston, and Mr. Lodge, being one of them, having inflexible +principles and a high code of honor, threw himself eagerly into the +reform movement and became its apostle. His principles were so +stern and unyielding, he demanded such an exalted standard of +private and public morality, that, although he worshipped the +Republican Party with a devotion almost as great as the memory of +that grandfather who laid the foundation of the family fortunes, +with a sorely stricken heart he was compelled to differ with Mr. +Blaine and to flirt with those Ruperts of American politics, the +Mugwumps. +</P> + +<P> +"The man who sets up as being much better than his age is always to +be suspected," says a historian, "and Cato is perhaps the best +specimen of the rugged hypocrite that history can produce." +</P> + +<P> +As a summary of the character of Cato, this is admirable, but no +one would call Mr. Lodge "rugged." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge's principles, it has been observed, are inflexible and +rest on solid foundation, but like good steel they can bend without +breaking. An ardent civil service reformer, a champion of public +morality, so long as offices were being awarded to the faithful, he +saw no reason why he should be the victim of his own self denying +ordinance. Early in his career he became a very successful purveyor +of patronage, developing a keen scent for vacant places or a post +filled by a Democrat. As a theoretical civil service reformer Mr. +Lodge left nothing to be desired; as a practical spoilsman he had +few equals. A Senator's usefulness to his friends is much greater +than that of a member of the House, and if a Senator works his pull +for all that it is worth he can accomplish much. Mr. Lodge was not +idle. +</P> + +<P> +With his grandfathers and his fortune Mr. Lodge inherited a violent +and bitter dislike of England. Probably no man—not even the most +extreme Irish agitator—is more responsible for the feeling +existing against England than Mr. Lodge; because the outspoken +Irish agitator is known for what he is and treated accordingly; +carrying out Mr. Roosevelt's thought, he will be execrated by +decent people; but Mr. Lodge, posing as the impartial historian and +the patriotic statesman, is applauded. +</P> + +<P> +Just as Mr. Lodge gained a certain fame when he was a member of the +House from the Force Bill, which his own party repudiated, so he +signalized his admission into the Senate by proposing to force +England to adopt free silver. It was an opportunity to strike at +England in a vital spot; it was as statesmanlike and patriotic as +his attempt to deprive the South of their representatives. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Cleveland was fighting with splendid courage to save the +country from free silver, caring nothing for politics and animated +solely by the highest and most disinterested motives, and Mr. Lodge +was thinking only of his spite. President Cleveland, said a Boston +paper, deserved and had the right to expect Mr. Lodge's support, +instead of which "we find our junior Senator introducing a +legislative proposition intended to appeal at once to the +anti-British prejudices of a good many Americans, and to the desire +of the then preponderating sentiment of the country to force a silver +currency upon the American people. It was an effort to strike at +England." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge proposed that all imports from Great Britain or her +colonies should pay duties double those of the regular rates, and +any article on the free list should be made dutiable at thirty-five +per cent; these additional and discriminating duties were to remain +in force until Great Britain assented to and took part in an +international agreement "for the coinage and use of silver." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge's free silver amendment shared the same tomb with his +Force Bill; in the Senate fortunately there were men with broader +vision and less passion. +</P> + +<P> +In his biography in the Congressional Directory (written by +himself) and in the numerous biographies and sketches which have +been published with such frequency (Mr. Lodge has a weakness for +seeing himself in print) curiously enough no mention can be found +either of the Force Bill or the attempt to coerce England with a +silver club. One can only explain this reticence by excessive +modesty. +</P> + +<P> +Two years later Mr. Lodge deserted his silver allies and was as +enthusiastic in support of the gold standard as he had previously +been zealous for the purification of the civil service. A Boston +paper said that he "was made to realize, by the influences brought +to bear upon him, that he must advocate the gold standard or else +provoke the active hostility of the prominent business men of this +State." That perhaps is as infamous as anything ever written. That +any influences, even those "of the prominent business men of +Massachusetts," could cause Mr. Lodge to swerve from his +convictions no one will believe. He must have had convictions when +he sought to drive England to a silver standard, he must have been +convinced that it was for the good of the United States as well as +the whole world, he must have satisfied himself, for Mr. Lodge +never permits his emotions to control his intelligence, that his +action was wise and patriotic. But although Mr. Lodge will not +surrender his convictions he has no scruples about consistency. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge's principles are so stern that he refused to consent to +Colombia being paid for the territory seized by President +Roosevelt. Mr. Lodge made a report (this was when Mr. Wilson was +President, and I mention it merely as an historical fact) in which +he denounced Colombia's claim as blackmail, resented it as an +insult to the memory of Mr. Roosevelt, and declared in approved +copybook fashion (being fond of platitudes), that friendship +between nations cannot be bought. Later (this was when Mr. Harding +was President, and I mention it merely as an historical fact) as +Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he brought in a +report urging the ratification of the treaty, and discovered that +Mr. Roosevelt had really been in favor of the treaty, expunged the +unpleasant word blackmail from his lexicon, and sapiently observed, +so impossible is it for him not to indulge in platitudes, that +sometimes a nation has to pay more for a thing than it is really +worth; a reflection that would have done credit to the oracular +wisdom of Captain Jack Bunsby. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge attacked the treaty of peace with Germany while it was +still in process of negotiation and severely criticised Mr. Wilson +for not having consulted the Senate. That the Senate has no right +to ask about the details of a treaty before the President sends it +in for ratification is a constitutional axiom which Mr. Lodge, with +his customary mental infidelity, caressed at one time and spurned +at another. +</P> + +<P> +When the treaty with Spain was before the Senate (that was when Mr. +McKinley was President, and I mention it merely as an historical +fact) it was attacked by some of the Democrats. To silence these +criticisms Mr. Lodge said, "We have no possible right to break +suddenly into the middle of a negotiation and demand from the +President what instructions he has given to his representatives. +That part of treaty making is no concern of ours." +</P> + +<P> +The Democrats attempted to defeat the ratification of the treaty, +and if that was done, said Mr. Lodge, "we repudiate the President +and his action before the whole world, and the repudiation of the +President in such a matter as this is, to my mind, the humiliation +of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world." The +President could not be sent back to say to Spain "with bated +breath" (even in his most solemn moments Mr. Lodge cannot resist +the commonplace) "we believe we have been too victorious and that +you have yielded us too much and that I am very sorry that I took +the Philippines from you." +</P> + +<P> +But that was precisely what Mr. Lodge demanded should and must be +done when Mr. Wilson brought back the peace treaty. Inconsistency, +as I have before remarked, Mr. Lodge cares nothing about, but his +patriotism and partisanship are so inextricably intertwined that it +is always difficult to discover whether in his loftiest flights it +is the patriot who pleads or the partisan who intrigues. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, in the debate on the Spanish treaty, Mr. Lodge delivered +himself of these noble sentiments: "I have ideals and beliefs which +pertain to the living present, and a faith in the future of my +country. I believe in the American people as they are to-day and in +the civilization they have created," and many more beautiful words +to the same effect. It was the language of a statesman with +aspirations and convictions. It sounded splendidly. Mr. Lodge is a +classical scholar, and one wonders whether he remembers his +Epictetus: "But you utter your elegant words only from your lips; +for this reason they are without strength and dead, and it is +nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your miserable virtue; +which is talked of everywhere." +</P> + +<P> +It was the late Senator Wolcott, one of the most brilliant orators +of his day, who explained why Mr. Lodge's oratory left men cold. +Wolcott was commenting on a speech delivered by Lodge a few days +earlier and someone said to him that men listened to Lodge with +eyes undimmed. +</P> + +<P> +"To bring tears from an audience," said Wolcott, "the speaker must +feel tears here (and he pointed to his throat), but Lodge can speak +for an hour with nothing but saliva in his throat." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge's dislike of Mr. Wilson was almost malignant. Rumor +ascribes it to professional jealousy. Before Mr. Wilson came into +prominence Mr. Lodge was the only scholar in politics, but Mr. +Wilson was so far his superior in erudition, especially in Mr. +Lodge's chosen profession of history, that he resented being +deprived of his monopoly. Perhaps there is another reason. Mr. +Lodge has cherished two ambitions, neither of which has been +gratified. The Presidency has been the ignis fatuus he has pursued; +he was the residuary legatee of Mr. Roosevelt's bankrupt political +estate in 1916, it will be recalled; last year, after his fight on +the treaty, he considered himself the logical candidate and +believed he had the nomination in his grasp. He has longed to be +Secretary of State, and it was a bitter disappointment when Mr. +Harding did not invite him to enter the Cabinet. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lodge is a curious and not uninteresting study in psychology. +He has no great talent, but he is not without some ability; in his +youth he was an industrious plodder and fond of study. He has read +much but absorbed little; he is well educated in the narrow sense +of the schoolmaster, but he has no philosophic background; his is +the parasitic mind that sucks sustenance from the brains of others +and gives nothing in return. He is without the slightest +imagination and is devoid of all sense of humor; and without these +two, imagination, which is the gift of the poet, and humor, which +is the dower of the philosopher, no man can see life whole. +</P> + +<P> +He has genius almost for misunderstanding public sentiment. To him +may be applied Junius' characterization of the Duke of Grafton: "It +is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do +right by mistake." +</P> + +<P> +With all these defects, the defects of heritage and environment and +temperament, so much was expected from Mr. Lodge, and so much he +might have done, that it is a disappointment he has accomplished so +little. He has been thirty-four years in Congress, and his career +can be summed up in three achievements—the Force Bill, the attempt +to wreck England by driving her to silver coinage, and the part he +took in defeating the treaty of peace with Germany. The Force Bill +and the silver amendment his biographers have charitably forgotten; +will the future biographer deal as gently with the closing years of +his life? And if so, what material will the biographer have? +</P> + +<P> +Macaulay, reviewing Barere's Memoirs—and allowing for the +difference in time and manners and morals there is a strange +similarity between the leader of the French Revolution and the +leader of the Senate—said, "We now propose to do him, by the +blessing of God, full and signal justice." +</P> + +<P> +We think we may say, with proper humility, that, by the blessing of +God, we have done Senator Henry Cabot Lodge full and signal +justice. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="baruch"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BERNARD M. BARUCH +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +A clever woman magazine writer once asked Bernard M. Baruch for +some information about the peace treaty. The question was not in +his special field, the economic sections of the treaty, and he told +her so. +</P> + +<P> +"It took him one sentence to say that he could not tell me what I +wanted to know," she described the interview afterward. "And then +he talked to me for two hours about himself. He told me of his +start in life as a three-dollar-a-week clerk, how rich he was, his +philosophy of life; how you should recognize defeat when it was +coming, accept it before it was complete and overwhelming and start +out afresh, how liberal and advanced were his social views, how +with all his wealth he was ready to accept a capital tax as perhaps +the best way out of the bog in which the war had left the world, +how democratic he was in his relations with his employees and his +servants. It all seemed as amazing to him as if he were describing +someone else, or as if it had just happened the day before." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it is only to women and to journalists that men talk so +frankly about themselves, to the most romantic and best trained +listening sex and profession, who perforce survey the heights from +below. But this young woman's experience was, I have reason to +believe, a common one. +</P> + +<P> +Is it vanity? You say that a man who talks so much about himself +must be vain. To conclude that he is vain is not to understand Mr. +Baruch. Is a child vain when it brings some little childish +accomplishment, some infantile drawing on paper, and delightedly +and frankly marvels at what he has done? It is given to children +and to the naive openly to wonder at themselves without vanity, +with a deep underlying sense of humility, and in Mr. Baruch's case +the unaffected delight in himself proceeds from real humility. +</P> + +<P> +After twenty-five years in the jungle of Wall Street, there +is—contradictions multiply in his case—much of the child about Mr. +Baruch, simple, trustful—outside of Wall Street,—incapable of +concealment,—outside of Wall Street—of that which art has taught +the rest of us to conceal. His humility makes him wonder; his +naivete makes him talk quite frankly, unrestrained by the +conventions that balk others. After all, is not wondering at +yourself a sign of humility? A vain man, become great by luck, by +force of circumstances, by the possession of gifts which he does +not himself fully understand, would still take himself for granted. +He would not be a romance to himself, but a solid, unassailable +fact. +</P> + +<P> +For Baruch the great romance is Baruch, the astonishing plaything +of fate, who started life as a three-dollar-a-week broker's clerk; +made millions, lost millions, made millions again, lost millions +again; finally, still young, quit Wall Street with a fortune that +left the game of the market dull and commonplace, seeking a new +occupation for his energies; became during the war next to the +President, the most powerful man in Washington; emerged from the +war, which wrecked most reputations, with a large measure of +credit, prepared by the amazing past for an equally amazing future. +A career like that makes it impossible for the man who knows it +best not to expect anything. Why not the "Disraeli of America?"—a +phrase he once, rather confidentially, employed concerning his +anticipated future. +</P> + +<P> +Did you ever see a portrait bust smiling, not softly with the eyes +or with a slight relaxation of the mouth, but firmly, definitely, +lastingly smiling, with some inward source of satisfaction? Look at +Jo Davidson's bust of Baruch, among the famous men at the Peace +Conference. +</P> + +<P> +I once saw the various sketches in clay that went to the making of +that portrait—the subject was proving elusive to the sculptor. +There were two obvious traits to be represented; the unusual knot +in the brow between the eyes and the smile, without which it was +evident that you had not Baruch. The extraordinary concentration in +the forehead was easy enough to transfer to clay; but the smile +kept defying the artist. When a smile was traced in the clay it +softened the face out of character, destroyed that intensity which +the central massing of the brow denoted; and when the smile was +deleted the face lost all its brilliance, became merely intense, +concentrated, racial, acquisitive perhaps, clearly not Mr. Baruch's +face. Ultimately the sculptor succeeded in wedding a smile to that +brow, and the bust went on exhibition with those of Wilson, Foch, +House, Clemenceau, and the others; but the union was never more +than a compromise, a marriage of convenience for the artist. +</P> + +<P> +That smile is as inevitable a part of Baruch as his engaging +naivete in talking about himself. It is always there, brilliant, +unrelated to circumstances. It does not spring from a sense of +humor,—Mr. Baruch, like the rest of the successful, has not a +marked sense of humor; a sense of the irony of fate he has, +perhaps, but not more. It does not denote gaiety, nor sympathy, nor +satire; it is not kind nor yet unkind; it does not relax the +features, which remain tense as ever even when smiling; it suggests +satisfaction, self-confidence, and a secret inner source of +contentment. It is with Mr. Baruch when he is tired, or ought to be +tired; the romance of Baruch is an internal spring of refreshment. +It does not leave him when he is angry, if he is ever angry; the +romance of Baruch diverts him. Though always there, it is not a +fixed smile, a mask, something worn for the undoing of Wall Street; +it is a real smile. Somewhere subconsciously there abides the +picture of the poor clerk become amazingly rich, of power in +Washington, of a beckoning future with possibilities as +extraordinary as the wonders of the past. Life is not logical, +dull, commonplace, a tissue of cause and effect; it proceeds +delightfully by daily miracles. The American Disraeli is no further +away to-day than was the Baruch of to-day from the Baruch of +yesterday. Enough to account for a smile in marble, bronze, or in +whatever metal the human face is made of. +</P> + +<P> +Take the miracle of the War Administration. It was not vanity but +humility, the kind of humility that would have saved Wilson, that +served Mr. Baruch there. He came to Washington out of Wall Street +and Wall Street is always anathema. More than that he came out of +that part of Wall Street which is beyond the pale; he did not +belong to the right monied set there; which is to be anathema with +that part of the community to which Wall Street itself is not +anathema; moreover he had been unjustly accused in connection with +the famous Wall Street "leak." And he entered an administration +which was the center of much prejudice and hatred. Yet he was +modest enough, however, to assume that his personality did not +count, that it was the work to be done which mattered, and that he +could depend upon the friendliness both of the Republicans and of +the great industrial interests of the country to that work if it +should be properly done. +</P> + +<P> +The belief Mr. Wilson has and a much lesser man, Hiram Johnson, +has, that men are thinking exclusively about them personally and +not about the causes they advocate or the measures they propose is +a more dangerous form of vanity than the habit of admiring oneself +audibly. It requires colossal egotism to imagine the existence of +many enemies and Mr. Baruch is genuinely humble in the matter of +enmity. After watching him during the war, in an administration +which was enemy mad, I fancy he counts his genuine foes on the +fingers of one hand. Moreover he was quite impersonal about his +task. He did not do everything himself on the theory that no one +else was quite big enough to do it. There is no practical snobbism +about him. His knowledge of the industries of the country was that +of the speculator; it was not that of the practical industrialist, +and he knew it. +</P> + +<P> +He surrounded himself with the best men he could find. He trusted +them implicitly, his habit being not to distrust men until he finds +that they can be trusted but to trust them unless he finds that +they cannot be trusted—also a modest and naive trait. He was never +tired of praising Legg, Replogle, Summers, and the other business +men whom he brought to Washington, praising himself, of course, for +his skill in choosing them—he never achieves self-forgetfulness—but +giving them full credit for the work of the War Industries Board. +And he inspired an extraordinary loyalty among his associates, big +and little. He treated the Republicans as he treated big business +as if all had only one interest, above politics and personalities, +and that was to win the war. And when President Wilson, in response +to Republican criticism of the war organization, gave him real power +to mobilize American industry, the Republicans applauded the bestowal +of authority as constructive and took credit to themselves for +accomplishing it. +</P> + +<P> +Baruch and Hoover, alone of the business men who came to Washington +during the war achieved real successes in the higher positions, and +he showed vastly the greater capacity of the two to operate in a +political atmosphere. A man who was nothing but a Wall Street +speculator, not an industrial organizer, organized successfully the +biggest industrial combination the world has ever seen; a man who +was suspect of American business got on admirably with American +business, and a man who had not been in politics accomplished the +impossible task of adjusting himself to work under political +conditions. It is another chapter in the romance of Baruch. +</P> + +<P> +He cannot explain it, so why should not he wonder about it quite +openly and quite delightedly, with all his engaging naivete? That +inability to explain anything is one of the characteristics of Mr. +Baruch. When you begin to apprehend it you begin to see why he is a +romance to himself. He cannot explain himself to himself, nor to +anyone else, no matter how much he tries. And even more, he cannot +explain his opinions, his conclusions, his decisions to anyone in +the world with all the words at his command. He can never give +reasons. Mentally nature has left him, after a manner, incommunicado. +His mind does not proceed as other men's minds do. +</P> + +<P> +The author of the "Mirrors of Downing Street" describes Lord +Northcliffe's mind as "discontinuous." If I had never talked to +Lord Northcliffe I should be led to suppose that his mind resembled +Mr. Baruch's. But the British journalist's mental operations are a +model of order and continuity compared to those of the former +American War Industries Chairman. Like the heroes of the ancient +poems Mr. Baruch's mind has the faculty of invisibility. You see it +here; a moment later you see it there, and for the life of you +cannot tell how it got from here to there, a gift of incalculability +which must have been of great service in Wall Street, but which does +not promote understanding nor communication. And the more Mr. Baruch +tries to give you the connecting links between here and there the +worse off you are, both of you. +</P> + +<P> +The ordinary mind is logical and is confined within the three +dimensions of the syllogism. You watch it readily enough shut in +its little cage whose walls are the major premise, the minor +premise, and the conclusion. There is no escape as we say, from the +conclusion. There is no escape anywhere. +</P> + +<P> +But Mr. Baruch's mind escapes easily. It possesses the secret of +some fourth mental dimension, known only to the naive and the +illogical, or perhaps supralogical. He has brilliant intuitions, +hunches, premonitions, the acute perceptions of some two or three +extra senses that have been bred or schooled out of other men. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps he is like Lloyd George, who is not logical but achieves +his successes through two or three senses which ordinary men have +not; however, unlike Lloyd George, he cannot simulate logic and, +after jumping to his conclusions, reduce them to the understanding +of the three-dimensional mind. It is a grief to him that he cannot; +for if he could make a speech, that is to say, translate himself, +that figure of Disraeli would, he thinks, be less remote. But when +your mental operations are a succession of miracles, you may have +brilliant intuitions and extraordinary prevision about the mineral +supplies necessary to win the war,—which he had—you may have +wonder, like the naive and the poets, about that extraordinary +thing yourself, or about that still more extraordinary thing which +is life or destiny, but you cannot move the masses. +</P> + +<P> +Still there are compensations. A perfectly logical mind would have +explained all the wonder away, reduced the miracle of personality +to a stolid operation of cause and effect, quite self-approbatively +no doubt, and made Mr. Baruch talk of himself as the rest of the +great do, modestly, after this fashion: "Behold me! I am what I am +because when I was nine years old I saved nine cents and resolved +then and there always to save as many cents each year as I was +years old. Young man, SAVE!" +</P> + +<P> +There is no fun in being not a wonder but a copy book. And a +perfectly logical mind would flirt with Disraeli warily. It would +say, "One does not at fifty change from business to politics with +success. Disraeli didn't start out in Wall Street. As the Germans +say, 'what will become vinegar sours early.'" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Baruch slips easily through the three sides of this reasoning. +Life is not logical. Fate is not logical. He is not logical. +</P> + +<P> +He has had his taste of public life under Wilson and he wants more. +I venture to say that he would give every one of his many millions +and be as poor, well, poorer than any member of the present +cabinet, to be in the place Mr. Hughes occupies to-day. +</P> + +<P> +Everyone who knows him has heard him say that when he entered +office he resolved to quit business because he learned so much as +head of the War Industries Board that it would be improper for him +ever to go into the market again. There is more to it than that; +public life has given him a profound distaste for mere money-making. +He wrote to Senator Kenyon the other day that he had not +made a dollar since he went to work for the government. I believe +that to be true for I have found him an extraordinarily truthful +and honest man. He has that desire for public distinction which is +so often characteristic of his race. He has the idealism, a +characteristic also of the race which gave to the world two great +religions. He has the same passion for public service now that he +once had for the market. And he belongs to a race, which, in spite +of all our national catholicity on the subject of races, has never +yet produced its Disraeli in America, and to a party out of power, +perhaps for a long time, and he spent his youth learning a trade +which is not the trade he would follow now. +</P> + +<P> +All of this accounts for his restlessness. He is still youthful and +has enormous energies and no occupation for them. He loves personal +publicity and has an instinct for it, not so keen as Hoover's or +Will H. Hays', but still keen. +</P> + +<P> +Whither shall he turn? To the organization of his party? There he +may buy the right to be lampooned and in the end, if his party +succeeds, to be introduced into the Cabinet apologetically, as Hays +and Daugherty were, on the plea that the President must appoint a +number of party workers. To the Senate? It is a body which affords +escape from the boredom of small town life for men who have grown +rich on the frontier or in the dull Middle West. It carries with it +an excuse to live in Washington, some social position there, and a +title envied in Marion, Reno, Butte, or Salt Lake City. Senators +who start young serve long and obediently, suppressing all their +natural instincts for self-expression, and attain if they are +lucky the scant distinction of a committee chairmanship in a +legislature that has steadily tended toward submergence. To the +House? Individuals are lost in the House. And the Presidency comes +to few, and by chance. +</P> + +<P> +Knowing his ambition for public distinction and his wealth, men go +to him every day to sell him the road to power and influence, and, +if you will, public service. Let him have the Democratic +organization on condition of paying its debts and financing its +activities. One faction of the Democratic party recently sought +control, spreading the understanding that Mr. Baruch would, in the +event of its success, open wide his pocket book. After the meeting +of the National Committee at which this faction met its defeat I +said to a prominent member of the victorious group: "Now that you +have won you will probably get Baruch's money. He is restless, +eager to find an outlet for his energies, less interested in any +personality than in his party. Hang on and wait and he must come to +you." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know," he replied, lowering his voice confidentially, "That +is just the way I diagnose it." +</P> + +<P> +And at this very time the Republicans, hearing much of Mr. Baruch's +money and its use to build up such an intensive organization for +the Democrats, as Chairman Hays with a million or two at his +disposal had erected for them, considered seriously whether or not +it would not be wise themselves to occupy Mr. Baruch's energies and +divert his ambitions away from party organization. They debated +putting Mr. Baruch on the commission to reorganize the executive +departments of the government. All had their eyes on the same +ambition and the same wealth! +</P> + +<P> +Several daily newspapers in New York, and I know not how many +magazines and weeklies, have been offered at one time or another to +Mr. Baruch, for it is known that one of his ideas of public service +is to own and edit a great liberal journal, a "Manchester Guardian" +of America. But an opportunity to buy a newspaper in New York is an +opportunity to invest $3,000,000 or $4,000,000, to lose $500,000 or +more for several years thereafter and to become the national figure +that Mr. Ochs is, or Mr. Reid is, or Mr. Munsey is, certainly +something far short of the American Disraeli or even the Baruch of +the War Industries Board. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Baruch, you will observe, has no vulgar illusions about what +money will buy. He likes money. It brings with it a certain +personal enlargement. It adds to the romance of himself in his own +eyes, as well as in the eyes of others. It procures the flattering +ears of journalists, and a place on front pages, and, if one +inclines toward ostentation, even the ownership of a newspaper +itself. +</P> + +<P> +But money will not buy a commanding place in public life. And even +if it would buy such a place he would not be content to do other +than earn one. He wants to repeat the thrills of his youth in the +market, in the thrills of a second youth in Washington. He is +incurably romantic. +</P> + +<P> +To sum him all up in a sentence—he has an extraordinary sense of +wonder and an unequalled sense of reality, the sense of wonder +directed toward himself, the sense of reality directed largely but +not exclusively elsewhere. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="root"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ELIHU ROOT +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +Elihu Root might have been so much publicly and has been so little +that a moral must hang somewhere upon his public career. +</P> + +<P> +He might have been many things. He might have been President of the +United States if his party ever could have been persuaded to +nominate him. He might have been one of the great Chief Justices of +the Supreme Court if a President could have been persuaded to +appoint him. He might have given to the United States Senate that +weight and influence which have disappeared from it, if he had had +a passion for public service. He might have been Secretary of State +in the most momentous period of American foreign relations if a +certain homely instinct in Mr. Harding had not led him to prefer +the less brilliant Mr. Hughes. He might have made history. But he +has not. Out of his eight years in the Cabinet and six years in the +Senate nothing constructive came that will give his name a larger +place in history than that of Rufus Choate, another remarkable +advocate who was once Attorney General. +</P> + +<P> +Distrust has always barred his way, distrust of a mind and +character to which problems appear as exercises in ingenuity rather +than questions of right and justice. His greatest opportunity for +constructive statesmanship was offered in the making of the New +York State constitution. But when it became known that Mr. Root had +dominated the Constitutional Convention, that the proposed +constitution was Mr. Root's constitution, that was enough; the +voters rejected it in the referendum. +</P> + +<P> +Distrust spoiled the mission to Russia during the war. The Russians +distrusted him while he was with them. President Wilson distrusted +his report when he returned. And Mr. Wilson's successor equally +distrusted him when he chose a man to finish the work which Mr. +Wilson had badly done or to correct the work that Mr. Wilson had +left undone at Paris. +</P> + +<P> +Light on President Harding's attitude toward Mr. Root is thrown by +an incident at Marion during the campaign. The Republican candidate +had made his speech of August 28th in which he indicated his views +upon the League of Nations. Two days later a newspaper arrived in +Marion containing a dispatch from abroad where Mr. Root then was, +at work upon the international court. +</P> + +<P> +The correspondent represented Mr. Root as "amazed" at the position +Mr. Harding had taken. +</P> + +<P> +The candidate came to the headquarters early that morning. One of +the headquarters attaches handed him a copy of the paper. Mr. +Harding read the dispatch and was angry. +</P> + +<P> +"That man Root," he exclaimed, "has done more harm to the +Republican party than any other man in it! He is always pursuing +some end of his own or of some outside interest." He started away; +then turned back, still angry, and added: "You remember the Panama +Canal tolls incident. That was an example of the kind of trouble he +has always been making for the party." +</P> + +<P> +Many reasons have been given why the President passed over the +obvious man for Secretary of State. Mr. Root himself, who would +have taken the place gladly as an opportunity for his extremely +keen intelligence, but who did not seek it, thinks that the Senate, +flushed with its recent victory over Mr. Wilson and desiring itself +to dominate foreign relations, conspired to prevent his choice. The +Senators did oppose Mr. Root, but their lack of influence with the +President has been sufficiently exposed by events. +</P> + +<P> +The real obstacle to Mr. Root's appointment was Mr. Harding's +distrust of him, the instinctive feeling of a simple direct nature +against a mind too quick, too clever, too adroit, too invisible in +many of its operations. Mr. Harding, being commonplace himself, +likes a more commonplace kind of greatness than Mr. Root's. Those +who were close to him said the President feared that Mr. Root would +"put something over on him." A certain moral quality in Mr. Hughes +outweighed Mr. Root's special experience and wider reputation. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Roosevelt used to tell a story boastfully of his own +practicality which throws much light on Mr. Root and upon the +reason for Mr. Root's comparative failure as a public man. +</P> + +<P> +"When I took Panama," he would say, "I found all the members of my +Cabinet helpful except one. Mr. Root readily found numerous +precedents. Mr. Taft was sympathetic and gave every assistance +possible. Mr. Knox alone was silent. At last I turned to him in the +Cabinet meeting and I said, 'I should like to hear from the +Attorney General on the legality of what we are doing.' Mr. Knox +looked up and said, 'Mr. President, if I were you I should not have +the slightest taint of legality about the whole affair.'" +</P> + +<P> +Such was Mr. Root. Public questions always were likely to occur to +him first as exercises in mental adroitness rather than as moral +problems. His extremely agile mind finds its chief pleasure in its +own agility. Then he was always the advocate, always instinctively +devoting himself to bolstering up another man's cause for him. +</P> + +<P> +"He is a first class second," said Senator Penrose, objecting to +him as a candidate for President at the Republican Convention of +1916, "but he is not his own man." +</P> + +<P> +He is always someone else's mouthpiece and publicly he is chiefly +remembered as Mr. Roosevelt's mouthpiece. When he came to New York +and made the speech that elected Hughes Governor and made possible +Hughes as Secretary of State he said, "I speak for the President." +He equally spoke for the President when he delivered that other +remembered address, warning the States that unless they mended +their ways the Federal Government would absorb their vitality. +</P> + +<P> +The law is a parasitic profession and Mr. Root's public career is +parasitic. He lacks originality, he lacks passion—there is no +place for passion in that clear mind—he lacks force. He elucidates +other men's ideas, works out or puts into effect their policies, +presents their case, is, by temperament, by reason of gifts +amounting almost to genius, of defects that go with those gifts +always and everywhere, the lawyer. His public career has been +controlled by this circumstance. +</P> + +<P> +I doubt if he ever had a real love of public life. He turned to it +late, after he had made his success in the profession of his +choice, and he carried over into it the habits of the law. He +always seemed to be taking cases for the public. He took a case for +Mr. McKinley as Secretary of War because the War Department needed +reorganization and the case promised to be interesting. He took a +case for Mr. Roosevelt as Secretary of State because Mr. Roosevelt +was the most interesting client in the world. He took a case for +New York State, to remodel its constitution, a case that ended +disastrously. He took a case for Mr. Wilson in Russia and another, +the League of Nations, to form its international court for it. He +was willing to take a case for Mr. Harding to make a going concern +of the world for him following the smash-up of the war, something +like the task of counsel of a receivership, the most interesting +receivership of all time. +</P> + +<P> +For a few years Mr. Roosevelt made public life interesting to Mr. +Root who, it looked then, might devote the rest of his career to +national affairs. +</P> + +<P> +It was a sparkling period for America. We have never had an "age" +in the history of this country like the age of Elizabeth or the age +of Louis XIV, or the age of Lorenzo, the Magnificent; time is too +short and democracy too rigid for such splendors; but the nearest +equivalent to one was the "age," let us call it that, of Theodore +Roosevelt. There was the central figure—an age must have a central +figure—a buoyant personality with a Renaissance zest for life, and +a Renaissance curiosity about all things known, and unknown, and a +boundless capacity for vitalizing everyone and everything with +which he came in contact. +</P> + +<P> +Dull moments were unknown. Knighthood was once more in flower, +wearing frock coats and high hats and reading all about itself in +the daily press. Lances were tilted at malefactors of great wealth, +in jousts where few were unhorsed and no blood spilled. Fair +maidens of popular rights were rescued; great deeds of valor done. +Legends were created, the legend of Leonard Wood, somewhat damaged +in the last campaign, the legend of the Tennis Cabinet, with its +Garfields and its Pinchots, now to be read about only in the black +letter books of the early twentieth century, and the legend of +Elihu Root, still supported in a measure by the evidences of his +highly acute intelligence, but still like everything else of those +bright days, largely a legend. +</P> + +<P> +Roosevelt, the Magnificent, made men great with a word, and his +words were many. His great were many likewise, great statesmen, +great public servants, great writers, great magazine editors, great +cowboys from the West, great saints and great sinners, great +combinations of wealth and great laws to curb them; everything in +scale and that a great scale. Mr. Root acquired his taste for +public life in that "age" just as Mr. Hoover, Mr. Baruch and a +dozen others did theirs in the moving period of the Great War. It +is easy to understand how. +</P> + +<P> +Like all remarkable ages this age was preceded by discoveries. The +United States had just fought a war which had ended in a great +victory, over Spain. The American people were elated by their +achievement, aware of their greatness, talked much and surely of +"destiny," the period in Washington being but a reflection of their +own mood. Their mental horizon had been immensely widened by the +possession, gained in the war, of some islands in the Pacific whose +existence we had never heard of before. +</P> + +<P> +Until that time there had been for us only two nations in the +world, the United States and England, the country with which we had +fought two wars, and innumerable national campaigns. Historically +there had of course been another country as friendly as England had +sometimes been inimical, France, but France had ceased to be a +nation and became a succession of revolutions. +</P> + +<P> +Manila Bay had been a series of revelations, besides teaching us +that Philippines is spelled with two "ps" and only one "l." We had +there discovered Germany, a country whose admirals had bad sea +manners. We knew at once that our next war would be with Germany, +although the day before Dewey said, "You may fire when you are +ready, Gridley," we would as soon have thought that our next war +would be with Patagonia. +</P> + +<P> +There too we had an interesting and surprising experience with +England, hitherto known chiefly for her constant designs on the +national dinner pail. She behaved in striking and pleasing contrast +with Germany. Blood, on that bright day, May 1, 1898, began to be +thicker than water. Learning once more had come out of the East. +From Manila Bay flowed such a tide of new ideas, such a +reassessment of old conceptions as had not visited the world since +the discovery of Greek and Latin letters put an end to the Middle +Ages. +</P> + +<P> +Perceiving our widened interest, John Hay, as Secretary of State, +took our foreign relations on a grand Cook's tour of the world. He +showed us Europe and the Orient. In honor of Manila Bay he invented +that brilliant fiction, the "open door" in the East. Turning our +attention to the world we discovered the General Staff. Hitherto +our army had fought mostly with the scattered Indian tribes of the +West and you cannot use a General Staff in conducting six separate +wars at once, each no bigger than a good-sized riot. But as Admiral +Perry had opened the eyes of the Hermit Kingdom of Japan, so +Admiral whatever-his-name-was who consented to be sunk by Dewey, +the unremembered hero of this great enlightenment, had opened the +eyes of this Hermit Republic of the West to the world across the +seas. +</P> + +<P> +We had to have a General Staff. Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, gave +us one, faithfully copied from the best European models. Roosevelt, +the Magnificent, stood by and said "Bully." Everything was of this +order; so it was to a tremendously interesting job that Mr. Root +succeeded when he took the place of John Hay as Secretary of State. +The mood of the hour was expansive and a luminous personality +pervaded the national life. +</P> + +<P> +But public service cannot always be so interesting as it is at its +fullest moments. The luminous personality went out. And Mr. Root's +next experience, in the United States Senate, was disillusioning. +</P> + +<P> +The Senate is a body in which you grow old, ungracefully waiting +for dead men's shoes. The infinite capacity for taking pains which +Senators have is not genius. If the gods have been good to you, as +they were to Henry Cabot Lodge, you enter the upper house young, a +scholar and idealist, with the hope of the Presidency as the reward +of generous service. Where the race is to the slow you lay aside +your winged gifts one by one and your ambition centers finally not +on the Presidency but on some committee chairmanship clung to by a +pertinacious octogenarian. +</P> + +<P> +Hope deferred makes you avaricious of little favors, until when a +British journalist writes of you as one did of Henry Cabot Lodge, +making his speech before the last Republican national convention at +Chicago, that you "looked like an elderly peer addressing a labor +gathering," your cup of happiness, is full to the brim, as Henry +Cabot Lodge's was,—whether because you are compared to a lord or +because other people, lesser than Senators, are put into their +proper inferior place. Mr. Lodge is the perfect flower of the +Senate. It is a flower that does not bloom in a night. It is almost +a century plant. +</P> + +<P> +Into this Senate came Mr. Root, full stature, as he might walk into +the Supreme Court of the United States, preceded by his reputation. +On Olympus one may spring full grown like Minerva from the head of +Jove. But not in the Senate, where strong prejudice exists against +any kind of cerebral generation. A young Senator from Ohio, Mr. +Harding, arrived in the upper House early enough to see the portent +of Mr. Root there. He keeps to this day a sense of its unbecomingness. +</P> + +<P> +From his desk on the floor Mr. Root talked to the country, but the +Senate did not listen. One does not speak in the Senate by the +authority of intellect or of personality. One speaks by the +authority of dead men's shoes. +</P> + +<P> +Not being a big committee chairman, Mr. Root was not of counsel in +the big cases. He tried to associate himself with counsel but the +traditions of the Senate and the jealousy of Senators were against +him. He had not the passion for public service that makes Reed +Smoot and Wesley Jones miraculously patient with the endless +details of legislation. After six years he quit. +</P> + +<P> +"I am tired of it," he said to Senator Fall, "the Senate is doing +such little things in such a little way." It was different from +public life under Roosevelt where one did not notice size of what +they did—one has not yet noticed the size of what they did—for +the grandeur of the way they did it. +</P> + +<P> +I have said that Mr. Root's mind with its advocate's bent always +occupied itself with the justification of other men's views, his +chief's or his party's. There was one notable exception, his break +with the Republicans while he was in the Senate on the question of +discriminating in favor of American shipping through the Panama +Canal. A clever lawyer's argument can be made that when the United +States said "all nations" in its treaty with Great Britain +regarding the Canal it meant all nations except itself. But Mr. +Root declined to make it, holding that plain morality and a greater +respect for the obligations of a treaty than Bethman Hollweg +expressed when he called them scraps of paper required this country +to charge just the same tolls for American ships using the canal as +for British ships or any other ships using it. +</P> + +<P> +The general Republican argument is that thus interpreted, the +Hay-Pauncefote treaty is so foolish and so inconvenient a treaty that +Mr. Hay must not have meant what he said when he wrote it, and +really did mean something that he wholly failed to say. The reasons +for contending that Mr. Hay meant no tolls for the United States +and tolls for England, when he wrote the same tolls for everybody +are highly ingenious and as it was a Democratic President who was +asserting that Mr. Hay used language in its ordinary sense, Mr. +Root as a Republican might have been expected to declare that Mr. +Hay used it in quite the reverse of its ordinary sense. But he did +not. He supported the Democratic President and treated the +Republican position as if it had not the slightest taint of +legality in it, to the lasting shock of Mr. Harding, on whose side +the precedents are, for nations do say "all nations," and are later +found to mean all nations but themselves when their virtuous +promises to make no exceptions in their own favor turn out to be +inconvenient. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Root took a high moral stand on the treaty it was said +among Republican Senators that he was thinking more of the +transcontinental railroads which were fighting competition by water +than he was of the sanctity of international engagements. The +probability is that he was probably thinking more of John Hay and +Elihu Root than he was of either. He was in the Cabinet when John +Hay as Secretary of State made the treaty. Senator Lodge, the only +other Senator to agree with Mr. Root and disagree with his party +about the meaning of all nations, was John Hay's closest friend. +Probably both of them, intimately associated with Mr. Hay, had +their part in the making of the treaty. They had perhaps the +sensitiveness of authors about their capacity to say exactly what +they meant. They wanted to recognize their own international piece +when it was put on the stage by the commercially minded producers +of the Senate. +</P> + +<P> +The history of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty is interesting and +unfamiliar. Attaching Pauncefote's name to the treaty was a +delicate act of international courtesy since there is Pauncefote's +word for it, privately spoken, that he had nothing to do with the +writing of it. +</P> + +<P> +Hay draughted the treaty by himself probably with the cognizance of +Root and Lodge, the great lawyer who was his associate in the +Cabinet and his closest personal friend in the Capitol. Hay then +handed it to Pauncefote, the British minister here. Pauncefote +transmitted it to the foreign office in London which received it +with surprise and probably with satisfaction, for the Clayton-Bulwer +treaty which it in a sense revived, had been forgotten for nearly +half a century. Delay is the rule of foreign offices. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps Mr. Hay's treaty was not so generous as it seemed on first +reading, a suspicion which seems to have been justified by the +interpretation put upon it by the final authority upon international +engagements, the Republican National Convention at Chicago. And if +it was as generous as it seemed let not America think Great Britain +too eager in accepting it, let America pay a little to overcome the +reluctance of Great Britain in setting her approval upon the new +contract. +</P> + +<P> +At last, after much apparent hesitation, the foreign office agreed +to the new treaty in consideration of America's throwing in, with +it an arbitration of the Bering Sea dispute. President Roosevelt +interpreted Mr. Hay's arbitration contract much as the Republican +National Convention interpreted Mr. Hay's treaty, by appointing +American arbitrators who promised beforehand, in giving a fair and +impartial hearing to the Canadian claims, always to vote for the +American position and to resign and be succeeded by others if they +found that they could not do so. +</P> + +<P> +Why, then, the prevailing distrust of Mr. Root? His public morals +regarding the Hay-Pauncefote treaty were better than those of his +party, even if we accept the view that they were dictated by +nothing more than a certain mental integrity, a certain consistency +with himself. He was as virtuous in the taking of the Panama Canal +as the virtuous Mr. Roosevelt. He had the advocate's honesty of +being true to his client, whether his client was the public or the +great corporations. Mentality was uppermost in him, so that he took +primarily a logical rather than a moral view of all questions; but +also so much that he could not pretend, could not act, and thus he +was more honest than the politicians. +</P> + +<P> +His statesmanship was discontinuous, being an interesting avocation +rather than a career. Of it little has been permanent. His General +Staff soon lapsed into incompetence; if it had not, it might have +been the danger to American national life that the German General +Staff was to German national life. Recently it was merged with the +high command. As Secretary of State he was not creative, Mr. +Harding turning back to the solid ground of American international +policy, rested upon John Hay's open door and Knox's dollar +diplomacy. Root in foreign relations merely succeeded with the +Senate where Hay had failed. Always the advocate, he takes other +men's ideas, Hay's or Wilson's and justifies them or makes them +practical. His New York constitution failed, being unjustly +suspected. His world court has little better hope of acceptance, +for Mr. Hughes is not a voluntary sharer of glory. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of it all, some greatness remains, the impression of a +powerful though limited intelligence. His career was to give us a +moral. It is: if you have an adroit and energetic mind you will +find public affairs uninteresting; except in their occasional +phases. If you have such a mind and must enter politics, hide it; +otherwise democracy will distrust you. Whatever you do, be dull. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="johnson"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HIRAM JOHNSON +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +Hiram Johnson would have enjoyed the French Revolution, if accident +had made him radical at that time. He would have been stirred by +the rising of the people; he would have given tongue to their +grievances in a voice keyed to lash them to greater fury. He would +have been excited by it as he never has been by the little risings +of the masses which he has made vocal. In all the noisy early +phases of it, he would have made the loudest noise. And he would +have gone to the block when the real business of the revolution +began with the fanatics at its helm. +</P> + +<P> +In the Russian Revolution, he would have been a Kerensky; and he +would have fled when the true believers in change arrived. He is +the orator of emeutes, who is fascinated by a multitude in a +passion. +</P> + +<P> +Johnson is not a revolutionary. Not in the least, not any more than +Henry Cabot Lodge is. But revolution has a fierce attraction for +him. He once said to me, speaking bitterly during the campaign, of +Mr. Harding's prospective election, "The war has set back the +people for a generation. They have bowed to a hundred repressed +acts. They have become slaves to the government. They are +frightened at the excesses in Russia. They are docile; and they +will not recover from being so for many years. The interests which +control the Republican party will make the most of their docility. +In the end, of course, there will be a revolution, but it will not +come in my time." +</P> + +<P> +That "it will not come in my time" was said in a tone of regret. It +was not so much that the Senator wanted revolution. I do not +believe he did. But he wanted his chance, that outburst of popular +resentment which would bring him to the front, with the excitement, +the sense of power that would come from the response of the nation +when his angry voice translated into words its elemental passion. +</P> + +<P> +Turbulent popular feeling is breath in Johnson's nostrils. Twice he +has thoroughly enjoyed its intoxication. +</P> + +<P> +His political life was blank paper when the tumult of popular +indignation swept California at the time Francis J. Heney, who was +prosecuting the San Francisco grafters, was shot in the court room. +He had thought nothing politically, he had felt nothing +politically. He had neither convictions, nor passions, nor morals, +politically speaking. He grew up in soil which does not produce +lofty standards. Something of the mining-camp spirit still hung +over California, which had been settled by adventurers, forty-niners, +gold seekers, men who had left the East to "make a new start" where +there was pay dirt. The State had a wild zest for life which was +untrammeled by Puritanism. San Francisco had its Barbary Coast +and in every restaurant its private dining rooms for women. +Johnson himself was sprung from a father who was a "railroad +lawyer," the agent of privileges in procuring special favors, by +methods once well known, from the state legislature. The atmosphere +of his youth was not one to develop a sensitive conscience or a +high conception of public morals. +</P> + +<P> +Johnson at this time was a practicing attorney, not noted for the +quality of his community service. The administration of San +Francisco had been a scandal for years. Few cared. It was a +"corrupt and contented" city. The corruption grew worse. Lower and +meaner grafters rose to take the place of the earlier and more +robust good fellows who trafficked in the city o' shame. Graft lost +class, and lost caste. It was ultimately exposed in all its +shocking indecency. The light and licentious town developed a +conscience. Public indignation arose and reached its height, when +the grafters ventured too far in the shooting of the attorney +charged with their prosecution. +</P> + +<P> +Johnson then felt for the first time something he had never felt +before—the stirring of the storm of angry popular feeling. It woke +something in him, something that he did not know existed before—his +instinct for the expression of public passion; his love of the +platform with yelling multitudes in front of him. +</P> + +<P> +He threw himself into the fray on the side of civic virtue. The +disturbance to the complacency of San Francisco disturbed the +complacency of the State, which had calmly endured misgovernment +for many years. Misgovernment procured by the railroad, the public +utility corporations, the other combinations of wealth, through +their agents, and through the corrupt politicians. Johnson became +the spokesman of public protest and the reform governor of the +State. +</P> + +<P> +After that came battling for the Lord at Armageddon—the most +intoxicating experience in American political history, for a man of +Johnson's temperament. It was a revolution, not in a government, +but in a party. Bonds were loosed. Immense personal enlargement +came to those who had known the ties of regularity. It was an hour +of freedom, unbridled political passion, unrestrained political +utterance. Docility did not exist. Vast crowds thrilled with new +hopes yelled themselves hoarse over angry words. +</P> + +<P> +Association with Roosevelt on the Progressive ticket lifted Johnson +from a local to a national importance. The whole country was the +audience which leaped at his words. It was a revolution in tittle, +a taste, a sample of what the real thing would be, with its +breaking of restraints, its making of the mob a perfect instrument +to play upon, its unleashing of passion to which to give tongue. +Johnson has felt its wild stimulation and like a man who has used +drugs the habit is upon him. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover, his one chance lies that way. I have said that he is, by +accident, radical. Let us imagine a great outburst of popular +passion for reaction. And suppose that Johnson was, when it +arrived, a political blank, as he was when Heney was shot. Johnson +would have raised his angry voice against radicalism, just as +readily as for it. +</P> + +<P> +The essential thing with him is popular passion, not a political +philosophy. He has no political philosophy. He has no real +convictions. He does not reason or think deeply. His mentality is +slight. He is the voice of many; instinctively he gives tongue to +what the many feel; that is all. +</P> + +<P> +Suppose the strong-lunged Californian were a political blank, just +reaching the national consciousness, when the reaction against +Wilson began and when the public swung to conservatism. +</P> + +<P> +You know those vast tin amplifiers employed in big convention +halls, or in out-door meetings, to carry the voice of the speaker +to the remotest depths of the audience; Johnson is a vast tin +amplifier of the voice of the mass. When the people had become +"docile" he would have thundered "docility" to the uttermost bounds +of the universe, if he had not by earlier utterances been +definitely placed on the side opposed to docility. +</P> + +<P> +But he had been definitely placed in the battle of Armageddon. A +thousand ennuies located him for all political time. No convictions +hold him where he is in case there be profit in changing sides; +other men habitually conservative would have the preference over +him on the other side. In this sense he is accidently radical, +accidently because he happened to emerge in politics at a radical +moment. That takes into account only the mental background of his +political position. There is an element that was not chance. Public +passion is almost invariably radical, springing as it does from the +resentment of inequality, and Johnson is the tongue of public +passion. +</P> + +<P> +Is he dangerous? He is, only if public passion becomes dangerous +and only up to the point where the speakers of revolution pass from +the stage and the doers of it rig up their chopping blocks. At +present he furnishes the words, the ugly words, which men throw +instead of stones at the objects of their hate. He is the safety +valve of gathering passion. Men listen to him and feel that they +have done something to vindicate their rights. They applaud him to +shake the roof, and vote for Mr. Harding. +</P> + +<P> +It is customary to speak of his magnetism over crowds. He has no +magnetism in personal contact. He walks toward you as if he were +about to deliver a blow, an impression that is strengthened by his +square menacing figure. His voice is unpleasant. His smile is wry. +He not unusually has a complaint to make against the public, +against the press, against fate, against you personally. He is not +interested in people, as Roosevelt was to so an amazing degree, and +as magnetic persons usually are. He is cold, hard, and selfish. His +quarrels are numerous, with the campaign managers of the Armageddon +fight, with his own campaign manager of 1920, with the newspaper +correspondents. He is habitually pessimistic, and pessimism and +magnetism do not go together. +</P> + +<P> +His complaint that the people were docile and would not recover +their confidence and self-assertion in his time, was a bit of his +inevitable gloom. His dark habit of thought hung over his campaign +for the presidential nomination of 1920, preventing his making a +real effort in many states, and lay in the way of his success. He +has few friends, love having been left out of his make-up. I do not +speak of family affection—but love in its larger implications. +Those who surround him—clerks and secretaries—have the air of +repressed, starving personalities. +</P> + +<P> +That which gathers the crowds and sets them shouting is not his +magnetism but the perfect expression of their passion. For them and +for it he is a sounding board. His voice with its hard angry tone, +its mechanical rise and fall, has the ring of a hundred guillotines +in operation. Having little culture, unintellectual, he is +primitive as the mass before him. He talks their language and an +instinct all his own gives him an exact sense of their emotions. +</P> + +<P> +And what he says leaves the impression of tremendous sincerity. His +sincerity does not arise from reasoned convictions but from hatred; +deep and abiding hatred. +</P> + +<P> +Senator Borah once said, "The difference between Johnson and me is +that I regard questions from the point of view of principles while +he regards them from the point of view of personalities. When a man +opposes me I do not become angry at him. On the next issue he may +agree with me. When a man opposes Johnson he hates him. He feels +that the opposition is directed personally against him, not against +the policy that separates them." +</P> + +<P> +Johnson's opponents are the elements of reaction, the malefactors +of great wealth, the supporters of that social inequality which the +crowd resents. They stood in his path in California. They made +impossible his nomination at Chicago. When the bitter enders, +during the treaty fight, planned to send him on a tour of the +country, these monied men closed their pocketbooks, exclaiming to +Senator Knox, "What do you mean to do? Advertise this man Johnson +and make him the Republican candidate for President? Not with our +money." +</P> + +<P> +Only the raising of a fund by Senator McCormick and some of the old +Progressives, gave him his chance to speak. He hates them and when +he attacks them it is with all the force and sincerity of his soul. +It is no mere question of hatred, such as Roosevelt would employ to +dramatize and make personal the issues he was representing to the +people; it is bitter, revengeful detestation. It makes Johnson the +most sincere man before the country to-day. And that pessimistic +strain in his nature causes the darkness of his diatribe to seem +all the more true. +</P> + +<P> +But he swallows for expediency as other men swallow their +convictions for it, and wrath is the bitterer dose. During the 1920 +campaign he trafficked with Senator Penrose, the representative of +hated wealth, for support at Chicago, offering, it has not been +disclosed what considerations, for his aid. +</P> + +<P> +He was ready at that time to take back his speech advocating the +government ownership of railroads, a gesture against "the +interests," made at the bidding of Hearst, at the beck of whose +agents he is prone to bestir himself. +</P> + +<P> +It must be an irksome livery, that of Hearst, for he hates all +service and overshadowing. Equally irksome is his service to +regularity under the rod of the Republican party. But he bows to +it, and supports Harding whom he hates. He bobs up like a +Jack-in-the-box and makes his laudatory speech whenever the name of +Roosevelt comes up, though in his heart he must reverence none too +deeply that overshadowing personality. +</P> + +<P> +He has no roots except in the mob and no hope except in its aroused +resentment against inequality. Not being interested in individuals +he has not that personal organization possessed by Roosevelt, with +his army of correspondents, friends and idolators, in every hamlet. +</P> + +<P> +And of course he has little hope of ever controlling his party +organization. He is curiously alone. +</P> + +<P> +"There are only three men in the world whom I trust," he once said +to a friend. There is no reason to regard this as an exaggeration. +His attitude toward his associates in the Senate is this: "If I +were crossing a desert with any one of them and there was only one +water bottle, I should insist upon carrying that bottle." +</P> + +<P> +On such pessimism and distrust it is impossible to build political +success. It can come only when his pessimism and distrust coincide +with like pessimism and distrust in the masses. He waits the day, +but gloomily, without confidence. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="knox"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +PHILANDER CHASE KNOX +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +"I like Knox and I admire him tremendously, but I will not ask him +to be my Secretary of State. He is too indifferent." +</P> + +<P> +This characterization of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, +attributed to his late colleague President Harding, summarizes very +aptly his strength and his weakness. One can very easily admire him +and, when he drops the mask of dignity, which seems almost pompous +in so diminutive a figure, one cannot help liking him. But in spite +of his successes,—which his enemies attribute to luck, and he +probably attributes to intellectual superiority,—he has never +quite achieved greatness and will probably go down in history as +one of the lesser luminaries in the political heavens. +</P> + +<P> +Knox IS indifferent, especially to those who do not know him +intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the +contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings +of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a +feeble and futile fluttering. +</P> + +<P> +I doubt if any man in public life has had so many honors thrust +upon him. He has held three great offices of the Republic without +so much as raising a hand for any of them. Unlike most men he did +not travel the mucky road of politics to reach Washington nor +compromise with circumstance to gain distinction. Three Presidents +invited him to sit at their cabinet tables. Three times the +Republican machine in Pennsylvania invited him to sit in the +Senate. With graceful dignity he accepted all of these invitations +not, indeed, unconscious of the fact that the selection in each +case was a very happy one. +</P> + +<P> +I do not mean by this that he is conceited. He is merely conscious +of the fact that intellectually he is somewhat superior to his +colleagues, most of whom, strangely enough, quite agree with him. +They consult him and accept his counsel with almost childlike +faith. To the mediocre politicians and provincial lawyers who +constitute the bulk of the Senate and House of Representatives, he +is a figure apart, who looks upon their antics with a kindly, but +never amused, tolerance. +</P> + +<P> +"I know nothing of politics," he said to me a short time ago. "I +have never been interested in politics as such." +</P> + +<P> +This remark is rather enigmatical to the average member, who would, +ordinarily, look upon the author as a dolt or pretender. They do +not dare to do either in the case of Mr. Knox; therefore, the +conclusion that he is indifferent. Never have the men associated +with Mr. Knox questioned his capacity. +</P> + +<P> +Robert Lansing, when he was Secretary of State, said of him; +"Senator Lodge will not understand the treaty but he will fight for +it for political reasons. Senator Knox will understand it +thoroughly." +</P> + +<P> +The observation seems almost prophetic in the light of what has +since been disclosed. Mr. Lansing's faith in Mr. Knox's judgment +seems to have been fully justified. I know of no one who has held +more steadfastly the respect of colleagues in the Senate or at the +Cabinet table, nor who has been more easily successful up to a +certain point or so singularly unsuccessful beyond it. He has done +valiant service for his country but he has failed lamentably to +reach the heights from which he could look upon broader horizons. +</P> + +<P> +In the early days of his career no one strove more whole heartedly. +Destiny smiled upon him and the White House seemed to beckon. He +was not unaware of the opportunity nor was there anyone more eager +to grasp it. But he discovered that he could not stir the +enthusiasm that begets political power. The secret, which enabled +many other men, many of whom he despised, to succeed, was not his. +</P> + +<P> +A temperamental dislike of the methods of politicians was followed +by a strong animosity towards those who crossed his political path +and some of those who went along beside it. He became hypercritical +of those with whom he associated and allowed a natural germ of +cynicism to develop and flourish within him. Little by little he +has withdrawn from the active combat, a philosopher in politics +enamored of public life but unwilling to suffer the inconveniences +it involves. +</P> + +<P> +It is no wonder then that his colleagues in the Senate, especially +the younger members, are somewhat in fear of the incisive tongue, +for he wields it frequently and contemptuously. When after his +election, Mr. Harding went South with Senator Frelinghuysen, +Senator Davis Elkins, and Senator Hale, the older Senators, not, +perhaps, without a tinge of disappointment at having been left out, +marveled at the entourage the President had selected for himself, +but Knox was cynically undisturbed. +</P> + +<P> +"It is quite simple," he said, "I see nothing mysterious about it +at all. The President wants relaxation—complete mental +relaxation." +</P> + +<P> +No less biting was his comment on Robert Lansing when that +gentleman started on the high road of public service as Counselor +of the State Department. The bandy-legged messenger who guards the +door of the Secretary of State is the negro, Eddie Savoy. Eddie, in +his way, is a personage. For forty years he has ushered +diplomatists in and out of the Secretary's office; his short bent +figure gives the only air of permanence to an institution which +seems to be in a constant state of flux. When the Lansing +appointment was announced Mr. Knox observed: "I would as soon ask +Eddie Savoy an opinion on foreign affairs as Robert Lansing." +</P> + +<P> +The roots of Mr. Knox's superciliousness dip down deep into the +relationships begun a score of years ago. To understand him as he +is it is necessary to understand him as he was when his career was +before him. William McKinley asked him to become Attorney General +in his Cabinet. He was then forty-two years old, a political +nobody. What reputation he had was confined to Pittsburg and a +selected few of the steel millionaires in Wall Street, but among +the selected few were names to be conjured with, such as Andrew +Carnegie and Henry C. Frick. Whether President McKinley's interest +in Knox was spontaneous or prompted by Mr. Frick I do not know. Mr. +Knox likes to believe that Mr. Frick did not enter into the +equation. Mr. Knox declined, saying that he could not sacrifice his +lucrative practice but that in four years he would accept the +invitation if the President cared to renew it. +</P> + +<P> +It was renewed. At the age of forty-six, Mr. Knox quit the bar for +politics, or, as he would say, statecraft. His appointment evoked a +storm of protest from such immaculate journals as the New York +World. They dubbed him, "Frick's man," and predicted that the +Department of Justice would be turned into a Wall Street anteroom +for the convenience of the capitalistic combinations then flouting +the Sherman anti-trust law. The charges, of course, were as wide of +the mark as most of the ebullitions of the yellow journals. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Knox began his public career by attacking the Northern +Securities merger, against the judgment of some of the highest-paid +lawyers of the country. The Supreme Court sustained him. It was the +greatest victory the government ever won under the Sherman law. +Thereafter Mr. Knox, who had been labeled a corporation lawyer, was +proclaimed a trust buster. By the time he was fifty he had become +the greatest Attorney General in a half century. Certainly the mark +he set has never been reached by any of his successors. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Roosevelt came into the White House Mr. Knox was at the +pinnacle of his career and was as much admired by his new chief as +by his martyred predecessor. In ability Mr. Roosevelt considered +him next to Elihu Root, for which Mr. Root was never quite +forgiven. It is generally known that President Roosevelt believed +that Mr. Root was the best qualified man in the country to succeed +him, but at the same time, being an astute politician, he knew that +he could not be elected. His attitude to his Secretary of State was +the same as Senator Lodge's toward himself, when he said in 1920: +"I know that I would make an excellent President, but I realize +that I would make a poor candidate." +</P> + +<P> +Root being out of it because of this obvious defect, President +Roosevelt proceeded to groom Mr. Knox for the nomination. Mr. Knox +at the President's suggestion, prepared and delivered several +speeches in the hope that he would awaken popular enthusiasm. The +attempt failed dismally. +</P> + +<P> +There was not a responsive throb, not even a vague echo. Mr. Knox +knew that he possessed not the merest shred of the leadership +necessary to a presidential candidate. +</P> + +<P> +He went back to the Senate, where he had succeeded Matthew Quay +upon his resignation from the Cabinet, sadder if wiser, while +William H. Taft draped upon his broad shoulders the mantle of +Roosevelt. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Knox has never quite recovered from that disappointment, but he +did not altogether abandon hope. He accepted a place in the Taft +Cabinet as Secretary of State, more for the opportunities it +offered than for the pleasure of the associations, for Mr. Knox's +attitude toward President Taft was never more than passive +tolerance tinged with contempt. This new venture was no more +successful than the old. He made it quite evident that a new regime +was to be established in the State Department. The policies +originated by John Hay and developed with singular brilliancy by +Mr. Root were shunted into the background and a new era was +proclaimed. It is unnecessary to comment on the dismal essay at +"dollar diplomacy" and the Mexican policy of that period. The +simple fact is that Mr. Knox's name is not associated with a single +successful foreign policy. Some might have succeeded but +unfortunately the energy displayed at the outset of his career in +this new field was soon dissipated. Mr. Knox disliked the methods +of diplomacy. He lacked both the patience and the finesse. He went +to the Department, over which he was supposed to preside, but +rarely. For weeks at a time Washington saw nothing of him. The +administration of the Department was left largely to Huntington +Wilson, whose ineptitude was colossal. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately for Mr. Knox the extent of his failure was somewhat +screened from public view by the dust and clatter of the collapse +of the Taft Administration, but it left its mark on him. He had +failed dismally to eclipse his predecessor, Elihu Root. He had +eliminated himself from all consideration as one of the very great +statesmen of his period. He was a bitterly disappointed man. Not +only his associates but the members of the diplomatic corps were +made to feel the sting of his resentment against overwhelming +circumstances. Such references as that directed at the French +Ambassador, M. Jules Jusserand, now dean of the diplomatic corps, +whom he called "the magpie," cost him many friends. +</P> + +<P> +Upon the inauguration of President Wilson Mr. Knox slipped quietly +away to Valley Forge. Public life, however, still had for him its +attractions, and when Senator Oliver retired, he returned to the +Senate. During the war his great talents were dormant. He merely +came and went, a curious little detached figure apparently quite +unresponsive to the emotions which swept the country during that +eventful period. +</P> + +<P> +With the signing of the armistice he aroused himself from his +apparent torpor. Although he was quite without feeling during the +stress and storm, the situation created by the presentation of the +Treaty of Versailles with its interwoven League of Nations stirred +his intellectual interest. He became the leader of the little band +of "irreconcilables" who girded their armor to prevent what they +regarded as a catastrophic sacrifice of American interests. At the +same time Mr. Knox narrowly missed another opportunity to lift +himself conspicuously above the heads of stump speakers who, for +the most part, to-day comprise the Senate. +</P> + +<P> +During that memorable fight Senator Lodge incurred the enmity at +one time or another of every faction in the Senate. He could not be +trusted to maintain the same position over night, shifting as +expediency demanded until most of his colleagues, particularly the +irreconcilables, were exasperated beyond endurance. At one of the +most critical periods Senator Borah appealed to Senator Knox to +wrest the leadership from the Massachusetts Senator, with +intimations that he would have the support of the "bitter enders" +at the forthcoming convention at Chicago. Mr. Knox does not love +Mr. Lodge but he refused to consider the proposal. He was +indifferent. His last great political opportunity went glimmering. +</P> + +<P> +As I have said Mr. Knox can be very charming but I doubt that he +sincerely admires any of the public men with whom he has been +associated, or can call any of them, from the purely personal +viewpoint, his friends, with the possible exception of Andrew +Mellon, whom he caused to be appointed Secretary of the Treasury. +Of course, he likes many of his colleagues, after a fashion, +especially those who admire him, but that is another matter. The +intimacy usually implied in the term friendship does not enter into +such relations. +</P> + +<P> +For some of the more important men he has known, he has shown a +very distinct dislike. It is said of him that he thought President +Harding overlooked a real opportunity when he failed to invite him +to become Secretary of State, but his disappointment was somewhat +mollified by the fact that Mr. Root was not asked to take the post. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Knox prefers to look upon Mr. Root as a lucky lawyer who has +taken to himself much of the credit of John Hay's great work. He +shows an even less regard for Mr. Lodge's talents. And he is +doubtful of Mr. Hughes. +</P> + +<P> +His attitude towards the Secretary of State dates back to the +insurance scandals. At that time Mr. Frick asked Mr. Knox to make +an investigation and suggest a course of action to avert a national +disaster. This Mr. Knox did in his thorough and painstaking way. A +little later, when Mr. Hughes was appointed to make a public +inquiry, the Knox report was laid before him, and according to the +author of it, he followed precisely the lines therein indicated +creating for himself a national reputation and laying the +foundation of a public career. Credit was not given Mr. Knox. It +has been suggested that the incident might have been an +illustration of two great minds seeking the same channel. Mr. Knox +does not think so. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of his disappointments and failures, the dignified little +Senator from Pennsylvania who has been so many times on the verge +of greatness, seems to think that he could have done just a little +better than any of those who have achieved it, had circumstance +given him the opportunity. Perhaps he might. It is a compliment +that few men merit to be called merely indifferent. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="lansing"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ROBERT LANSING +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +He who believes in luck should study the career of Robert Lansing. +Mr. Lansing probably thinks that the goddess of chance played him a +scurvy trick, after having admitted him to the Olympian heights, to +break him as suddenly as she made him. +</P> + +<P> +Robert Lansing's real misfortune was not knowing how to play his +luck. It is curious the fear men have of death. The former +Secretary of State's only hope of immortality was to commit +political suicide, and he lacked the courage or the vision to fall +upon his sword. +</P> + +<P> +When Woodrow Wilson was elected President for the first time he +appointed Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. The opinion Mr. Wilson +entertained of Mr. Bryan we all know. Mr. Wilson was not given to +letting his thoughts run wild, but on one occasion, with pen in +hand, he permitted himself the luxury of saying what he thought and +expressed the pious hope that somebody would knock the distinguished +Nebraskan into a cocked hat and thus dispose of the perpetual +candidate who was the Old Man of the Sea to the Democratic Party. +</P> + +<P> +Circumstances alter cases; Mr. Wilson as a private citizen could +say and think what he pleased; as President he was compelled to +make Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. As Mr. Bryan knew nothing of +history and less of European politics and had a superb disdain of +diplomacy—diplomacy according to the tenets of Bryanism being an +unholy and immoral game in which the foreign players were always +trying to outmaneuver the virtuous and innocent American—he was +provided with a political nurse, mentor, and guardian in the person +of John Bassett Moore, who had a long and brilliant career as an +international lawyer and diplomatist. Mr. Bryan busied himself with +finding soft jobs for deserving Democrats, preaching and +inculcating the virtues of grape juice to the diplomatic corps, and +concocting plans whereby the sword was to be beaten into a +typewriter and war become a lost art. Meanwhile Mr. Moore was doing +the serious work of the Department. +</P> + +<P> +No two men were more unlike than Mr. Bryan and Mr. Moore; Mr. Bryan +a bundle of loosely tied emotions to whom a catchy phrase or an +unsound theory is more precious than a natural law or the wisdom of +the philosopher; Mr. Moore an intellect who has subordinated his +emotions, and to whom facts are as important as mathematics to an +engineer. It was an incompatible union; it could not last. Mr. +Moore became impatient of his chief's vagaries and, about a year +later, returned to the dignified quiet of Columbia University. +</P> + +<P> +This was early in 1914. Now for the random way in which chance +weaves her skein. Mr. Moore went out of the Department and left the +office of Counselor vacant, an office, up to that time, so little +known that the public, if it gave the matter any thought, believed +its occupant was the legal adviser of the Department, while, as a +matter of fact, he is the Under Secretary, which is now the +official designation. +</P> + +<P> +At this stage of his career Mr. Lansing was connected with the +Department as an adviser on international affairs and had +represented the United States in many international arbitrations. +He was known to a small and select circle of lawyers specializing +in international law, but to the public his name meant nothing. He +had always been a good Democrat, although he was married to the +daughter of the late John W. Foster, who wound up a long and +brilliant diplomatic life as Secretary of State in President +Harrison's Cabinet after Mr. Blaine's resignation. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lansing had made Washington his home for many years, and when +the new Democratic Administration came into power he believed his +services to the party entitled him to recognition, and he sought +the appointment of Third Assistant Secretary of State. The Third +Assistant Secretary is the official Social Secretary of the +Government. When royalty or other distinguished persons come to +this country as the guests of the nation the Third Assistant +Secretary is the Master of Ceremonies. He has to see that all the +forms are properly complied with and nothing happens to mar the +visitors' enjoyment; he sends out invitations, in the name of the +State Department, to the funerals of Ambassadors or the +inauguration of the President. But for some reason Mr. Lansing's +praiseworthy ambition was defeated. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Moore had knowledge, learning, and experience, but he was +denied the gift of divination. Had he known that a few months later +a half crazed youth in an unheard of place was to be the +unconscious agent to set the whole world aflame, undoubtedly he +would have put up with Mr. Bryan's curious ideas and peculiar +methods and stuck to his desk at the State Department, and Mr. +Lansing would never have been heard of. But at the turning point in +Mr. Moore's career his luck deserted him and Mr. Lansing became the +beneficiary. Mr. Lansing, who would have been satisfied with the +appointment of Third Assistant Secretary of State, a minor place in +the hierarchy, was appointed by Mr. Wilson Counselor of the +Department of State. +</P> + +<P> +The appointment created no excitement. In March, 1914, foreign +affairs had little interest for the American people. There was +Mexico, of course, and Japan; there were the usual routine +questions to form the customary work of the department; but the +skies were serene; murder, rape, and sudden death no one thought +of; Lloyd's, which will gamble on anything from the weather to an +ocean tragedy, would have written a policy at a ridiculously low +premium on the maintenance of the peace of Europe; any statesman +rash enough to have predicted war for the United States within +three years would have aroused the concern of his friends and the +professional solicitude of his physician. Apparently Mr. Lansing +had tumbled into an easy and dignified post which would not unduly +tax his physical or mental strength. He could congratulate himself +upon his good fortune. +</P> + +<P> +A few months later the situation changed. The State Department +became not only the center about which the whole machinery of the +Government revolved but on it was focused the attention of the +country and the thoughts of Europe. The Counselor of the Department +was lifted out of his obscurity; despatches to the belligerents +signed "Lansing" were published in the newspapers, statements were +issued by him, he was interviewed; he received Ambassadors, and +when an Ambassador visited the State Department the nerve centers +of the whole world were affected. Again, a few months later, in +June, 1915, Mr. Bryan kindly accommodated Mr. Wilson by knocking +himself into a cocked hat, and Mr. Lansing was appointed Secretary +of State. Few men had risen so rapidly. He had no reason to +complain of his luck. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Wilson made some extraordinary appointments—a close observer +has said he could read motives but not men—and his appointment of +Mr. Lansing at a time of crisis would have been inexplicable were +it not logical as Mr. Wilson reasoned. Mr. Wilson did not invite as +his associates his intellectual equals or those who dared to oppose +him; it was necessary that the State Department should have a +titular head, but Mr. Wilson was resolved to be his own Secretary +of State and take into his own hands the control of foreign policy. +No great man, no man great enough to be Secretary of State when the +world was in upheaval, would have consented to that indignity; no +man jealous of his own self-respect could have remained Mr. +Wilson's Secretary of State for long. A Secretary of State or any +other member of the Cabinet must of course subordinate his judgment +to that of the President, for the President is the final court of +appeal. But Mr. Wilson went further than that; he heaped almost +unparalleled affront upon Mr. Lansing; he made the great office of +Secretary of State ridiculous, and he invested its incumbent with +no greater authority than that of a copyist. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps Mr. Wilson reads men better than his critics believed; +perhaps Mr. Wilson had fully taken the measure of Mr. Lansing and +knew how far he could go. +</P> + +<P> +Nature never intended Mr. Lansing to be a leader of men, to fight +for a great cause, or to engage in physical or intellectual combat. +His life has been too soft for that, and he is naturally indolent. +He is fond of, and has more than the amateur's appreciation for, +music, painting, poetry, and the classics of literature. He has +dabbled in verse, he sketches and he has written, but without +brilliancy. Accident made him a lawyer, but he was really intended +to be an artist; he would have produced no masterpiece, for genius +is not in him, but he would have been happy in his work and perhaps +have given inspiration to men of greater talent. Without being a +fanatic or dogmatic, he is strongly religious; religion to him has +a meaning and is not merely a convention; he has a code which he +has always observed and ideals which he has preserved; he is +charitable in his judgments and has never allowed his prejudices to +influence his actions; he is, to use a word so often misapplied, a +gentleman, and his motto is Noblesse oblige. Typical of the +standard he sets for himself was the admirable restraint he showed +after his abrupt dismissal from the Cabinet. He neither sought +vindication through the newspapers, nor posed as a victim, nor +soothed his feelings by denunciations of the President; he did not +make a nuisance of himself by inflicting the recital of his +grievances upon his friends or hinting darkly at revelations. He +kept quiet and went about his affairs as a gentleman should. +</P> + +<P> +Why, it may be asked, should a man with so many fine qualities have +cut such a sorry figure? The answer perhaps is that he suffers from +the defects of his qualities, fine as we must admit them to be; too +fine, perhaps, for a coarser world. +</P> + +<P> +When a weak and somewhat easy-going man, immensely pleased with his +own exalted position, has to deal with a man of iron will, ruthless +in his methods, he is necessarily at a disadvantage. Considering +Mr. Lansing's temperamental defects and the effect of his training, +his failure is no mystery. +</P> + +<P> +Until Mr. Lansing became Secretary of State he had never known +responsibility. Practically his entire life had been spent as a +subordinate, carrying out with zeal and intelligence the tasks +assigned to him, but always in obedience to a stronger mind. +Nothing more weakens character or intellect than for a man +habitually to turn to another for direction or inspiration; always +to play the part of an inferior to a mental superior. For years Mr. +Lansing had been connected with many international arbitrations +which, theoretically, was a magnificent training for a future +Secretary of State, and actually would have destroyed the creative +and administrative usefulness of a much stronger man than Robert +Lansing. +</P> + +<P> +In the whole mummery of international relations there is nothing +more farcical than an international arbitration. It is always +preceded by great popular excitement. A ship is seized, a boundary +is run a few degrees north or south of the conventional line, +something else equally trivial fires the patriotic heart. The flag +has been insulted, the offending nation is a land grabber, national +honor must be vindicated. Secretaries of State write notes, +ambassadors are instructed, the press becomes rabid, speeches are +made; the public is advised to remain calm, but it is also assured +there will be no surrender. After a few weeks the public forgets +about the insult or the way in which it has been robbed; but the +responsible officials who have never allowed themselves to become +excited, continue the pleasing pastime of writing notes. +</P> + +<P> +Months, sometimes years, drag on, then a new Secretary of State or +a Foreign Minister, to clean the slate, proposes that the childish +business be ended by an international arbitration. More weeks, more +often months, are spent in agreeing upon the terms of reference, +and finally the dispute goes before an "impartial arbitral +tribunal." Both sides appoint agents and secretaries, an imposing +array of counsel, technical experts; and as the counsel are always +well paid they have a conscientious obligation to earn their fees. +</P> + +<P> +More months are required to prepare the case, which frequently runs +into many printed volumes; and the more volumes the better pleased +everybody is, as size denotes importance. The arbitrators, although +they are governed by principles of law, know what is expected of +them, and they rarely disappoint. Almost invariably their decision +is a compromise, so nicely shaded that while neither side can claim +victory neither side suffers the humiliation of defeat. As by that +time both nations have long forgotten the original cause of the +quarrel their people are quite content when they are told the +decision is in their favor. As junior counsel Mr. Lansing's name +appears in many international arbitrations, and it was precisely +the work for which he was fitted. +</P> + +<P> +If Mr. Lansing had been a man of more robust fiber, he would have +returned his portfolio to Mr. Wilson as early as 1916, for the +President was writing notes to the belligerents and did not, even +as a perfunctory courtesy, consult his Secretary of State; he made +it only too patent he did not consider his advice worth asking. Mr. +Lansing was too fond of his official prominence to surrender it +easily, and that is another curious thing about the man. Somewhat +vain, holding himself in much higher estimation than the world did, +few men have so thoroughly enjoyed office as he. But he remained +the quiet and unassuming gentleman he had always been; and he +certainly could not have deluded himself into believing that there +was a still higher office for him to occupy. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lansing could not screw up his courage to resign in 1916. The +following year the United States was at war and he naturally could +not desert his post; but in 1919 Mr. Lansing was given another +opportunity, and still he was obdurate. He has told us in his +public confession that he tried to persuade the President not to go +to Paris. Mr. Wilson, as usual, remained unpersuaded, and Mr. +Lansing humbly followed in his train. +</P> + +<P> +Then, of course, Mr. Lansing could not resign, but in Paris he was +even more grossly humiliated; he was completely shut out from the +President's confidence; he wrote letters to Mr. Wilson which the +President did not deign to answer; so little did Mr. Lansing know +what was being done that he sought information from the Chinese +Delegates! It sounds incredible, it seems even more incredible that +a Secretary of State should put himself in such an undignified +position, and having done so should invite the world to share his +ignominy. But he has set it down in his book as if he believed it +was ample defense, instead of realizing that it is condemnation. +</P> + +<P> +Curious contradictions! One might expect a sensitive man, a man who +has never courted publicity, who has none of the genius of the +self-advertiser, to crave forgetfulness for the Paris episode, to +shrink from publicly exposing himself and his humiliations, but Mr. +Lansing seemingly revels in his self-dissection. The President +slaps his face; in his pride he summons all the world to look upon +the marks left by the Executive palm. He feels the sting, and he +enters upon an elaborate defense to show it is the stigmata of +martyrdom. A treaty was framed of which he disapproved, yet he +could sign it without wrench of conscience. Unreconciled to +resignation in Paris, he returned to Washington as if nothing had +happened, again to resume his subservient relations to the +President. +</P> + +<P> +Opportunity, we are told, knocks only once at a man's door, but +while opportunity thundered at Mr. Lansing's portal "his ear was +closed with the cotton of negligence." +</P> + +<P> +Early in 1920 Mr. Wilson dismissed him, brutally, abruptly, with +the petulance of an invalid too tired to be fair; for a reason so +obviously disingenuous that Mr. Lansing had the sympathy of the +country. He should either have told the truth then and there or +forever have held his peace; and had he remained mute out of the +mystery would have grown a myth. The fictitious Lansing would have +become an historical character. But he must needs write a book. It +does not make pleasant reading. It does not make its author a hero. +</P> + +<P> +It does, however, answer the question the curious asked at the time +of his appointment: "Why did the President make Mr. Lansing +Secretary of State?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="penrose"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOIES PENROSE +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +The most striking victim of the American propensity for +exaggeration is the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Boies +Penrose. He has a personality and contour that lend themselves to +caricature. Only a few deft strokes are needed to make his +ponderous figure and heavy jowl the counterpart of a typical boss, +an institution for which the American people have a pardonable +affection in these days of political quackery. For, when the worst +is said of the imposing array of bosses from Tweed down to the +present time, they could be forgiven much because they were what +they were. That is why, perhaps, the altogether fanciful picture of +Penrose, propped on his pillows with his telephone at his bedside +directing the embattled delegates at Chicago, who in sheer +desperation turned to Warren G. Harding, is dwelt upon fondly by a +deluded public. +</P> + +<P> +Penrose does not despise the appurtenances of bossism. If the truth +were told he probably likes the idea of being represented as the +hard-fisted master of party destinies. He knows that such a +reputation inspires awe if not respect, on the part of the rank and +file, from the humble precinct worker to the gentleman of large +affairs who provides the necessary campaign funds. It has its +value, sentimental as well as practical, for the American people +likes to set up its own political idols. The politicians who for +the moment guide the destinies of the nation are so misdrawn, so +illuminated with virtues and endowed with vices quite foreign to +them, that they frequently achieve a personality quite fictitious, +but which, none the less, passes current in the popular mind as +genuine. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing could be more grotesque, for example, than the picture of +Senator Smoot, who is merely a sublimated messenger boy, as one of +the arbiters of the Republican policies; or of Senator Lodge, by +sheer strength of leadership, restraining the discordant Republican +elements in the Senate from kicking over the traces. This is +journalist "copy" written for a popular imagination which finds the +truth too tepid. +</P> + +<P> +Boies Penrose serves the purpose of appeasing national appetite for +what the magazine editors call "dynamic stuff." +</P> + +<P> +But the real Boies Penrose is not all as he is pictured. At a +cursory glance he might appear to be a physiological, psychological, +and political anachronism. At least he is sufficiently different +from his colleagues to be, if not actually mysterious, not easily +understandable. There is something fundamental about him. He +inspires a certain awe which may not be magnetic but has the same +effect upon those who surround him; where he sits is the head of +the table. +</P> + +<P> +I doubt if Lodge or Knox or Hughes could ever fathom the secret of +his power; they are not cast in the same mould. His colleagues +smile at his idiosyncracies—behind his back—but they approach him +with the respect due to a master. Many of them admire him, not a +few hate him, but all of them fear him. It is rather a singular +thing that Senator La Follette, himself at the pinnacle of his +championship of the Wisconsin progressive idea, was probably on +friendlier terms with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania than any +of the other leaders of those reactionary forces with whom he was +tilting. He knew where Penrose stood and it is not at all +improbable that behind the Penrose reticence there was a modicum of +admiration for the methods of the redoubtable little colleague, who +in his way, was a more inexorable boss than Penrose himself ever +dreamed of being. The mutual understanding was there, even if it +never became articulate. +</P> + +<P> +Penrose has peculiarities which put him in a niche quite his own. +He eschews conversation as an idle affectation. He dislikes to +shake hands, preferring the Chinese fashion of holding his on his +own expansive paunch. When he finds it necessary to talk at all he +speaks the precise truth as he sees it without consideration for +the feelings of those he happens to be addressing. The results are +frequently so ludicrous, particularly when he enters a colloquy on +the Senate floor, that he is given credit for a much more +pronounced sense of humor than he actually possesses. I doubt that +he is always conscious of the element of humor and I suspect that +if he realized that his observations were to evoke laughter he +would deliberately choose a less satirical or flippant method of +expression. +</P> + +<P> +This temperamental characteristic was illustrated by an episode in +the Senate chamber not long ago. Penrose, entering, found his chair +occupied by a Democratic colleague who had overestimated his +capacity for the doubtful stuff that is purveyed in these days of +Volsteadism and whose condition was apparent to everyone on the +floor and in the galleries. Penrose is, perhaps, the most widely +known personage in the Senate. His towering figure makes him +conspicuous. But the most of the myriads of trippers who visit the +Capitol do not know one senator from another. They rely for +identification upon little charts showing the arrangements of the +seats on the floor each one of which is labeled with a senator's +name. +</P> + +<P> +Now Penrose, might or might not have suspected that these trippers +following their charts, would pick out the snoring recumbent figure +as his own. He decided to remove all possibility of error and +addressing the chair with usual solemnity said, "Mr. President, I +desire the chair to record the fact that the seat of the senior +Senator from Pennsylvania has not been occupied by himself at the +present session. It is occupied by another." The galleries roared; +the somnolent Senator shambled over to his own side of the aisle +and Senator Penrose was given credit, by the unwise, for humor +quite unintended. +</P> + +<P> +Life with Mr. Penrose is a much more serious business than most +people imagine. And it became even more serious a little while ago +when illness laid hold of him and his brother, a physician, +prescribed dietary rules restricting the freedom that he had once +exercised without restraint. There was something lion-like in the +gaunt figure in the rolling chair which he occupied when he +returned to the Senate from his sick bed. It was amazing that he +recovered; it was even more amazing that he should have submitted +to the rigorous rules laid down by his doctor, even if that doctor +was his own brother. The bated breath with which Pennsylvania +politicians awaited bulletins from his bedside was a striking +acknowledgment of the power he wields. +</P> + +<P> +The evolution of Boies Penrose is an amusing commentary upon +American politics in more ways than one. Three years after he was +graduated from Harvard College he was elected to the Pennsylvania +State Legislature on a reform ticket. His election was made the +occasion for great rejoicing on the part of the good people of +Philadelphia. And well might they rejoice. They had at last driven +a wedge into the sinister political machine that had brought the +city of brotherly love into disrepute as a boss-ridden municipality. +</P> + +<P> +Their young leader had wealth, which has its advantages, and social +position, which to a Philadelphian is as dear as life itself. +Moreover he had ability and all that makes for success. His fame as +a reform leader spread throughout the land and across the seas. +James Bryce, in his first edition of his American Commonwealth +cited him as an example of the sterling type of young Americans who +were arousing themselves at that time to rescue the municipal and +state governments from the grip of the vicious boss system. +</P> + +<P> +In the subsequent editions of the American Commonwealth you will +find no reference to Mr. Penrose. Something had happened to him and +to the reform movement. Whether he was struck by a bolt from the +heavens or a bolt from Matthew Stanley Quay is immaterial. The fact +is that after a few years' residence in Harrisburg, the seat of the +government of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he counseled with +himself and solemnly decided that Providence had never selected him +to be the apostle of the political millenium. +</P> + +<P> +Most men are born radicals and die conservatives. The development +is gradual and represents the result of years of experience. But +Penrose repented while there was time to make amends for his error. +He sought a very short cut. He went directly from the legislature +to the Republican organization of Philadelphia and stood as its +candidate for mayor. But his late friends, the reformers, happened +to be in the ascendency that year and he was defeated. +</P> + +<P> +The story told of him at that time, whether true or not, that he +announced his willingness to take as his bride any estimable young +lady the organization might select, since the fact that he was a +bachelor was given by his henchmen as the reason of his defeat, is +typical of him. The "organization," the Republican Party, +constitutes his political creed and philosophy. He has devoted his +life to it. The "party" is his life, his religion, his family, his +hobby. Down in his soul he believes that the destiny of the +American people is so inextricably interwoven with its fortunes +that its destruction would be nothing less than national hari kari. +</P> + +<P> +He does not believe that the Republican Party is perfect, but he +believes that it is as perfect as any political organization is +ever likely to be. He has no illusions concerning the men it +chooses for high places. He is never disturbed by stories of +political corruption or graft unless they are serious enough to +jeopardize forthcoming elections. Otherwise they are merely +unpleasant incidents that arise in the life of every business +organization. +</P> + +<P> +If he were supreme he would not tolerate political corruption, any +more than he would tolerate murder; but since he is not supreme and +cannot dictate to all men, he accepts their efforts in the interest +of the organization even though their hands may be slightly soiled. +Like the wise general who raises a volunteer army he is not +meticulous in the choice of his privates, providing they are +capable of performing the tasks assigned to them. No seeker after +souls ever believed the end justifies the means more sincerely than +Boies Penrose believes his vote-seekers are justified in stretching +the code a bit for the benefit of the organization—particularly if +it is actually endangered. +</P> + +<P> +Just as he believes in the Republican Party he believes in a high +tariff—the higher the better. Prosperity without protection is +inconceivable. During a Washington career of more than twenty years +he has been constantly caricatured as the tool of the interests—the +man upon whom they could rely to raise the tariff wall an inch +or two for their personal benefit. +</P> + +<P> +He has raised it whenever he has had the opportunity to do so, but +not for the reason assigned. He is no man's tool. The suggestion +that Boies Penrose personally has ever profited financially through +politics is too absurd to be entertained for a moment. Of course, +he expects the interests, whom the party serves with tariff +protection, to save the party at the polls and they usually do so. +But that in the opinion of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania is +the essence of sound politics. +</P> + +<P> +Unbelievable as it may sound in these days, Senator Penrose +actually thinks that most men are dependent for their daily bread +upon the success of a very small group of financiers, magnates, or +whatever you care to call the great leaders of the world of +business. +</P> + +<P> +Years of experience has convinced him that the human race is +composed, for the most part, of hopelessly improvident people and +that a great part of the globe would be depopulated through +starvation and disease if it were not for the foresight, ability, +and thrift of the handful of leaders whom Divine Providence has +provided. He looks upon himself as one of the instruments of +Providence and he sincerely believes that the policies which he has +supported since his early experience with the reformers are +responsible for the happiness and prosperity of many a family. He +would consider it the height of absurdity for any of these poor, +worthy, but ignorant people to expect the comforts which they have +enjoyed without the protection afforded their employers by the +Republican Party. +</P> + +<P> +By this somewhat unpopular method of reasoning, he believes that he +of all the men in public life has made the most persistent and +consistent fight for the masses. It is undoubtedly this calm faith +and sincere belief in his own rectitude which has enabled him to +hold the tremendous power he has exerted since Nelson Aldrich +retired from the Senate. +</P> + +<P> +I have presented his political philosophy in some detail because he +is probably the most misjudged man in Washington. People are +inclined to look upon him as a glorified boss who deals in politics +as other men deal in commodities;—it is hardly a fair estimate of +the man. He considers himself the chosen leader of the most +intelligent people of a great commonwealth who is rendering +tremendous service to the country. I do not agree with that +estimate either. But taken all and all it seems to me that the +country owes him a debt of gratitude for having been sincere when +another course would have been more profitable. It is a relief to +find one at least who has never been called a hypocrite. +</P> + +<P> +Senator Penrose does not hate Democrats; he does not consider them +important enough for that; he merely despises them. They are to his +mind an inferior class of human beings who should not be intrusted +with the affairs of the nation. Reformers irritate him. They are +either self-seeking hypocrites or deluded. In neither case has he +the time nor inclination to listen to their suggestions or heed +their maledictions. +</P> + +<P> +He had an abiding hatred for Theodore Roosevelt when he was in the +White House, but he supported him loyally so long as he was the +leader of the Party. When Colonel Roosevelt bolted the hatred ran +the last gamut. He was classed as an arch criminal for having +smashed the organization. +</P> + +<P> +Penrose is an enigma to those who know him only casually, +especially those who view life through the rose glasses of culture. +They marvel at the extent to which he has been able to dictate to +men who appear to be his superiors. I have heard him called a cave +man by some, by others a boor; but he is neither. He observes the +amenities of life so far as they are necessary, but only so far. He +is impatient of mediocrity; he will not tolerate stupidity and he +loathes hypocrisy. I would not say that he has bad manners; he has +none at all. +</P> + +<P> +Throughout the recent eclipse of the Republican Party, which began +with the Roosevelt default, no member remained more steadfast than +the Pennsylvania leader. He accepted the inevitable and bided his +time like the politicians of the old school of which he is one of +the few conspicuous surviving examples. Expediency does not enter +into his make-up; he made no effort to keep himself in the +limelight, for he is by the Party, of the Party, and for the Party. +</P> + +<P> +Now that the Party is back again, in power, more than one of his +colleagues suspect that Penrose, if his health permits, will emerge +from the background as the real leader of the Senate majority. His +political past is against him. But he knows men and his tutelage +under Aldrich has not been forgotten. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="borah"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +WILLIAM E. BORAH +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P> +Taken at its best, life, to William E. Borah, is little more than a +troublesome pilgrimage to the grave. +</P> + +<P> +This does not mean that he is a misanthrope or a seer of distorted +vision. On the contrary his sympathies are broad and he has an +elusive charm, more apparent in the early years of his political +career than now. But, for some reason, probably temperamental, he +is in the habit of dwelling upon the dangers that beset the +republic—dangers which are sometimes very real. Nevertheless an +hour in his presence is more often than not depressing; it leaves +one with a sense of impending calamity. There are few bright spots +on his horizon. +</P> + +<P> +It is not altogether to his discredit that his more venerable +colleagues look upon him as a young man—he is fifty-six; nor does +it imply merely arrested political development. For all of his +pessimism he maintains a certain freshness, if belligerency, of +spirit which is puzzling not only to those who have long since +accustomed themselves to the party yoke but to those whom +experience has taught the art of compromise. For Borah hates the +discipline that organization entails, in spite of his respect for +organization, and he dislikes compromise however often he is driven +to it. +</P> + +<P> +This may be accounted for by the fact that he was not obliged to +fight his way laboriously upward on the lower rungs of politics—he +landed in the Senate from an Idaho law office in one pyrotechnical +leap when he was only forty two—and by the fact that in his make-up +he is singularly unpolitical. Disassociating him from his +senatorial environment it is much easier to imagine him as a +devotee of academic culture, a university professor, a moral +crusader, even a poet, than as a politician. +</P> + +<P> +There is in his make-up an underlying Celtic strain which may +account for his moodiness, his emotionalism, and his impulsiveness. +These characteristics are constantly cropping up. For many years he +has buried himself in a somber suite of rooms in the Senate office +building as far away from his colleagues as he could get. There he +lives in an atmosphere of academic quiet. There he reads and +studies incessantly, far from the maddening crowd of politics. This +detachment has probably bred a suspicion that marks his actions. He +has no intimates, no associates who call him "Bill." He is not a +social being. He is rarely seen where men and women congregate. He +is virtually unknown in that strange bedlam composed largely of +social climbers and official poseurs called Washington society. He +neither smokes, drinks, nor plays. What relaxation he gets is on +the back of a western nag in Rock Creek Park where he may be seen +any morning cantering along—alone. He does not ride for pleasure; +his physician ordered it and it is a very businesslike matter. If +he experiences any of the exhilaration that comes to men in the +saddle he contrives to conceal it. +</P> + +<P> +On the floor of the Senate he is quite a different person. There +his unmistakable genius for oratory is given full sweep and when he +speaks his colleagues usually listen, not because they agree with +what he says but because they are charmed by the easy and melodious +flow of his words. There is a hint of Ingersoll in his speeches +which are full of alliteration and rhythmic phrases. He has a sense +of form sadly lacking in his stammering and inarticulate +colleagues, for oratory in the Senate is probably at its lowest +ebb. But, strangely enough, it is only occasionally that he makes a +lasting impression. His eloquence ripples like water and leaves +scarcely more trace. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Borah's entire political career has been characterized by an +impulsiveness which has given him a halo of popularity but has +never enabled him to garner the fruits of plodding labor. At one +time or another this has led him to break with nearly every faction +with which he has been identified. The "regular" Republicans have +felt that they never could rely upon him; the "progressive" element +has found him inconstant and at intervals he has threatened to pull +down the party house of the Republicans and to bring destruction to +one or other of the leaders whom he dislikes. +</P> + +<P> +This was illustrated by an observation he made to me one spring +morning in 1919 when the Republican attitude toward the League of +Nations was still in the formative process. Borah was "convinced" +that Elihu Root and Will H. Hays were conspiring to induce the +Republicans to accept the League and he said, quite seriously, that +he had about come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to +wreck the Republican Party to save the country. Root, he told me, +was pro-British to the last degree and Hays, he said, was cajoled +by the great international bankers who trembled at the delay of +peace. +</P> + +<P> +"If such men are to lead the Republican Party," he declared, "the +sooner it is destroyed the better." Of course, he did not take the +stump. He has failed so often to carry out his threats of rebellion +that they no longer inspire the fear they once did. Although he has +repeatedly turned against the organization he has managed to escape +being an outlaw. This singular trait of political conservatism came +conspicuously into play in 1912 when Roosevelt turned upon the +machine. All through the stormy days of that stormy Chicago +convention Senator Borah could be found at the side of that one +leader for whom he had a consistent regard. He was with him up to +the very last moment before the die was cast. He was almost +successful at the eleventh hour in inducing Mr. Roosevelt to +abandon his mad project. They were closeted together on the evening +of the clamorous meeting of the progressives in a hotel across the +street. +</P> + +<P> +"We have come to the parting of the ways, Colonel," Borah said to +his chief. "This far I have gone with you. I can go no further." He +urged Roosevelt not to take the step which would mean the +disruption of the party and defeat. Roosevelt wavered. But before +he could reach the decision Borah sought a committee from the +outlaw meeting, burst into the room, and enthusiastically announced +that the stage was set for the demonstration that was to mark a new +political era. +</P> + +<P> +Roosevelt, hat in hand, turned to Borah and said, "You see, I can't +desert my friends now." The ex-President went his way and Borah +came back to the old Republican fold. +</P> + +<P> +From that time to this he has followed his own way which, +fortunately for the Republican Party, has been within organization +limits, but his relations with his fellows are neither intimate nor +serene. Some of the Republicans, who can be forgiven for not +understanding a man who respects neither party decrees nor +traditions, feel that Borah is so American that he possesses one of +the characteristics of the aboriginal Indian—in other words, that +he is cunning, that he will not play the game according to +organization rules. He has a habit of making too many mental +reservations. I am not quite sure that these allegations could be +supported before an impartial tribunal. I am rather inclined to the +belief that to maintain his position in the Senate Borah has had to +become a shrewd trader. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately for himself he is too much of a personage to be ignored +or suppressed, and manages to be a power in a party which has no +love for him. +</P> + +<P> +He is virtually a party to himself. He cannot be controlled by the +ordinary political methods. His constituency is small and evidently +devoted to him and his state is remote; he is not compelled to do +the irksome political chores that cost Senators their political +independence. However doubtful he might be as a positive asset his +dexterity and power of expression are such that he would be very +dangerous as a liability. A report that Borah is on the rampage +affects Republican leaders very much as a run on a bank affects +financial leaders. They are not quite sure when either is going to +stop. Borah knows that most of the men with whom he is dealing are +clay and estimates with uncanny accuracy the degree to which he can +compel them to meet his demands. +</P> + +<P> +This method has not always been successful. It was singularly +unsuccessful in the case of Senator Penrose. Borah is the +antithesis of Penrose, whom he dislikes intensely. Several years +ago he interpreted a remark made by the Senator from Pennsylvania +to another Senator as a thrust at his own political ethics, or lack +of them. It was a petty affair at most and Penrose never admitted +the accuracy of Borah's construction, but Borah has had nothing to +do with him since. When the present Congress was in process of +organization Borah announced that he would bolt the party caucus if +Penrose were slated for the chairmanship of the Finance Committee +to which he was entitled according to the rule of seniority. It was +a ticklish situation. The Republicans had a bare majority in the +Senate and if any of them deserted the organization it might mean +Democratic control. The leaders were disturbed and tried to mollify +the defiant Senator from Idaho with every means at hand even giving +assurance that the Senator from Pennsylvania would vote against the +Peace Treaty and the League of Nations which was supposed to +represent his vital interest at that time. He refused to compromise +and announced that Penrose must go. He was offered every committee +assignment that he or his friends wanted, and accepted them, but as +a matter of right. +</P> + +<P> +Penrose was determined not to be displaced to satisfy what he +regarded as a colleague's whim. He sat silent in his office +receiving reports from hour to hour on Borah's state of mind. On +the day before the caucus Borah whispered that he intended to make +charges against the Pennsylvania leader that would provide a +sensation regardless of any effect they might have upon the party +or the country. The report was brought to Penrose. Instead of +trembling he sent word to Borah that he might say what he pleased +concerning his political career but that if he made any personal +charges he would regret them to his dying day. Borah appeared to +understand. He did not even attend the caucus and Penrose was duly +elected. Whether he was trading for committee assignments or +initiated the fight on political grounds is a question he alone can +answer, if anyone should have the temerity to ask it. +</P> + +<P> +The same violence of his likes and dislikes is shown in his +attitude toward the British and his espousal of the Irish cause. At +the time of the visit of the British mission to Washington, +Vice-President Marshall designated Senator Borah a member of the +committee appointed to escort the British visitors into the +chamber. This Borah resented as a personal affront. +</P> + +<P> +"Marshall has a distorted sense of humor," he said. "He knows I +dislike the British and that I despise the hypocrite Balfour." This +feeling was probably due in large measure to the Irish lineage +which Borah can trace in his ancestry as well as a temperamental +dislike of the British methods of maintaining control over subject +peoples. +</P> + +<P> +It is difficult to label Senator Borah from a political standpoint. +His most striking characteristic is his inconsistency. For a long +time in the early days of the progressive movement he displayed a +marked inclination to be "irregular" and he is to be found voting +for most measures for which the "progressives" claimed sponsorship, +but when the more radical leaders began to advocate the recall of +the judiciary, Borah rose up and delivered an invective the memory +of which lingers in the Capitol. It was one of the few speeches he +has made that had a permanent effect and, strangely enough, it was +the kind of speech that might have well been delivered by Root or +Knox. +</P> + +<P> +There has always been reason to believe that Borah was never more +enamored of La Follette in his prime, or of Hiram Johnson, than he +has been of the "reactionary" leaders with whom he has been +oftentimes in open conflict. When the latter deluded himself with +the hope of securing the Republican nomination, Borah was supposed +to be his chief supporter. When Johnson had eliminated Lowden and +Wood, and seemed to have eliminated Harding, Borah showed more +interest in the Knox candidacy. He wanted Knox at the head of the +ticket mainly because he knew that Knox was an implacable foe of +the League of Nations. On that fateful Friday night in Chicago when +the signs of the trend toward Harding had begun to appear, the +Senator from Idaho was anxious and prepared to place Knox's name in +nomination and begged Johnson to swing his delegates in that +direction. +</P> + +<P> +Borah has succeeded very well in concealing his own ambitions, +possibly because he is more cautious than some of his impetuous +colleagues, or because the opportunity has never come for an +avowal. But among those who have followed his career there is a +very strong suspicion that his one great desire was to be the +successor of Roosevelt. This might be one reason for his antagonism +toward the politicians of the old regime, such as Penrose, who have +barred his way in that direction, and his fitful devotion to +progressivism championed by others. The failure to realize this +ambition might account in some measure for his later reticence and +his suspicion of politicians in general. He has shown a pronounced +distrust of them. The only exception has been the audacious +Ambassador to the Court of Saint James who in his REVIEW and in his +WEEKLY flattered the Senator from Idaho with an absence of +restraint that might have made a more trusting person skeptical. +</P> + +<P> +The Senator from Idaho has too many years before him to justify +predictions concerning his career. Whatever faults he might have +they do not entirely obscure his virtues. It is possible that the +occasion might arise for him to serve as the spokesman of a popular +cause, which he would do with undoubted earnestness and eloquence, +in which event he might still become a dominating figure in +American politics. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirrors of Washington, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON *** + +***** This file should be named 3812-h.htm or 3812-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/3812/ + +Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</BODY> + +</HTML> + diff --git a/3812.txt b/3812.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fc4b1f --- /dev/null +++ b/3812.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5444 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirrors of Washington, by Anonymous + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mirrors of Washington + +Author: Anonymous + +Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3812] +Release Date: March, 2003 +First Posted: September 19, 2001 +Last Updated: March 21, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + +THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON + + + + + +CONTENTS + +WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES + + + +HARDING, Warren G., + +President of the United States; b. Corsica, Morrow Co., O., Nov. 2, +1865; Educ. student of Ohio Central Coll. (now defunct), Iberia, +1879-82; engaged in newspaper business at Marion, O., since 1884; +pres. Harding Pub. Co., pubs. Star (daily); mem. Ohio Senate, +1900-4; lt.-gov. of Ohio, 1904-6; Rep. nominee for gov. of Ohio, 1910 +(defeated); mem. U. S. Senate, from Ohio, 1915-21; Baptist; +President of the United States, 1921 + + +WILSON, Woodrow, + +Twenty-eighth President of the United States; b. Staunton, Va., +Dec. 28, 1856; Educ. Davidson Coll., N. C., 1874-5; A.B., +Princeton, 1879, A.M., 1882; grad. in law, U. of Va., 1881; +post-grad, work at Johns Hopkins, 1883-5, Ph.D., 1886; (LL.D., Wake +Forest, 1887, Tulane, 1898, Johns Hopkins, 1902, Rutgers, 1902, U. +of Pa., 1903, Brown, 1903; Harvard, 1907, Williams, 1908, +Dartmouth, 1909; Litt. D., Yale, 1901); pres. Aug. 1, 1902--Oct. +20, 1910, Princeton U.; gov. of N. J., Jan. 17, 1911--Mar. 1, 1913 +(resigned); nominated for President in Dem. Nat. Conv. Baltimore, +1912, and elected Nov. 4, 1912, for term, Mar. 4, 1913-Mar. 4, +1917; renominated for President in Dem. Nat. Conv., St. Louis, +1916, and reelected, Nov. 7, 1916; for term Mar. 4, 1917-Mar. 4, +1921; Left for France on the troopship "George Washington", Dec. 4, +1918, at the head of Am. Commn. to Negotiate Peace; returned to U. +S., arriving in Boston, Feb. 24,1919; left New York on 2d trip to +Europe, Mar. 5; arrived in Paris, Mar. 14; signed Peace Treaty, +June 28, 1919 + + +HARVEY, George (Brinton McClellan), + +Editor; b. Peacham, Vt., Feb. 16, 1864; Educ. Peacham Academy; +(LL.D., University of Nevada, University of Vermont, Middlebury +Coll. and Erskine Coll.). Consecutively reporter Springfield +Republican, Chicago News, and New York World, 1882-6; ins. commr. +of N. J., 1890-1; mng. editor New York World, 1891-93; constructor +and pres. various electric railroads, 1894-8; purchased, 1899, and +since editor North American Review, Pres. Harper & Bros., 1900-15; +North Am. Review Pub. Co., 1899-; editor and pub. Harvey's Weekly; +dir. Audit Co. of New York; Col. and a.-d.-c. on staffs of Govs. +Green and Abbett, of N. J., 1885-92; hon. col. and a.-d.-c. on +staffs of Govs. Heyward and Ansel, of S. C.; U. S. Ambassador to +Court of Saint James + + +HUGHES, Charles Evans, + +Secretary of State; b. at Glens Falls, N. Y., Apr. 11, 1862; Educ. +Colgate U., 1876-8; A.B., Brown U., 1881, A.M., 1884; LL.B., +Columbia, 1884; (LL.D., Brown, 1906, Columbia, Knox, and Lafayette, +1907, Union, Colgate, 1908, George Washington, 1909, Williams +College, Harvard, and Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1910, Yale Univ., +1915); admitted to N. Y. bar, 1884; prize fellowship, Columbia Law +Sch., 1884-7; nominated for office of mayor of New York by Rep. +Conv., 1905, but declined; gov. of N. Y. 2 terms, Jan. 1, 1907-Dec. +31, 1908, Jan. 1, 1909-Dec. 31, 1910; resigned, Oct. 6, 1910; +apptd., May 2, 1910, and Oct. 10, 1910, became asso. justice +Supreme Court of U. S.; nominated for President of U. S. in Rep. +Nat. Conv., Chicago, June 10, 1916, and resigned from Supreme Court +same day; Secretary of State, 1921 + + +HOUSE, Edward Mandell, + +B. Houston, Tex., July 26, 1858; Educ. Hopkins Grammar Sch., New +Haven, Conn., 1877; Cornell U., 1881; active in Dem. councils, +state and national, but never a candidate for office. Personal +representative of President Wilson to the European governments in +1914, 1915, and 1916; apptd. by the President, Sept., 1917, to +gather and organize data necessary at the eventual peace +conference; commd. as the special rep. of Govt. of U. S. at the +Inter-Allied Conference of Premiers and Foreign Ministers, held in +Paris, Nov. 29, 1917, to effect a more complete coordination of the +activities of the Entente cobelligerents for the prosecution of the +war; designated by the President to represent the U. S. in the +Supreme War Council at Versailles, Dec. 1, 1917; Oct. 17, 1918; +designated by the President to act for the U. S. in the negotiation +of the Armistice with the Central Powers; mem. Am. Commn. to +Negotiate Peace, 1918-19 + + +HOOVER, Herbert Clark, + +Secretary of Commerce; Engineer; b. West Branch, Ia., Aug. 10, +1874; Educ. B.A. (in mining engring.), Leland Stanford, Jr., U., +1895; (LL.D., Brown U., U. of Pa., Harvard, Princeton, Yale, +Oberlin, U. of Ala., Liege, Brussels; D.C.L., Oxford); Asst. Ark. +Geol. Survey, 1893, U. S. Geol. Survey, Sierra Nevada Mountains, +1895; in W. Australia as chief of mining staff of Bewick, Moreing & +Co. and mgr. Hannan's Brown Hill Mine, 1897; chief engr. Chinese +Imperial Bur. of Mines, 1899, doing extensive exploration in +interior of China. Took part in defense of Tientsin during Boxer +disturbances; Chmn. Am. Relief Com. London, 1914-15, Commn. for +Relief in Belgium, 1915-18; chmn. food com. Council of Nat. +Defense, Apr.-Aug. 1917; apptd. U. S. food administrator by +President Wilson, Aug. 10, 1917, resigned June, 1919. Secretary of +Commerce, 1921 + + +LODGE, Henry Cabot, + +Senator; b. Boston, May 12, 1850; Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1871, LL.B., +1875, Ph.D. (history), 1876; (LL.D., Williams, 1893, Yale, 1902, +Clark U., 1902, Harvard, 1904, Amherst, 1912, also Union Col., +Princeton U., and Dartmouth Coll., and Brown, 1918); Admitted to +bar, 1876; editor North American Review, 1873-6, International +Review, 1879-81; mem. Mass. Ho. of Rep., 1880, 81; mem. 50th to 53d +Congresses (1887-93), 6th Mass. Dist.; U. S. senator, since 1893; +mem. Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, 1903; mem. U. S. Immigration +Commn., 1907 + + +BARUCH, Bernard Mannes, + +Educ. A.B., Coll. City of New York, 1889; mem. of New York Stock +Exchange many yrs.; apptd., 1916, by Pres. Wilson, mem. Advisory +Commn. of Council Nat. Defense; was made chmn. Com. on Raw +Materials, Minerals and Metals, also commr. in charge of purchasing +for the War Industries Bd., and mem. commn. in charge of all +purchases for the Allies; apptd. chmn. War Industries Bd., Mar. 5, +1918; resigned Jan. 1, 1919; connected with Am. Commn. to Negotiate +Peace as member of the drafting com. of the Economic Sect.; mem. +Supreme Economic Council and chmn. of its raw materials div.; Am. +del. on economics and reparation clauses; economic adviser for the +Am. Peace Commn.; mem. President's Conf. for Capital and Labor, +Oct. 1919 + + +ROOT, Elihu, + +Ex-Secretary of State; senator; b. Clinton, N. Y., Feb. 15, 1845; +Educ. A.B., Hamilton Coll., 1864, A.M., 1867; taught at Rome Acad., +1865; LL.B., New York U., 1867; (LL.D., Hamilton, 1894, Yale, 1900, +Columbia, 1904, New York U., 1904, Williams, 1905, Princeton, 1906, +U. of Buenos Aires, 1906, Harvard, 1907, Wesleyan, 1909, McHill, +1913, Union U., 1914, U. of State of N. Y., 1915, U. of Toronto, +1918, and Colgate U., 1919; Dr. Polit. Science, U. of Leyden, 1913; +D.C.L., Oxford, 1913; mem. Faculty of Political and Administrative +Sciences, University of San Marcos, Lima, 1906); Admitted to bar, +1867; U. S. dist. atty. Southern Dist. of N. Y., 1883-5; Sec. of +War in cabinet of President McKinley, Aug. 1, 1899-Feb. 1, 1904; +Sec. of State in cabinet of President Roosevelt, July 1, 1905-Jan. +27, 1909; U. S. senator from N. Y., 1909-15; mem. Alaskan Boundary +Tribunal, 1903; counsel for U. S. in N. Atlantic Fisheries +Arbitration, 1910; mem. Permanent Court of Arbitration at The +Hague, 1910-; pres. Carnegie Endowment for Internat. Peace, 1910; +president Hague Tribunal of Arbitration between Great Britain, +France, Spain, and Portugal, concerning church property, 1913; +ambassador extraordinary at the head of special diplomatic mission +to Russia, during revolution, 1917. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize for +1912. + + +JOHNSON, Hiram Warren, + +Senator; b. Sacramento, Cal., Sept. 2, 1866; Educ. U. of Cal., +leaving in jr. yr.; began as short-hand reporter; studied law in +father's office; admitted to Cal. bar, 1888; mem. staff of pros. +attys. in boodling cases, involving leading city officials and +almost all pub. utility corpns. in San Francisco, 1906-7; was +selected to take the place of Francis J. Heney, after latter was +shot down in court while prosecuting Abe Ruef, for bribery, 1908, +and secured conviction of Ruef; gov. of Cal., 1911-15; reelected +for term, 1915-19 (resigned Mar. 15, 1917); a founder of +Progressive Party, 1912, and nominee for V.-P. of U.S. on Prog. +ticket same yr.; U. S. senator from Cal. for term 1917-23 + + +KNOX, Philander Chase, + +Ex-Secretary of State; b. Brownsville, Pa., May 6, 1853; Educ. +A.B., Mt. Union Coll., Ohio, 1872; read law in office of H. B. +Swope, Pittsburgh; (LL.D., U. of Pa., 1905, Yale, 1907, Villanova, +1909); Admitted to bar, 1875; asst. U. S. dist. atty., Western +Dist. of Pa., 1876-7; Atty.-Gen. in cabinets of Presidents McKinley +and Roosevelt, Apr. 9, 1901-June 30, 1904; apptd. U. S. senator by +Governor Pennypacker, June 10, 1904, for unexpired term of Matthew +Stanley Quay, deceased; elected U. S. senator, Jan., 1905, for +term, 1905-11; Sec. of State in cabinet of President Taft, Mar., +1909-13; Reelected U. S. senator, for term 1917-23 + + +LANSING, Robert, + +Ex-Secretary of State; b. at Watertown, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1864; Educ. +A.B., Amherst, 1886; (LL.D., Amherst, 1915, Colgate, 1915, +Princeton, 1917, Columbia, 1918, Union, 1918, U. State of N. Y., +1919); Admitted to bar, 1889; Asso. counsel for U. S. in Behring +Sea Arbitration, 1892-3: counsel for Behring Sea Claims Commn., +1896-7; solicitor and counsel for the United States under the +Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, 1903; counsel, North Atlantic Coast +Fisheries Arbitration at The Hague, 1909-10; agent of United +States, Am. and British Claims Arbitration, 1912-14; counselor for +Dept. of State, Mar. 20, 1914-June 23, 1915; Secretary of State in +Cabinet of Pres. Wilson, June 23, 1915-Feb., 1920; mem. Am. Commn. +to Negotiate Peace, Paris, 1918-19 + + +PENROSE, Boies, + +Senator; b. Phila., Nov. 1, 1860; Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1881; +Admitted to the bar, 1883; mem. Pa. Ho. of Rep., 1884-6, Senate, +1887-97 (pres. pro tem., 1889,1891); U. S. senator, 4 terms, +1897-1921; Chmn. Rep. State Com., 1903-5; mem. Rep. Nat. Com. since 1904 + + +BORAH, William Edgar, + +Senator; b. at Fairfield, Ill., June 29, 1865; Educ. Southern Ill. +Acad., Enfield, and U. of Kan.; Admitted to bar, 1889; U. S. +senator from Idaho, Jan. 14,1903; elected U. S. senator for terms +1907-13, 1913-19, 1919-25 + + + + + +WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING + + +Every time we elect a new President we learn what a various +creature is the Typical American. + +When Mr. Roosevelt was in the White House the Typical American was +gay, robustious, full of the joy of living, an expansive spirit +from the frontier, a picaresque twentieth century middle class +Cavalier. He hit the line hard and did not flinch. And his laugh +shook the skies. + +Came Wilson. And the Typical American was troubled about his soul. +Rooted firmly in the church-going past, he carried the banner of +the Lord, Democracy, idealistic, bent on perfecting that old +incorrigible Man, he cuts off the right hand that offends him and +votes for prohibition and woman suffrage, a Round Head in a Ford. + +Eight years and we have the perfectly typical American, Warren +Gamaliel Harding of the modern type, the Square Head, typical of +that America whose artistic taste is the movies, who reads and +finds mental satisfaction in the vague inanities of the small town +newspaper, who has faith in America, who is for liberty, virtue, +happiness, prosperity, law and order and all the standard +generalities and holds them a perfect creed; who distrusts anything +new except mechanical inventions, the standardized product of the +syndicate which supplies his nursing bottle, his school books, his +information, his humor in a strip, his art on a screen, with a +quantity production mind, cautious, uniformly hating divergence +from uniformity, jailing it in troublous times, prosperous, who has +his car and his bank account and can sell a bill of goods as well +as the best of them. + +People who insist upon having their politics logical demand to know +the why of Harding. Why was a man of so undistinguished a record as +he first chosen as a candidate for President and then elected +President? + +As a legislator he had left no mark on legislation. If he had +retired from Congress at the end of his term his name would have +existed only in the old Congressional directories, like that of a +thousand others. As a public speaker he had said nothing that +anybody could remember. He had passed through a Great War and left +no mark on it. He had shared in a fierce debate upon the peace that +followed the war but though you can recall small persons like +McCumber and Kellogg and Moses and McCormick in that discussion you +do not recall Harding. To be sure he made a speech in that debate +which he himself says was a great speech but no newspaper thought +fit to publish it because of its quality, or felt impelled to +publish it in spite of its quality because it had been made by +Harding. + +He neither compelled attention by what he said nor by his +personality. Why, then, without fireworks, without distinction of +any sort, without catching the public eye, or especially deserving +to catch it, was Warren Harding elected President of the United +States? + +One plausible reason why he was nominated was that given by Senator +Brandegee at Chicago, where he had a great deal to do with the +nomination. "There ain't any first raters this year. This ain't any +1880 or any 1904. We haven't any John Shermans or Theodore +Roosevelts. We've got a lot of second raters and Warren Harding is +the best of the second raters." + +Once nominated as a Republican his election of course inevitably +followed. But to accept Mr. Brandegee's plea in avoidance is to +agree to the eternal poverty of American political life, for most +of our presidents have been precisely like Warren G. Harding, +first-class second raters. + +Mrs. Harding, a woman of sound sense and much energy, had an +excellent instructive answer to the "why." The pictures of the +house in Marion, the celebrated front porch, herself and her +husband were taken to be exhibited by cinema all over the land. She +said, "I want the people to see these pictures so that they will +know we are just folks like themselves." + +Warren Harding is "just folks." A witty woman said of him, alluding +to the small town novel which was popular at the time of his +inauguration, "Main Street has arrived in the White House." + +The Average Man has risen up and by seven million majority elected +an Average Man President. His defects were his virtues. He was +chosen rather for what he wasn't than for what he was,--the +inconspicuousness of his achievements. The "just folks" level of +his mind, his small town man's caution, his sense of the security +of the past, his average hopes and fears and practicality, his +standardized Americanism which would enable a people who wanted for +a season to do so to take themselves politically for granted. + +The country was tired of the high thinking and rather plain +spiritual living of Woodrow Wilson. It desired the man in the White +House to cause it no more moral overstrain than does the man you +meet in the Pullman smoking compartment or the man who writes the +captions for the movies who employs a sort of Inaugural style, +freed from the inhibitions of statesmanship. It was in a mood +similar to that of Mr. Harding himself when after his election he +took Senators Freylinghuysen, Hale, and Elkins with him on his trip +to Texas. Senator Knox observing his choice is reported to have +said, "I think he is taking those three along because he wanted +complete mental relaxation." All his life Mr. Harding has shown a +predilection for companions who give him complete mental +relaxation, though duty compels him to associate with the Hughes +and the Hoovers. The conflict between duty and complete mental +relaxation establishes a strong bond of sympathy between him and +the average American. + +The "why" of Harding is the democratic passion for equality. We are +standardized, turned out like Fords by the hundred million, and we +cannot endure for long anyone who is not standardized. Such an one +casts reflections upon us; why should we by our votes unnecessarily +asperse ourselves? Occasionally we may indulge nationally, as men +do individually, in the romantic belief that we are somebody else, +that we are like Roosevelt or Wilson--and they become typical of +what we would be--but always we come back to the knowledge that we +are nationally like Harding, who is typical of what we are. "Just +folks" Kuppenheimered, movieized, associated pressed folks. + +Men debate whether or not Mr. Wilson was a great man and they will +keep on doing so until the last of those passes away whose judgment +of him is clouded by the sense of his personality. But men will +never debate about the greatness of Mr. Harding, not even Mr. +Harding himself. He is modest. He has only two vanities, his vanity +about his personal appearance and his vanity about his literary +style. + +The inhibitions of a presidential candidate, bound to speak and say +nothing, irked him. + +"Of course I could make better speeches than these" he told a +friend during the campaign, "but I have to be so careful." + +In his inaugural address he let himself go, as much as it is +possible for a man so cautious as he is to let himself go. It was a +great speech, an inaugural to place alongside the inaugurals of +Lincoln and Washington, written in his most capable English, +Harding at his best. It is hard for a man to move Marion for years +with big editorials, to receive the daily compliments of Dick +Cressinger and Jim Prendergast, without becoming vain of the power +of his pen. It is his chief vanity and it is one that it is hard +for him who speaks or writes to escape. He has none of that egotism +which makes a self-confident man think himself the favorite of +fortune. + +He said after his nomination at Chicago, "We drew to a pair of +deuces and filled." He did not say it boastfully as a man who likes +to draw to a pair of deuces and who always expects to fill. He said +it with surprise and relief. He does not like to hold a pair of +deuces and be forced to draw to them. He has not a large way of +regarding losing and winning as all a part of the game. He hates to +lose. He hated to lose even a friendly game of billiards in the +Marion Club with his old friend Colonel Christian, father of his +secretary, though the stake was only a cigar. + +When he was urged to seek the Republican nomination for the +Presidency he is reported to have said, "Why should I. My chances +of winning are not good. If I let you use my name I shall probably +in the end lose the nomination for the Senate. (His term was +expiring.) If I don't run for the Presidency I can stay in the +Senate all my life. I like the Senate. It is a very pleasant +place." + +The Senate is like Marion, Ohio, a very pleasant place, for a +certain temperament. And Mr. Harding stayed in Marion all his life +until force--a vis exterior; there is nothing inside Mr. Harding +that urges him on and on--until force of circumstances, of +politics, of other men's ambitions, took him out of Marion and set +him down in Washington, in the Senate. + +The process of uprooting him from the pleasant place of Marion is +reported to have been thus described by his political transplanter, +the present Attorney General, Mr. Daugherty: "When it came to +running for the Senate I found him, sunning himself in Florida, +like a turtle on a log and I had to push him into the water and +make him swim." + +And a similar thing happened when it came to running for the +Presidency. It is a definite type of man who suns himself on a log, +who is seduced by pleasant places like Marion, Ohio, whom the big +town does not draw into its magnetic field, whose heart is not +excited by the larger chances of life. Is he lazy? Is he lacking in +imagination? Does he hate to lose? Does he want self-confidence? Is +he over modest? Has he no love for life, life as a great adventure? +Whatever he is, Mr. Harding is that kind of man, that kind of man +to start out with. + +But this is only the point of departure, that choice to remain in a +pleasant place like Marion, not to risk what you have, your sure +place in society as the son of one of the better families, the +reasonable prospect that the growth of your small town will bring +some accretion to your own fortunes, the decision not to hazard +greatly in New York or Chicago or on the frontier. Life asks little +of you in those pleasant places like Marion and in return for that +little gives generously, especially if you are, to begin with, well +placed, if you are ingratiatingly handsome, if your personality is +agreeable--"The best fellow in the world to play poker with all +Saturday night," as a Marionite feelingly described the President +to me, and if you have a gift of words as handsome and abundant as +your looks. + +Mr. Harding is a handsome man, endowed with the gifts that +reinforce the charm of his exterior, a fine voice, a winning smile, +a fluency of which his inaugural is the best instance; an ample +man, you might say. But he is too handsome, too endowed, for his +own good, his own spiritual good. The slight stoop of his +shoulders, the soft figure, the heaviness under the eyes betray in +some measure perhaps the consequences of nature's excessive +generosity. Given all these things you take, it may be, too much +for granted. There is not much to stiffen the mental, moral, and +physical fibers. + +Given such good looks, such favor from nature, and an environment +in which the struggle is not sharp and existence is a species of +mildly purposeful flanerie. You lounge a bit stoop-shoulderedly +forward to success. There is nothing hard about the President. I +once described him in somewhat this fashion to a banker in New York +who was interested in knowing what kind of a President we had. + +"You agree," he said, "with a friend of Harding's who came in to +see me a few days ago. This friend said to me 'Warren is the best +fellow in the world. He has wonderful tact. He knows how to make +men work with him and how to get the best out of them. He is +politically adroit. He is conscientious. He has a keen sense of his +responsibilities. He has unusual common sense.' And he named other +similar virtues, 'Well,' I asked him, 'What is his defect?' 'Oh,' +he replied, 'the only trouble with Warren is that he lacks +mentality.'" + +The story, like most stories, exaggerates. The President has the +average man's virtues of common sense and conscientiousness with +rather more than the average man's political skill and the average +man's industry or lack of industry. His mentality is not lacking; +it is undisciplined, especially in its higher ranges, by hard +effort. There is a certain softness about him mentally. It is not +an accident that his favorite companions are the least intellectual +members of that house of average intelligence, the Senate. They +remind him of the mental surroundings of Marion, the pleasant but +unstimulating mental atmosphere of the Marion Club, with its +successful small town business men, its local storekeepers, its +banker whose mental horizon is bounded by Marion County, the value +of whose farm lands for mortgages he knows to a penny, the lumber +dealer whose eye rests on the forests of Kentucky and West +Virginia. + +The President has never felt the sharpening of competition. He was +a local pundit because he was the editor. He was the editor because +he owned the Republican paper of Marion. There was no effective +rival. No strong intelligence challenged his and made him fight for +his place. He never studied hard or thought deeply on public +questions. A man who stays where he is put by birth tends to accept +authority, and authority is strong in small places. The acceptance +of authority implies few risks. It is like staying in Marion +instead of going to New York or even Cleveland. It is easier, and +often more profitable than studying hard or thinking deeply or +inquiring too much. + +And Mr. Harding's is a mind that bows to authority. What his party +says is enough for Mr. Harding. His party is for protection and Mr. +Harding is for protection; the arguments for protection may be +readily assimilated from the editorials of one good big city +newspaper and from a few campaign addresses. His party is for the +remission of tolls on American shipping in the Panama Canal and Mr. +Harding is for the remission of tolls. Mr. Root broke with his +party on tolls and Mr. Harding is as much shocked at Mr. Root's +deviation as the matrons of Marion would be over the public +disregard of the Seventh Commandment by one of their number. His +party became somehow for the payment of Colombia's Panama claims +and Mr. Harding was for their payment. + +A story tells just how Senator Kellogg went to the President to +oppose the Colombia treaty. After hearing Mr. Kellogg Mr. Harding +remarked, "Well, Frank, you have something on me. You've evidently +read the treaty. I haven't." + +A mind accepting authority favors certain general policies. It is +not sufficiently inquiring to trouble itself with the details. Mr. +Harding is for all sorts of things but is content to be merely for +them. A curious illustration developed in Marion, during the visits +of the best minds. He said to the newspaper men there one day, "I +am for voluntary military training." + +"What would you train, Mr. President," asked one of the +journalists, "officers or men?" + +The President hesitated. At last he said, "I haven't thought of +that." + +"But," said one of his interlocutors, "the colleges are training a +lot of officers now." + +This brought no response. + +Another who had experience in the Great War remarked, "In the last +war we were lacking in trained non-coms; it would be a good idea to +train a lot of them." + +"Yes," rejoined Mr. Harding eagerly, "That would be a good idea." + +A more inquiring mind would have gone further than to be "for +voluntary military training." A quicker, less cautious, if no more +thorough mind would have answered the first question, "What would +you train, officers or men?" by answering instantly "Both." + +In that colloquy you have revealed all the mental habits of Mr. +Harding. He was asked once, after he had had several conferences +with Senator McCumber, Senator Smoot, Representative Fordney, and +others who would be responsible for financial legislation, "Have +you worked out the larger details of your taxation policy?" + +"Naturally not!" was his reply. That "naturally" sprang I suppose +from his habit of believing that somewhere there is authority. +Somewhere there would be authority to determine what the larger +details of the party's financial policy should be. + +Now, this authority is not going to be any one man or any two men. +The President, his friends tell us, is jealous of any assumption of +power by any of his advisers. He is unwilling to have the public +think that any other than himself is President. A man as handsome +as Harding, as vain of his literary style as he is, has an ego that +is not capable of total self-effacement. He will bow to impersonal +authority like that of the party, or invoke the anonymous +governance of "best minds," calling rather often on God as a well +established authority, but he will not let authority be personal +and be called Daugherty, or Lodge or Knox or whomever you will. + +The President's attitude is rather like that of the average man +during the campaign. If you said to a voter on a Pullman, "Mr. +Harding is a man of small public experience, not known by any large +political accomplishment," he would always answer optimistically, +"Well, they will see to it that he makes good." Asked who "They" +were he was always vague and elusive, gods on the mountain perhaps. +There is an American religion, the average man's faith: it is +"Them." "They" are the fountain of authority. + +As Mr. Harding knew little competition in Marion so he has known +little competition in public life which in this country is not +genuinely competitive. Mr. Lloyd George is at the head of the +British government because he is the greatest master of the House +of Commons in a generation and he is chosen by the men who know him +for what he is, his fellow members of the House of Commons. An +American President is selected by the newspapers, which know little +about him, by the politicians, who do not want a master but a +slave, by the delegates to a national convention, tired, with hotel +bills mounting, ready to name anybody in order to go home. The +presidency, the one great prize in American public life, is +attained by no known rules and under conditions which have nothing +in them to make a man work hard or think hard, especially one +endowed with a handsome face and figure, an ingratiating +personality, and a literary style. + +The small town man, unimaginative and of restricted mental horizon +does not think in terms of masses of mankind. Masses vaguely appall +him. They exist in the big cities on which he turned his back in +his unaudacious youth. His contacts are with individuals. His +democracy consists in smiling upon the village painter and calling +him "Harry," in always nodding to the village cobbler and calling +him "Bill," in stopping on the street corner with a group, which +has not been invited to join the village club, putting his hand on +the shoulder of one of them and calling them "Fellows." + +Politics in the small town is limited to dealing with persons, to +enlisting the support of men with a following at the polls. + +Mr. Harding once drew this picture of his idea of politics. "If I +had a policy to put over I should go about it this way," he said. +"You all know the town meeting, if not by experience, by hearsay. +Now if I had a program that I wanted to have adopted by a town +meeting I should go to the three or four most influential men in my +community. I should talk it out with them. I should make +concessions to them until I had got them to agree with me. And then +I should go into the town meeting feeling perfectly confident that +my plan would go through. Well it's the same in the nation as in +the town meeting, or in the whole world, if you will. I should +always go first to the three or four leading men." + +Mr. Harding thinks of politics in this personal way. He does not +conceive of it as the force of ideas or the weight of morality +moving the hearts of mankind. Mankind is only a word to him, one +that he often uses,--or perhaps he prefers humanity, which has two +more syllables--a large loose word that he employs to make his +thought look bigger than it really is, something like the stage +device for making an ordinary man seem ten feet tall. + +Thus he will never try to move the mass of the people as his +predecessors have. He will not "go to the country." He will not +bring public opinion to bear as a disciplinary force in his +household. He will treat the whole United States as if it were a +Marion, consulting endless "best minds," composing differences, +seeking unity, with the aid of his exceptional tact. + +This attitude has its disadvantages. If you have a passion for +ideas and an indifference for persons you can say "yes" or "no" +easily; you may end by being dictatorial and arrogant, as Mr. +Wilson was; but you will not be weak. If, on the contrary, you are +indifferent to ideas and considerate of persons you find it hard to +say "Decided" to any question. And somewhere there must be +authority, the passing of the final judgment and the giving of +orders. + +But he compensates for his own defects. Almost as good as greatness +is a knowledge of your own limitations; and Mr. Harding knows his +thoroughly. Out of his modesty, his desire to reinforce himself, +has proceeded the strongest cabinet that Washington has seen in a +generation. He likes to have decisions rest upon the broad base of +more than one intelligence and he has surrounded himself for this +purpose with able associates. His policies will lack imagination, +which is not a composite product, but they will have practicality, +which is the greatest common denomination of several minds; and he, +moreover, is himself unimaginative and practical. + +Whatever superstructure of world organization he takes part in, +behind it will be the reality, a private understanding with the +biggest man in sight; for this reason the fall of Lloyd George and +the succession of a Labor government in England will disconcert him +terribly. The democratic passion for equality, which dogs the +tracks of the great, he mollifies by reminding the nation always +that he is "just folks," by opening the White House lawn gates, by +calling everyone by his first name. So constant is his aim to +appease it that I wonder if he is not sometimes betrayed into +addressing his Secretary of State as "Charley." + + + + +WOODROW WILSON + + +The explanation of President Wilson will be found in a certain +inferiority. When all his personal history becomes known, when his +papers and letters have all been published and read, when the +memoirs of others have told all that there is to be told, there +will stand clear something inadequate, a lack of robustness, mental +or nervous, an excessive sensitiveness, over self-consciousness, +shrinking from life, a neurotic something that in the end brought +on defeat and the final overthrow. He was never quite a normal man +with the average man's capacity to endure and enjoy but a strange, +impeded, self-absorbed personality. + +History arranged the greatest stage of all time, and on it placed a +lot of little figures, "pigmy minds"--all save one, and he the +nearest great, an unworldly person summoned from a cloister, with +the vision of genius and the practical incapacity of one who has +run away from life, hating men but loving all mankind, eloquent but +inarticulate in a large way, incapable of true self expression in +his chosen field of political action, so self-centered that he +forgot the world's tragedy and merged it into his own, making great +things little and little things great, one of "life's ironies," the +everlasting refutation of the optimistic notion that when there is +a crisis fate produces a man big enough to meet it. + +The world finds it hard to speak of Mr. Wilson except in superlatives. +A British journalist called him the other day, "the wickedest man in +the world." This was something new in extravagance. I asked, "Why +the wickedest?" He said, "Because he was so unable to forget himself +that he brought the peace of the world down in a common smash with +his own personal fortunes." + +On the other hand General Jan Christian Smuts, writing with that +perspective which distance gives, pronounces it to be not Wilson's +fault but the fault of humanity that the vision of universal peace +failed. Civilization was not advanced enough to make peace without +vindictiveness possible. + +This debate goes on and on. Mr. Wilson is either the worst hated or +the most regretted personality of the Great War. The place of no +one else is worth disputing. Lloyd George is the consummate +politician, limited by the meanness of his art. Clemenceau is the +personification of nationality, limited by the narrowness of his +view. Mr. Wilson alone had his hour of superlative greatness when +the whole earth listened to him and followed him; an hour which +ended with him only dimly aware of his vision and furiously +conscious of pin pricks. + +You observe this inadequacy in Mr. Wilson, this incapacity to +endure, at the outset of his career. It is characteristic of +certain temperaments that when they first face life they should run +away from it as Mr. Wilson did when, having studied law and having +been admitted to the bar, he abandoned practice and went to teach +in a girls' school. That was the early sign in him of that sense of +unfitness for the more arduous contacts of life which was so +conspicuous a trait during his presidency. He could not endure +meeting men on an equal footing, where there was a conflict of +wills, a rough clash of minds, where no concession was made to +sensitiveness and egotism. + +Some nervous insufficiency causes this shrinking, like the quick +retreat from cold water of an inadequate body. Commonly a man who +runs away from life after the first contact with it hates himself +for his flight and there begins a conflict inside him which ends +either in his admission of defeat and acknowledgment of his +unfitness or in his convincing himself that his real motive was +contempt of that on which he turned his back. If he admits to +himself that he is really a little less courageous, a little more +sensitive, a little less at home in this world, then he is gone. If +he does satisfy himself that he is superior, has higher ideals, +worthier ends, despises the ordinary arts of success he becomes +arrogant, merely in self defense. + +Mr. Wilson's "intellectual snobbism" was this kind of arrogance, +acquired for moral self preservation, like that of the small boy +who when his companions refuse to play with him says to himself +that he is smarter than they are, gets higher marks in school, that +he has a better gun than they have or that he, when he grows up, +will be a great general while they are nobody. Almost everyone who +feels himself unequal in some direction can satisfy himself that he +exceeds in others. It is a common and human sort of arrogance, and +Mr. Wilson had it inordinately. + +He hated and contemned the law, in which life had given him his +first glimpse of his frailty. He would have no lawyers make the +peace or draft the covenant of the league of nations. Lawyers were +pitiful creatures,--he kept one of them near him, Mr. Lansing, +admirably chosen, to remind him of how contemptible they were, +living in fear of precedents, writing a barbarous jargon out of +deeds and covenants, impeding the freedom of the imagination with +their endless citations. + +He despised politicians, he despised business men, he despised the +whole range of men who pursue worldly arts with success. He +despised the qualities which he had not himself, but like all men +who are arrogant self protectively he was driven to introspection +and analyzed himself pitilessly. + +The public got glimpses of these analyses. Sometimes he called that +something in him which left him less fit for the world than the +average, a little regretfully, "his single track mind." Sometimes +it leaped to light as an object of pride, his arrogance again, a +pride that was "too great to fight," like the common run of men,--in +the law courts or on the battlefields. He kept asking himself +the question, "Why am I not as other men are?", and sometimes his +nature would rise up in protest and he would exclaim that he was as +other men were and would pathetically tell the world that he was +"misunderstood," that he was not cold and reserved but warm and +genial and kindly, only largely because the world would see him as +he was. + +But always the one safe recourse, the one assurance of personal +stability was arrogance. Contempt was the most characteristic habit +of his mind. Out of office he is no sage looking charitably at the +fumbling of his successor. + +A friend who has seen him since his retirement describes him as +watching "with supreme contempt" the executive efforts of Mr. +Harding. Washington gossip credits him with inventing the phrase, +"the bungalow mind," to describe the present occupant of the White +House. Another remark of his about the new President is said to +have been "I look forward to the new administration with no +unpleasant anticipations, except those caused by Mr. Harding's +literary style." + +There is always his contrast of others with himself to their +disadvantage, mentally or morally, as writers, or leaders, or +statesmen. So full a life as Mr. Wilson led in the last dozen or +more years ought to have made him less self-conscious. A robuster +person would have hated with a certain zest, continued with a +certain gaiety, laughed as he fought, found something to respect in +his foes, seen the curtain fall upon his own activities with a +certain cheerfulness. + +He seems deficient in resources. He had not that gusto which richly +endowed natures ordinarily have. He found no fun in measuring his +strength with other men's. There was a certain overstrain about +him, which made him cushion himself about with non-resistant +personalities. He lacked curiosity. His fine mind seemed to want +the energy to interest itself in the details of any subject that +filled it, and this was one of his fatal weaknesses at the Peace +Conference. Perhaps it was a deficiency of vital force. Moreover he +came to his great task tired. His life till he was past fifty was +one of defeat. There was the early disappointment and turning back +from law practice, the giving up of his youthful ambition for a +public career to which he had trained himself passionately by the +study of public speaking. Dr. Albert Shaw, who was his fellow +student at Johns Hopkins, says that in the University Mr. Wilson +was the finest speaker, except possibly the old President of the +College, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman. + +Then there were the long years of poverty as a college professor, +when he overworked at writing and university extension lectures, to +make his small salary as a teacher equal to the support of his +family, his three children and his aged parents. There was his +failure at literature, for his "History of the United States" +brought him neither fame nor money, the public finding it dull and +unreadable. + +Then the crowning unsuccess as President of Princeton; for when his +luck changed and a political career opened to him as Governor of +New Jersey, with trustees and alumni against him, nothing seemed to +be before him but resignation and a small professorship in a +Southern College. It was a straightened life that he had led when +he came to Washington for the first time as President, scandalizing +the servants of the White House with the scantness of his personal +effects. There had been neither the time nor the means nor probably +the energy for larger human contacts. And something inherent always +held him back from the world, something which diverted him to +academic life, which when he was writing his "Congressional +Government", his best book, held him in Baltimore, almost a suburb +of Washington, where he read what he wrote to his fellow-students +at Johns Hopkins, whose livelier curiosity took them often to the +galleries of the House and the Senate about which he was writing +from a distance. + +Those to whom life is kinder than it was during many years to Mr. +Wilson have naturally a zest for it. Robuster natures than his even +though life averts her face, often preserve a zest for it. +Conscious of his powers he seems to have fortified himself against +failure with scorn. He had a scorn for the intellects of those who +succeed by arts which he did not possess. He had scorn for +politicians. He had a scorn for wealth. He had a scorn for his +enemies. He had a scorn for Republicans. He had a scorn for the men +with whom he had to deal in Europe, the heads of the Allied +Governments. + +Above all he scorned Lloyd George, an instinct telling him that the +British Premier had a thousand arts where he himself, unschooled in +conference with equals, had none. He said of Lloyd George just +before he sailed for Paris, suspecting him of treachery to the +League of Nations, "I shall look him in the eye and say to him Damn +you, if you do not accept the League I shall go to the people of +Great Britain and say things to them that will shake your +government." + +When he made this threat he could not foresee that the compromise +of the Peace would leave him with so little character that British +Liberals, their faith destroyed, should in the end couple his name +with their own Premier's and exclaim, "Your man Wilson talks like +Jesus Christ, but he acts like Lloyd George!" + +More than all others he scorned Lodge. The Massachusetts Senator +who had put by scholarship for politics and had won the opportunity +to do menial service for a political machine hated the man who had +chosen scholarship, for whatever motive, and come out with the +Presidency. You hate the man you might perhaps have been if you had +chosen more boldly, more according to your heart--if you are like +Mr. Lodge. + +A life of demeaning himself to politicians, of waiting for dead +men's shoes in the Senate, had, however, brought some compensations +to Lodge, among others an inordinate capacity to hurt. The +Massachusetts Senator could get under the President's skin as no +other man could. Washington is a place where every whisper is heard +in the White House. + +Mr. Lodge's favorite private charge uttered in a tone of withering +scorn was that the President failed to respond as a man would to +the national insult offered by Germany in sinking the Lusitania +because there was something womanish about him and he would tell, +to prove it, how Wilson went white and almost collapsed over the +news that blood had been shed through the landing of American +marines at Vera Cruz. + +The President hardly failed to hear this. Perhaps it reminded him +of that something in him which he was always trying to forget, that +something which diverted his life toward failure at the outset, +which once betrayed him, with a strange mixture of the arrogance +and inferiority, into his famous words "too proud to fight." + +At any rate mutual comprehension and hatred between these two men +was instinctive, each having the opposite choice in the beginning +and neither in his heart perhaps ever having forgiven himself +wholly for his choice. Mr. Wilson could never get Mr. Lodge wholly +out of his mind in the last two years of his Presidency, a +disability which prevented him from looking quite calmly and sanely +at public questions. + +The story of the President's appeal for a Democratic Congress in +1918 which has never been fully told, illustrates the bearing this +Lodge obsession had upon Mr. Wilson's later fate. When the +Congressional election was approaching ex-Congressman Scott Ferris, +then acting as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, went +to the President and told him that there was danger of losing both +houses of Congress, the lower house not being important, but the +Senate as a factor in foreign relations, Mr. Ferris suggested, was +indispensable to the Democratic party. Mr. Wilson was more hopeful +but agreed to take under advisement some sort of appeal to the +country. It was not desired that this should be anything more than +a letter, perhaps to Mr. Ferris, intended for publication, and +pointing out the need of support for the President's policies in +the next Congress. + +Shortly afterward Mr. Tumulty, the President's Secretary, brought +to the Shoreham Hotel in Washington an appeal to the country for a +Democratic Congress and read it to several Democrats gathered there +for the purpose, including Homer S. Cummings, who, by that time, +had become acting Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and +was in charge of the campaign. Mr. Cummings doubted the wisdom of +an appeal, couched in such terms as the one Mr. Tumulty read. He +took it to Vance McCormick, Chairman of the Democratic National +Committee, who, because he was Chairman of the War Trade Board, was +not taking part in the election. Mr. McCormick agreed with Mr. +Cummings that the appeal as written would do more harm than good to +the Democratic party, saying that the war had not been conducted on +a partisan basis, that some of his own associates on the War Trade +Board were Republicans and that Mr. Wilson should ask for the +reelection of all who had been loyal supporters of the war, whether +Republicans or Democrats. + +The appeal to the country as it then stood contained a bitter +denunciation of Senator Lodge. What Wilson chiefly saw in a +Republican victory was himself at the mercy of the man he hated +worst, the Massachusetts Senator. Mr. McCormick thought that if the +President was going to name names he must, at least, denounce +Claude Kitchen, the Democratic leader of the House, as well as +Senator Lodge. If Mr. Wilson would ask for the reelection of those +who had been loyal, of whatever party, listing the offenders, of +both parties, including Mr. Lodge if he must, Mr. McCormick +believed that the impression on the country would be favorable and +thus a Democratic Congress might be elected. + +Being agreed, Mr. Cummings and Mr. McCormick went to the White +House and argued for a less partisan appeal. All they accomplished +was the striking of Mr. Lodge's name out of the appeal by +convincing Mr. Wilson that he could not attack the Republican +Senator while ignoring the worse offenses of Mr. Kitchen and Champ +Clark in his own party. + +For the rest, the President made the appeal more purely personal +and more partisan than before. He could not get the Lodge obsession +out of his mind. He could not bring himself to ask for the election +of members of Mr. Lodge's party. The wisdom of Mr. Cummings and Mr. +McCormick was soon vindicated. The appeal with Mr. Lodge's name out +was only a shade less impolitic than it would have been with his +name in. It gave Mr. Lodge his majority in the Senate and turned +the peace into a personal issue between the two "scholars in +politics." + +By this time Mr. Wilson had lost his sense of actuality. He could +ask the nation for a Congress to his liking as a personal due. He +could condemn Mr. Lodge as an enemy of those purposes with which we +entered the war, simply because Mr. Lodge could hurt him as no +other man could. The President had been talking for some months to +the whole world and the whole world had listened with profound +attention. His mission had taken, unconsciously perhaps, a +Messianic character. His enemies were the enemies of God. The +ordinary metes and bounds of personality had broken down. The state +of mind revealed in the appeal as originally written was the state +of mind of the Peace Conference and of the fight over the Treaty +and the League which succeeded the Peace Conference. All that +happened afterwards, including the pitiful personal tragedy, had +become inevitable. + +For a while at Paris amid the triumphs of his European reception +and the successes of the first few months up to the adoption of the +League covenant Mr. Wilson forgot Mr. Lodge, forgot him too +completely. + +It was my fortune to see him at the apex of his career. He was +about to sail for America on that visit which he made here in the +midst of the treaty making. His League covenant had just been +agreed to. The world had accepted him. Fate had led him far from +those paths of defeat and obscurity into which his sensitiveness +and shyness had turned him as a youth. He was elated and confident. +He looked marvelously fresh and young, his color warm and youthful, +his eye alive with pleasure. + +He talked long and well, answered questions freely, told stories of +his associates at the peace table, especially of one who never read +the memoranda his secretaries prepared, who was so deaf that he +could not hear a word spoken in conference and who spoke so loudly +that no one could interrupt him. "What could one do," Mr. Wilson +asked, "to penetrate a mind like that?" M. Clemenceau, who unlike +this other commissioner, had eyes and saw not, had ears and neither +would he hear, had said to him once, in response to a firm +negative, "You have a heart of steel!" "I felt like replying to +him," flashed Mr. Wilson, "I have not the heart to steal!" + +So well poised, so sure of himself he felt that he could do an +extraordinary thing. He could laugh off a mistake. Robuster natures +accept mistakes as a child accepts tumbles. Mistakes for Mr. Wilson +were ordinarily crises for his arrogancy. + +You may judge, then, how confident he was at that supreme moment. +He could brush aside a great mistake lightly. Someone asked him, +"What about the freedom of the seas?" + +"The freedom of the seas!" he answered, "I must tell you about +that. It's a great joke on me. I left America thinking the freedom +of the seas the most important issue of the Peace Conference. When +I got here I found there was no such issue. You see the freedom of +the seas concerns neutrals in time of war. But when we have the +League of Nations there will be no neutrals in time of war. So, of +course, there will be no question of the freedom of the seas. I +hadn't thought the thing out clearly." + +From that moment the decline began. Mr. Wilson had unwisely chosen +to have his victory first and his defeats afterward, always bad +generalship. + +Compromise followed compromise, each one destructive. The fourteen +points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them +by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. +The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind +cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. + +The President saw only slowly the consequences of that chaffering +to which Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau led him. He was a poor +merchant. He dealt in morals and could cast up no daily balance. He +was busy with details for which his mind had no sufficient +curiosity or energy. Mr. Keynes, in his remarkable description of +Mr. Wilson making peace, says that his mind was slow. + +Doubtless it was slow in political trading about the council table, +just as a philosopher may be slow in the small talk of a five +o'clock tea. + +Mr. Wilson was out of his element in the conference; Mr. Lloyd +George and M. Clemenceau were in theirs. Gradually the conviction +entered Mr. Wilson's soul that what was being destroyed at Paris +was Mr. Wilson. The figure of Senator Lodge began to rise across +the Atlantic, malevolent and evil, the Lodge against whom he had +wanted to appeal to the American people. + +The strain was telling upon him. He had to sit beside his +destroyers with that smiling amiability which Mr. Lansing records +in his book. He had to deal with men on a basis of equality, a +thing which he had run away from doing in his youth, which all his +life had made too great demands upon his sensitive, arrogant +nature. + +One whose duty it was to see him every night after the meetings of +the Big Three reports that he found him with the left side of his +face twitching. To collect his memory he would pass his hand +several times wearily over his brow. The arduousness of the labor +was not great enough to account for this. M. Clemenceau at nearly +eighty stood the strain and an assassin's bullet as well. Mr. Lloyd +George thrived on what he did. But the issue was not personal with +them. Neither was assisting, with difficult amiability, at his own +destruction. The time came when he might have had back some of the +ground he had given. Mr. Lloyd George offered it to him. He would +not have it. What it was proposed to amend was not so much the +peace treaty as Mr. Wilson himself, and he could not admit that he +needed amendment. + +The issue had become personal and Mr. Lodge, upon Mr. Wilson's +return, with malevolent understanding, kept it personal. The +Republicans made their fight in the one way that made yielding by +the President impossible. They made it nominally on the League but +really on Mr. Wilson. The President might have compromised on the +League, but he could not compromise on Mr. Wilson. Of such +involvement in self there could be only one end. + +Like a poet of one poem, Mr. Wilson is a statesman of one vision, +an inspiring vision, but one which his own weakness kept him from +realizing. His domestic achievements are not remarkable, his +administration being one in which movements came to a head rather +than one in which much was initiated. He might have cut the war +short by two years and saved the world much havoc, if he had begun +to fight when the Lusitania was sunk. Once in the war he saw his +country small and himself large; he did not conceive of the nation +as winning the war by sending millions of men to France; he saw +himself as winning the war by talking across the Atlantic. At the +Peace Conference he did not conceive of his country's winning the +peace by the powerful position in which victory had left it; he saw +himself as winning the peace by the hold he personally had upon the +peoples of Europe. Like Napoleon, of whom Marshal Foch wrote +recently, "Il oublia qu'un homme ne peut etre Dieu; qu'au-dessus de +l' individu, il y a la nation," he forgot that man can not be God; +that over and above the individual there is the nation. + +In politics he knew at first better than any other, again to quote +Foch, that "above men is morality." This knowledge brought him many +victories. But at critical junctures, as in his 1918 appeal to the +voters and in the treaty fight, he forgot that morality was above +one man, himself. He excelled in appeals to the heart and +conscience of the nation, a gift Mr. Harding has not; the lesser +arts of the politician, tact and skill in the handling and +selecting of men, were lacking. + +He forgot in his greatness and aloofness the national passion for +equality; which a more brilliant politician, Mr. Roosevelt, +appeased by acting as the people's court jester, and which a +shrewder politician, Mr. Harding, guards against by reminding the +country that he is "just folks"; and in the end the masses turned +upon him, like a Roman mob on a defeated gladiator. + + + + +GEORGE HARVEY + + +There is something inscrutably ludicrous in the anxiety, bordering +upon consternation, that lurks in the elongated and grotesque +shadow that George Harvey casts upon Washington. The Republican +fathers, who now feel a sense of responsibility, after a lapse of +many years, for the future of party and country, do not yet know +how to take him. + +As a campaign asset his value could be expressed in intelligible +terms. But as a party liability, or asset,--many a good Republican +wishes he knew which,--he remains an enigma. There is not one of +the array of elders of either political persuasion who, while +laughing at his satirical sword-play, does not watch him covertly +out of the corner of the eye, trembling at the potential ruin they +consider him capable of accomplishing. + +With all his weaknesses,--principally an almost hilarious political +irregularity,--but two Republican hands were raised against him in +the Senate when he was nominated for the Court of Saint James. When +he rather unbecomingly filliped John Bull on the nose in his maiden +speech as the premier ambassador, incidentally ridiculing some of +his own countrymen's war ideals, President Harding and Secretary +Hughes, gravely and with rather obvious emphasis, tried to set the +matter aright as best they could. But there was no hint of +reprimand; only a fervent hope that the mercurial Harvey would +remain quiescent until the memory of the episode passed. + +The quondam editor, now the representative of his country on the +Supreme Council, in which capacity he is even more important than +as Ambassador, represents a new strain in American politics. His +mental habits bewilder the President, shock the proper and somewhat +conventional Secretary of State, and throw such repositories of +national divinity as Senators Lodge and Knox into utter confusion. + +Harvey plays the game of politics according to his own rules, the +underlying principle of which is audacity. He knows very well that +the weak spot in the armor of nearly all politicians of the old +school is their assumption of superiority, a sort of mask of +benignant political venerability. They dread satire. They shrink +from ridicule. A well-directed critical outburst freezes them. +Such has been the Harvey method of approach. Having reduced his +subjects to a state of terror, he flatters them, cajoles them, and +finally makes terms with them; but he always remains a more or less +unstable and uncertain quantity, potentially explosive. + +There is not much of the present Harvey to be gleaned from his +earlier experiences, except the pertinacity that has had much to do +with his irregular climb up the ladder. He was born in Peacham, +Vermont, where as a boy after school hours he mounted a stool in +his father's general store and kept books. At the end of the year +his accounts were short a penny. Because of this he received no +Christmas gift not, as he has said, because his father begrudged +the copper more than any other Vermont storekeeper, but because he +was meticulously careful himself and expected the younger +generation to be likewise. + +This experience must have been etched upon Harvey's memory; no one +can be more meticulous when his interest is aroused. To money he is +indifferent, but a misplaced word makes him shudder. Writing with +him is an exhausting process, which probably accounts for the fact +that his literary output has been small. But the same power of +analysis and attention to detail have been most effective in his +political activities. In these his divination has been prophetic +and in his manipulation of contending elements he shows a dexterity +that has baffled even the professional politicians. + +Harvey began his journalistic career upon the Peacham Patriot. +Thence, with a borrowed ten dollar bill, he went to Springfield, +serving his apprenticeship on the Republican, the best school of +journalism in the country at that time. Later, on the Chicago +Evening News, on the staff of which were Victor Lawson, Eugene +Field, and Melville Stone, he completed his training. + +When he joined the staff of the New York World at the age of +twenty-one he was a competent, if not a brilliant newspaper man. +His first important billet was the New Jersey editorship. This +assignment across the river might very easily have been the first +step toward a journalistic sepulcher, but not for Harvey. He made +use of the post to garner an experience and knowledge of New Jersey +politics that were to have an important bearing upon the career of +Woodrow Wilson later. At the same time he attracted the attention +of Joseph Pulitzer who appointed him managing editor of the World +before he was thirty. + +While directing the World's policy during the second Cleveland +campaign, Harvey met Thomas F. Ryan and William C. Whitney, the +financial backers of the Democratic party. This prepared the way +for his step from Park Row to Wall Street after his break with +Pulitzer. + +But the ways of Wall Street were not for Harvey. Nevertheless he +was cautious enough to help himself to some of the profits that +were forthcoming in those days of great amalgamations. With +commendable foresight, however much he might have despised the +methods then prevalent in the fields of high finance, he acquired +enough to make him independent, to follow his own bent, and +strangely enough, in the acquiring he came to the conclusion that +the Republic could not survive if the plundering of the people by +the "interests" continued as it was proceeding at that time. + +He withdrew from the Street and eventually purchased The North +American Review. In the meantime J. P. Morgan and Company had +underwritten the bonds of the Harper publishing house and the elder +Morgan asked Harvey to take charge of the institution. This he +agreed to do with the understanding that he should be permitted to +direct the policy of Harper's Weekly, one of the assets of the +firm, without interference from the bankers. + +With his peculiar faculty for detecting the weaknesses of +financiers and politicians, Harvey now had before him an +opportunity which was not afforded by the sedate old North American +Review and he promptly took advantage of it. He had seen enough of +the union of finance and politics to place little faith in either +of the old parties. One was corrupt and powerful; the other was +weak and parasitical. In both organizations money was a compelling +consideration. Not being accustomed to think in terms of party +allegiance Harvey decided that the only remedy for a very bad +situation was a militant Democracy. He had the organ; next he +needed the leader. + +About this time, quite accidentally, he was present at Woodrow +Wilson's inauguration as president of Princeton University. The +professor appealed to the editor,--why, one can only conjecture. +Perhaps it was a common abhorrence of machine politics, a passion +for phrase turning, for there is a similarity in the methods of the +two which separates them from the rank and file of ordinary +politicians. Harvey scrutinized Wilson more carefully, making a +political diagnosis by a careful examination of his works, and +decided that he was the man to turn the trick. + +But the gap between the presidency of Princeton and the Presidency +of the United States was too wide to be taken at one leap. Harvey +concluded that the governorship of New Jersey must be the +intermediate step. The Democratic year of 1910 provided the +opportunity. + +The New Jersey politicians did not care about the college +professor. They had already chosen a candidate, but Harvey induced +them to change their minds. How this was accomplished is an +absorbing political tale, too long to be narrated here. The New +Jersey political leaders of that period will tell you that if Mr. +Wilson's "forward-looking" men had controlled the convention he +never would have been nominated. They will also tell you how Joseph +Patrick Tumulty opposed the nomination. They will even whisper that +the contests were settled rather rapidly that memorable evening. +After the nomination was announced, Mr. Wilson's managers escorted +him to the convention hall where he addressed a group of delegates +who were none too enthusiastic. + +As they motored back to the hotel Mr. Wilson is reported to have +asked: "By the way, gentleman, what was my majority?" + +To which Mr. Nugent replied cryptically: "It was enough." + +The question, at least in the presence of these gentlemen, it is +said was never asked again. + +Much has been said about the break between Mr. Harvey and Mr. +Wilson. The published correspondence gives a fairly accurate +picture of what happened at the Manhattan Club on the morning of +the parting. I do not believe that Mr. Wilson dropped Colonel +Harvey because he feared he was under Wall Street influence. The +Harvey version sounds more plausible. According to this the +erstwhile university professor had learned the technique of +political strategy. He no longer felt that he was in need of +guidance. + +"I was not surprised at the excuse he gave a little later when the +break came," said Harvey. "I would not have been surprised at any +excuse he offered." + +Mr. Harvey retired from the campaign. Harper's Weekly had been +wrecked, whether or not by the espousal of the Wilson cause, and he +sold it to Norman Hapgood who buried it in due course. George +Harvey might or might not have had visions of an appointment to the +Court of St. James at that time. It is at least certain that his +disappointment was keen, taking a form of vindictiveness which will +survive as a distinct blot upon his career. In the preconvention +campaign he aligned himself with the Champ Clark forces, but it was +too late to undo the work he had done. + +This episode is necessary to an understanding of what happened +later. His transfer from the Democratic to the Republican party was +a characteristically bold move. How genuine his later allegiance +may be is a question which more than one Republican would like to +have answered, but there is no doubt of the success of his coup. He +is, at least where he wanted to be, occupying the post which he +considers, in point of importance, next to the presidency itself, +Mr. Hughes notwithstanding. + +When the United States entered the war Harvey found himself in the +secluded position of editor of the North American Review. This did +not suit his disposition at all and he was very unhappy. He was too +old to fight and it was not likely that he would be invited to +Washington. In the meantime stories of mismanagement in the conduct +of the war began to trickle out of the capital in devious +undercurrents. The press, in a passive spirit of patriotism, was +silent. Here was the opportunity. + +In January, 1918, the first edition of the "North American Review +War Weekly" appeared. Its editor announced that its purpose was to +help win the war by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing +but the truth. He defied the Creels, the Daniels, and the +Burlesons, adopting the motto, "To hell with the censors and +bureaucrats." + +The journal was an instant success. Not only was it read with +avidity but the Washington politicians were flabbergasted at the +audacity of a man who dared to print what the press associations +and the dailies would not touch. I do not think there can be any +doubt of the genuineness of Harvey's motives at this time. His +journal was rigidly non-partisan. He spared no one whom he +considered as an encumbrance in the winning of the war. + +The most striking evidence of his attitude toward the Republican +party at this time is found in the edition of the "Weekly" of March +9, 1918. Will H. Hays had just been elected chairman of the +Republican National Committee. He made a speech extolling the +virtues of his party. Of this Harvey made a stinging analysis +denouncing Hays for invoking partisan spirit at so perilous an +hour, concluding with this paragraph: + +"As for Mr. Hays, with his insufferable claptrap about absolute +unity as a blanket under which to gather votes while the very +existence of the nation is threatened more ominously than anybody +west of the Alleghanies--or in Washington, for that matter,--seems +to realize, the sooner he goes home and takes his damned old party +with him, the better it will be for all creation." + +Surely no uncertain language! One might have supposed that the +Chairman of the Republican Committee would have done nothing of the +kind, but he did. Again the Harvey method was effective. Hays +instead of resenting the denunciation wrote Harvey a rather abject +letter, expressing the fear that he might have made a mistake in +discussing politics during the war and asked for an interview. + +Here another Harvey characteristic came into play. He did not +assume the lofty role of mentor or prophet; he very tactfully and +gently tucked the young Indianian under his wing. Thenceforth there +were no more oratorical blunders. + +Mr. Hays began to exhibit some capacity for leadership; his +speeches improved. From that day until the election of 1920 he +never made one without George Harvey's counsel and approval. + +This is as typical of Harvey as his audacity. He has a gentleness +and charm quite unexpected in so savage a commentator. He will +discuss and advise but he will not argue; and all of the time he +will probe with uncanny accuracy for the weaknesses of those with +whom he is dealing. It is rather by the weaknesses of others than +by his own strength that he triumphs. + +Eight months after his meeting with Hays, Harvey came to Washington +where his shadow was cast over the destinies of the Republican +party, which at that time consisted of a dozen elements with little +in common except a hatred of Woodrow Wilson. + +It was an ideal situation for the exercise of Harvey's peculiar +talents. He met various factional leaders and before many weeks his +house became their rendezvous, the G. H. Q. of the forces who were +to encompass the defeat of Wilson. Harvey flattered and cajoled and +counselled, enjoying himself immensely all of the time. This +diversion was much more to his liking than the academic dignity of +the editorship of the "North American Review". + +When President Wilson sailed away on his disastrous mission to +Paris, Harvey's "Weekly" threw aside all restraint. It cut and +slashed indiscriminately the President's policies. For the first +time Harvey took on the guise of a Republican among Republicans. He +even aided and abetted, with amused cynicism, the groping and +fumbling of Republican leaders who were dazzled at the sudden break +in the political clouds which had so long enshrouded them. He +helped raise the funds used to counteract the league propaganda and +toured the country in opposition to it. + +The next shift in scenes was as much beyond Mr. Harvey's power of +manipulation as it was beyond most of the Republicans who now +sagaciously give the impression that their hands were on the ropes. +Stories have been told of the great part Mr. Harvey played in the +nomination of Mr. Harding. Mr. Harvey did not go to Chicago with +the intention of supporting Mr. Harding any more than any other of +the candidates, except Wood and Hiram Johnson, whom he despised. + +He and the Senate oligarchy that coyly took the credit for +nominating Mr. Harding turned to him when it was manifest that the +machinery was stalled. Mr. Harding owes his nomination to a mob of +bewildered delegates. It was not due to a wisely conceived nor +brilliantly executed plan. + +I doubt very much that George Harvey and President Harding had much +in common until Harvey was invited to Marion. At that time the +"irreconcilables" were beginning to be afraid that Elihu Root and +William H. Taft were about to induce Mr. Harding to accept a +compromise on the League of Nations. Harvey served the purpose of +restoring the equilibrium. At the same time it is quite probable +that the President was impressed by a mind so much more agile than +his own. It was reasonably certain that it would not be diverted or +misled by the intricacies of European diplomacy. And there was +never any doubt of Harvey's Americanism. + +The President's selection of Mr. Harvey for the London post is, of +course, accounted for in other ways. There are some persons who +profess to believe that Mr. Harding preferred to have the militant +editor in London and his "Weekly" in the grave rather than to have +him as a censor of Washington activities under the new regime. It +can be said definitely that a sigh of relief went up from many a +Republican bosom when the sacrilegious journal was brought to a +timely end. And this did not happen, it is to be observed, until +the nomination of George Harvey to the Court of St. James was duly +ratified and approved by the Senate of the United States. + +But if the "Weekly" has passed, the Republicans are still acutely +conscious that Mr. Harvey is alive,--has he not reminded them of it +in his first ambassadorial utterances?--and the journal is not +beyond resuscitation. That is why Washington does not know whether +to be chagrined or angry, whether to disavow or to condone. The +discomfited Republicans frankly do not know what to think of it and +probably will not so long as the amazing ambassador makes his own +rules. + + + + +CHARLES EVANS HUGHES + + +"Mais resiste-t-on a' la vertu? Les gens qui n'eurent point de +faiblesses sont terribles," observed Sylvestre Bonnard of the +redoubtable Therese. + +This fearsomeness of the good is an old story. Horace remarked it, +when, walking about near Rome, pure of heart and free from sin, he +met a wolf. The beast quailed before his virtue and ran away,--to +bark at the statue of the she wolf giving suck to Romulus, by way +of intelligent protest. + +A similar prevalence of virtue and a similar romantic quality, +where it is least to be expected, was disclosed in a recent +encounter between Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State, and one +of the irreconcilables, when Mr. Hughes, integer vitae scelerisque +purus had just commissioned Colonel George Harvey to take the seat +once occupied by Woodrow Wilson in the Supreme Council. + +When the news of this appointment reached the Capitol, Senator +Brandegee, of Connecticut, hurried down to that structure across +the street from the White House whose architectural style so +markedly resembles the literary style of President Harding, the +State War and Navy Building, official residence of Mr. Hughes. + +Harvey being, in a sort, Brandegee's ambassador to the Court of +Saint James, the Senator's object was to tell Mr. Hughes what +Harvey should do in the Supreme Council. Mr. Brandegee has the gift +of direct and forceful speech. In his earnestness, he dispenses +with the elegancies and amenities. The upper ranges of his voice +are not conciliatory. + +In this tone, he developed views regarding this country's foreign +relations with which Mr. Hughes could not agree. The Secretary of +State combatted the Senator from Connecticut precisely as he +combats counsel of the other side when a $500,000 fee is at stake. +The discussion was energetic and divergent. + +Mr. Brandegee hurried back to the Capitol and summoned other +senators to his office, all those who were especially concerned +about the exposure of Colonel Harvey to European entanglements. + +He was excited. His voice was nasal. His language, in that select +gathering, did not have to be parliamentary. He told the senators +that they could expect the Versailles treaty by the next White +House messenger; that "that whiskered,"--but nothing lies like +direct quotes,--that "that whiskered" Secretary of State would soon +get us into the League of Nations, being able for his purposes to +wind President Harding about his little finger! + +His excitement in such an emergency naturally communicated itself +to his hearers. What to do? It was unanimously decided that the +only adequate course was for Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to resign as +Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by way of +protest. + +Henry Cabot Lodge running away from his chairmanship would be Henry +Cabot Lodge behaving as romantically as Horace's wolf. The good are +terrible, as Anatole France said in the words with which this +sketch begins. It is not so much that you can not resist them, as +that they lead you to make such fools of yourselves. + +Mr. Hughes prevails, however, not merely by his virtue, but by his +intelligence. His is the best mind in Washington; to this everyone +agrees, and it is not excessive praise, for minds are not common in +the Government. + +Mr. Harding has not a remarkable one, the people having decided by +seven million majority that it was best not to have one in the +White House, choosing instead, a good heart, excellent intentions, +and reasonable common sense. Mr. Hoover has a fine business +instinct, great but diffused mental energy, but hardly an organized +mind. From this point the Cabinet grades down to the Secretary of +Labor, who, when Samuel Gompers, Jr., his Chief Clerk, addressed +him before visitors as, "Mr. Secretary," said, "Please don't call +me, 'Mr. Secretary,' Sam. Call me, 'Jim.' I'm more used to it." + +"Call me Jim" is the mental sea level of the Administration, by +which altitudes are measured, so let us not exalt Mr. Hughes' mind +unduly, but merely indicate what its habits are. Its operations +were described to me by a member of the Cabinet, who said that no +matter what subject was up for discussion at a Cabinet meeting, it +was always the Secretary of State who said the final convincing +word about it, summing it all up, saying what everyone else had +been trying to say but no one else had entirely succeeded in +saying, simplifying it, and all with an air of service, not of +self-assertion. + +Mr. Harding, speaking to an intimate friend, said he had "two +strong advisers,--Hughes and Hoover." + +It is a satisfaction, even though it is not a delight, to come in +contact with a mind like Mr. Hughes'; it is so definite, so hard +and firm and palpable. You feel sure that it rests somewhere on the +eternal verities. It is never agnostic. It has none of the malaise +of the twentieth century. Mr. Justice Brandeis, when Mr. Hughes was +governor of New York and a reformer and progressive, said of him, +"His is the most enlightened mind of the eighteenth century." + +I think the Justice put it a century or two too late, for by the +eighteenth century skepticism had begun to undermine those firm +foundations of belief which Mr. Hughes still possesses. For him a +straight line is the shortest distance between two points,--Einstein +to the contrary, notwithstanding. + +Conclusions rest upon the absolute rock of principle, as morality +for his preacher father rested upon the absolute rock of the Ten +Commandments. There is no doubt, no uncertainty, no nuance, no on +the one hand, on the other, no discursiveness, no yielding to the +seductions of fancy, but a stern keeping of the faith of the +syllogism; a thing is so or it is not so. Mr. Hughes never +hesitates. He never says, "I must think about that." He has thought +about it. Or he turns instantly to his Principle and has the +answer. + +You speak of Mr. Hughes to ten men in the Capitol, and nine of them +will say to you, "Of course it is easy to understand; his is the +one real mind in Washington." + +Everyone is impressed, for, starting with no other initiation into +the mysteries of foreign relations than having had a father born in +Wales and having spent his vacations in England, probably in the +lake region studying the topography of Wordsworth's poetry,--a +certain oft detected resemblance to Wilson must make Wordsworth his +favorite poet, as he was Wilson's,--in ten days was he not a great +Secretary of State; and in three months the greatest Secretary of +State? To be sure, back of him was the strongest nation on the +earth, left so by the war, the one nation with resources, the +creditor of all the others, to which a successful foreign policy +would be naturally easy if it could only decide what that policy +should be. + +It was left to Mr. Hughes to say what it should be. His discovery +of the word "interests," amazed Washington; it was so obvious, so +simple that no one else had thought of it. Mr. Hughes' mind works +like that;--hard, cold, unemotional, not to be turned aside, it +simplifies everything, whether it be a treaty fight that has +confused everyone else in the land, or a rambling Cabinet +discussion; whether it be the mess in which the war left Europe, or +the chaos in which watchful waiting left Mexico. His is a mind that +delights in formulae. He has one for Europe. He has one for Mexico. +It is an analytical, not a synthetical mind, a lawyer's mind, not a +creator's, like Wilson's, with, perhaps it may turn out, a fatal +habit of over-simplification. Life is not a simple thing after +all. + +But effective simplification is instantly overwhelming; and he made +his brief announcement, a few days after taking office, that the +United States had won certain things as a belligerent, that it had +not got them, that he was going after them, that other countries +could expect nothing from us until they had recognized our rights +and our interests; he had completely routed the Senate, which had +been opposing Wilson's ideals with certain ideals of its own, +pitting Washington's farewell address against "breaking the heart +of the world," in a mussy statement of sentimentality. + +Mr. Hughes talked of islands and oil and dollars; and the country +came to its senses. Mr. Wilson had pictured us going into world +affairs as an international benefactor; it was sobby and suggested +a strain on our pocketbooks. The Senate had pictured us staying out +of them because our fathers had warned us to stay out and because +the international confidence men would cheat us; it was +Sunday-school-booky and unflattering. Mr. Hughes said we should go +in to the extent of obtaining what was ours, and that we should stay +out to the extent of keeping the others from obtaining what certainly +was not theirs. It sounded grown-up; as a Nation we belonged not to +the sob-sisterhood, neither were we tied to the apronstring of the +Mothers of the Constitution. + +Our national self-respect was restored. Truly, it required a mind +to discover "interests" in the cloud of words that Mr. Wilson and +the Senate had raised. Of course, it is all clear now, when +everybody scorns idealism and talks glibly of interests. "Hobbs +hints blue, straight he turtle eats; Nobbs prints blue, claret +crowns his cup." But it was Hughes who "fished the murex up," who +pulled "interests" out of the deep blue sea of verbal fuddlement. + +And thinking of our dollars, thanks to Mr. Hughes, we are made sane +and whole, clearsighted and unafraid, standing erect among the +nations of the earth asking lustily for Yap. + +Our foreign relations had been the subject of passion. Mr. Hughes +made them the subject of reason. Mr. Wilson could think of nothing +but his hatred of Lodge, which rendered an agreement with the +Senate impossible, and his hatred of Lloyd George and Marshal Foch, +which rendered cooperation with the Allies and through it +achievements in the foreign field that would have reconciled the +public to his policies, equally impossible. + +Mr. Hughes looked at his task objectively. He saw the power of the +United States. He saw how easy it was to exert that power +diplomatically. He saw the simple and immediate concerns of the +United States. Foch says that he won the war, "by smoking his +pipe," meaning by keeping cool and regarding his means and ends +with the same detachment with which he would study an old campaign +of Napoleon. I do not know on what sedative Mr. Hughes wins his +diplomatic victories, as he does not smoke a pipe;--perhaps by +reading the Sunday School Times. But like the French Marshal, he +knows the secret of keeping his head. It is a great quality of mind +not to lose it when you most need it. Mr. Hughes has it. Perhaps +this is why Washington remarks his mind; he always has it with him. + +"I am not thinking of myself in my work here," he said once. "I +don't care about immediate acclaim. I am counsel for the people of +this country. If a generation from now they think their interests +have been well represented, that will be enough." + +He is coldly objective. + +Mr. Hughes comes by his coolness naturally. He was born to it, +which is the surest way to come by anything. Men have hated him for +it, coolness being a disconcerting quality, ever since he emerged +from obscurity in New York during the insurance investigation, +calling it his "coldness" and adding by way of good measure the +further specification, his "selfishness." + +If the last characterization is to stand, it should be amended to +read, his "enlightened selfishness." He has a good eye for his own +interests. Roosevelt disliked him for it, because when governor and +again when candidate for president, he refused to gravitate into +the Roosevelt solar system, taking up his orbit like the rest of +them about the Colonel. But think what happened to that system when +the great sun of it went out! + +His political associates in New York hated him, accused him of +being "for nothing but Hughes," when he quit them in the fight "to +hand the government back to the people" and went, on the invitation +of President Taft, upon the Supreme Bench. But it was his only way +out. If he had gone on working with them, he would still be +"handing the government back to the people" along with,--but who +were the great figures of 1910? He knows an expiring issue and its +embarrassments by an unerring instinct. He finds a new one, such as +"our national interests," with as sure a sense. + +It is worth while casting a glance at him "smoking his pipe," when +other real and false opportunities presented themselves to him; one +finds discrimination. He refuses a Republican nomination for Mayor +of New York City when there is not a chance of electing a +Republican Mayor of New York City. He accepts a Republican +nomination for Governor of New York State, when the putting up of +Hearst as the Democratic candidate makes the election of a +Republican as Governor of New York State morally certain. He +refuses the Republican nomination for President, in 1912, when +another, viewing himself and his party less objectively, through +vanity perhaps, might have believed that his own nomination was the +one thing needed to prevent that year's Republican cataclysm. Four +years later he accepts the Republican nomination for President, +when as the result showed, there is at least a reasonable chance to +win. He takes the post of Secretary of State when neglected +opportunities lie ready to his hand and when the force of world +events requires little more than his intelligent acquiescence to +bring him diplomatic success. + +His discovery of "interests" was no accident. It sprang from that +hard unemotional simplifying habit of his mind. + +When one writes of Mr. Hughes, men ask, pardonably, "Which Mr. +Hughes? The old Mr. Hughes, or the new Mr. Hughes?" for he has had, +as the literary critics would say, his earlier and his later +manner. + +But it is chiefly manner, a smile recently achieved, a different +way of wearing the beard, a little less of the stern moralist, a +little more of the man of the world. A connoisseur of Hughes, who +has studied him for nearly twenty years, after a recent +observation, pronounced judgment: "It's the same Hughes, a trifle +less cold, but just as dry." And the Secretary of State himself, +when one of the weeklies contained an article on "The New Mr. +Hughes," remarked, "People did not understand me then, that is +all." + +These two eminent authorities being substantially agreed for the +first time during many divergent years, there must be something in +it. Mr. Hughes must be a gradually emerging personality. You take +that new warmth, recently detected; Mr. Hughes himself knows it was +always there. It is like the light ray of a star which has needed a +million years to reach the earth; it was always there but it +required a long time to get across. + +Then the beard:--when Mr. Hughes was "handing the government back +to the people" in New York, it was a preacher's beard; you might +have encountered its like anywhere among the circuit riders. Now it +is a foreign secretary's beard; you might encounter it in any +European capital,--a world statesman's beard. The change of beard +reveals the smile, which was probably always there, and the +splendid large teeth. The nose, standing out in bolder relief, is +handsomer and more distinguished. You see more of Mr. Hughes than +you used to and you gain by the improved vision. + +Something has dropped from him, however, beside the ends of the +whiskers. I met him first when he was about to run for President in +1916. An icy veil, like frozen mist, seemed to hang between us. We +talked through it ineffectively. When I saw him again as Secretary +of State, that chill barrier had fallen away; to recur to my +figure, he gradually emerges. + +Mr. Hughes of the later manner is, however, I am persuaded after +long familiarity with his career, more truly Hughesian than the +Hughes of the earlier manner; just as the Henry James of the later +manner is more explicitly Jamesian than the James of the earlier +manner, and the Cabot Lodge of the present is much more +irretrievably Cabotian than the Cabot Lodge who years ago stood +with reluctant feet where the twin paths of scholarship and +politics meet,--and part. + +I should say that Mr. Hughes was Bryan plus the advantages, which +Mr. Bryan never enjoyed, of a correct Republican upbringing and a +mind. The Republican upbringing and the mind have come of late +years to preponderate. Looking at Mr. Hughes to-day, you could not +tell him from a Republican, except perhaps by his mind, though such +esoteric Republicans as Brandegee, Cabot Lodge, and Knox profess an +ability to distinguish. + +But when he was "handing the government back to the people" in New +York, there was too much Bryan about him. The Republicans would +have none of him, except as a choice of evils,--the greater evil +being defeat. They called him ribald names. They referred to him +scornfully as "Wilson with whiskers," when they ran him, +reluctantly, for the Presidency in 1916. His opponent being also of +the Bryan school, and a minister's son at that, Hughes striving for +an issue, failed to make it clear which was which, a doubt that +remained until the last vote from California was finally counted +after the election. This was the Mr. Hughes of the earlier manner. + +Latterly, Mr. Hughes has succeeded in establishing the distinction +which he did not succeed in making during that campaign. When he +confronted the task of Secretary of State, he carefully studied the +international career of Woodrow Wilson, as a sort of inverse +Napoleon, a sort of diplomatic bad example. + +"This," he said to himself, "was a mistake of Wilson," and he noted +it. "And this," he observed thoughtfully, "was another mistake of +Wilson. I shall avoid it." "This," he again impressed on his +memory, "was where Lloyd George and Clemenceau trapped him. I shall +keep out of that pit." + +His head, like a book of etiquette, is full of "Don'ts," diplomatic +"Don'ts," all deduced from the experience of Wilson. + +The former President met Europe face to face. Mr. Hughes thanks his +stars for the breadth of the Atlantic. The former President put his +League of Nations first on his program. Mr. Hughes puts his League +of Nations last, to be set up after every other question is +settled. + +The former President tried to sell the Country pure idealism. Now +as a people we have the habit of wars in which we seek nothing, but +after which, in spite of ourselves, a little territory, a few +islands, or a region out of which we subsequently carve half a +dozen States, is found adhering to us. Mr. Wilson offered us a war +in which, of course, we sought nothing and found, at the end of it, +not the customary few trifles of territory, but the whole +embarrassing, beggarly world adhering to us. The thumbscrew and the +rack could not wring from Mr. Hughes the admission that we are +after anything more lofty than our interests. + +One of the present Secretary's "Don'ts" of similar derivation is +"Don't have a fight with the Senate unless you make sure first that +you have the public with you." + +Mr. Hughes does not run away from fights; he likes them. But +believing God to be on the side with the most battalions, and +intending scrupulously to observe this last "Don't," in order to +secure the necessary popular support, he is as Secretary of State, +"handing the government back to the people," just as he did when +governor,--a little less self-consciously, perhaps, a little less +noisily, but still none the less truly. + +He is the most democratic Secretary of State this Country has ever +had, and this includes Bryan to whose school, as has just been +remarked, he originally belonged. If we are ever to have democratic +control of foreign relations, it will be by the methods of Mr. +Hughes, because of the training and beliefs of Mr. Hughes, and as a +consequence of the most undemocratic control of foreign relations +which our Constitution attempted to fasten upon us. + +A successful foreign policy requires public understanding and +support. The makers of the Constitution established in our +government a nice balance of powers between the various +departments, beautifully adjusted until someone thought of putting +a stone into one side of the balance. That stone is the people. The +Fathers of the Constitution had not noticed it. The executive put +it into its end of the balance some years ago, and the legislative +has been kicking the beam ever since. One nice bit of balancing was +that between the Senate and the Executive on treaty making. In +foreign relations, the President can do everything, and he can do +nothing without the approval of two thirds of the Senate. It is a +nice balance, which broke the heart of John Hay, frittered away the +sentimentalities of Mr. Bryan, and destroyed Mr. Wilson. + +No one ever thought of putting the stone into it until the Senate +did so two years ago, by discussing the Versailles treaty in the +open, right before the public. The people got into the scale, and +Mr. Wilson hit the sky. + +Mr. Hughes observed what happened. He is determined that the stone +this time shall go in on his end of the balance. He talks to the +country daily. He takes the people into his confidence, telling all +that can be told and as soon as it can be told. He makes foreign +relations hold front pages with the Stillman divorce case. He makes +no step without carrying the country with him. He comes as near +conducting a daily referendum on what we shall do for our +"interests" as in a country so big as ours can be done; and that is +democratic control of foreign relations, initiated by the Senate, +for its own undoing. + +Into that balance where he is placing the stone, he will put more +of mankind's destinies than any other man on earth holds in his +hands to-day. His has been a long way up from the shy, sensitive +youth that one who knew him when he was beginning the law describes +to me. He was then unimaginably awkward, incapable of unbending, a +wet blanket socially. An immense effort of will has gone into +fashioning the agreeable and habitual diner-out of to-day, into +profiting by the mistakes of the New York governorship, of the +campaign of 1916. + +One sees still the traces of the early stiffness; the face is +sensitive; the eyes drop, seldom meeting yours squarely; when they +do, they are the mild eyes of the Church! I suppose the early +experiences of the Church help him. + +His attitude toward Colonel Harvey's and other of the President's +diplomatic appointments takes its color from his good father's +attitude toward the problem of evil. God put evil in the world, and +it is not for man to question. The President sends the Harveys +abroad; they are not Mr. Hughes', but his own personal representatives. +It is not for Mr. Hughes to question. + +He grows a better Republican every day. And the Republicans of the +Senate are not reconciled. They feel like the man who saw the +hippopotamus: + + If he should stay to tea, I thought, + There won't be much for us. + +There won't be much for them. Enthusiasm grows among them over his +admirable fitness for reinterment on the Supreme Bench. + + + + +EDWARD M. HOUSE + + +The nature of Colonel Edward M. House was fully revealed by a story +of his youth, which he told me at Paris in the concluding moments +of the Peace Conference. He was elated and confident. The +compromises in which he delighted had been made. The gifts had all +been bestowed--of territory which men will have to fight for to +keep, of reparations which will never be paid, of alliances which +will never be carried out, of a League of Nations which the +Colonel's own Nation will never enter. + +Looking the work over with that blindness with which men are struck +who are under the dominion of another and stronger man's mind, his +gentle soul was flooded with happiness. He was as near boasting as +one of his modest habits could be, as his mind turned to the wisdom +of his youth which had brought forth this excellent fruit. + +"I got my first real sight of politics," he said, "when I was a boy +in Cornell University. My great chum there was young Morton, a son +of the Republican war governor of Indiana. The Hayes-Tilden +contest over the Presidency was being decided. Morton and I used to +run away from Ithaca to Washington during that absorbing fight. By +reason of his father's position in the Democratic party, he could +get in behind the scenes as few young men could; and he took me +with him. I saw the whole amazing thing. I made up my mind then and +there that only three or four men in this country counted, and that +there was little chance of rising to be one of those three or four +by the ordinary methods." + +He was, when he said this, at the apex of his career, behind the +scenes of the greatest World Congress ever held, following the +greatest War the world had ever known. And he had been behind the +scenes as had no other man, in Europe as a privileged onlooker with +both belligerents, and in America as the confidant of tremendous +events. + +He was there, as in his college days, at the Hayes-Tilden contest, +by grace of a friend whose influence had been sufficient to secure +him his opportunities. The parallel was in his mind, and he +regarded it with self-approval. He had chosen his course and chosen +it wisely. It had led him to the greatest peace-making in history. + +There was a little more self-revelation. He and Morton had prepared +for college with Yale in view. But Morton had flunked his entrance +examinations at Yale and afterward succeeded in passing the Cornell +tests. House had gone to Cornell to be with his friend, an early +indication of a capacity for self-effacement, for attachment to the +nearest great man at hand who could take him behind the scenes. + +The mystery of Colonel House is that he has been possessed all his +life, almost passionately, with that instinct which makes boys run +to fires. His fastening upon the favorably placed, whether it was +Morton in his youth, or Wilson in his maturity, was not ordinary +self-seeking, not having for its object riches or power or +influence. It was merely desire to see for the pure love of seeing. + +His is a boundless curiosity about both men and events. His eyes +are the clue to his character. Boardman Robinson, with the +caricaturist's gift for catching that feature which exhibits +character, said to me one day during the War, "I just passed +Colonel House on the street. The most wonderful seeing eyes I ever +saw!" + +Nature had made Colonel House all eyes--trivial in figure, +undistinguished, slightly ludicrous, almost shambling, shrinking +under observation so that he gained a reputation for mystery, with +only one feature to catch your attention, a most amazingly fine +pair of eyes. It was as if nature had concentrated on those eyes, +treating all the puny rest of him with careless indifference. They +are eyes that delight in seeing, eyes to seek a place in the first +row of the grand stand of world events, eyes that turn steadily +outward upon objective reality. Not the eyes of a visionary--House +got his visions of the brotherhood of man and the rest of it at +second-hand from Wilson--eyes that glow not with the internal fires +of a great soul, but with the intoxication of the spectacle. + +And with the eyes nature had given House an unerring instinct for +getting where, with his small figure, he could see. The ego of the +passionate spectator is as peculiar as that of the book collector +or the curiosity hunter. Given a shoulder tall enough the +diminutive House perches upon it, like a small boy watching a +circus parade from his father's broad back, whether the shoulder be +Morton's in his youth, or Wilson's in his maturity. + +Some have tried to explain House by saying that he had the vanity +of loving familiarity with the great; but I doubt if House cared +for kings, as kings, any more than a bibliomaniac cares for jade. +He wanted to see; and kings were merely tall objects on which to +perch and regard the spectacle. + +He remained simple and unaffected by his contacts with Europe, did +none of the vulgar aping of the toady, coming away from the Peace +Conference an unconscious provincial, who said "Eye-talian" in the +comic-paper way, and Fiume pronouncing the first syllable as if he +were exclaiming "Fie! for shame!"--an unspoiled Texan who must have +cared as little what kings and potentates thought of him as a +newsboy watching a baseball game cares for the accidental company +of a bank president. + +The world has been good to Colonel House, according to his +standards. He has realized his ambition to the fullest. Life has +given him all he wanted, the privilege of seeing, more abundantly +than to any other in his generation, perhaps in all time; for he is +history's greatest spectator. + +He is glad. His heart is full. He wishes to give in return. He is +the kindest-hearted man who has ever had empires at his disposal. +He wants to give, give, give. He wants to make happy. He was the +fairy godmother of Europe, the diplomatic Carnegie, who thought it +a disgrace to die diplomatically rich. + +For many months I saw him almost daily at Paris. His was a heart of +gold, whether in personal or international relations; but a heart +of gold does not make a great negotiator. Perverse and nationalistic +races of men, incredulous of the millenium, keep their hearts of gold +at home when they go out to deal with their neighbors. + +It was difficult for Colonel House to say no. He might go so far as +to utter the first letter of that indispensable monosyllable; but +before he accomplished the vowel, his mind would turn to some happy +"formula" passing midway between no and yes. He was fertile in +these expedients. Daily he would talk of some new "formula," for +Fiume, for Dantzig, for the Saar Valley, for the occupation of the +Rhine, for Shantung, always happily, always hopefully. The amiable +William Allen White hit off his disposition perfectly when he said +House's daily prayer was, "Give us this day our daily compromise." + +When he split a hair between the south and southwest side, it was +not for logistic pleasure; it was to divide it with splendid +justice and send each of two rival claimants away happy in the +possession of exactly half of the slender filament, so that neither +would be empty handed. I never saw a man so overjoyed as he was one +day late in April or early in May when M. Clemenceau had left his +rooms in the Hotel Crillon with the promise of Franco-American +defensive alliance. + +"The old man," he said, "is very happy. He has got what he has been +after. I can't tell you just now what it is. But he has got it at +last." + +He had been the donor, for Mr. Wilson, of the exact southwest side +of a hair, the promise to submit, without recommendations, an +alliance to the United States Senate, which had little prospect of +ever being accepted by this country. The sight of the French +Premier's happiness made him radiant. + +It was not merely because representatives of foreign governments +found Colonel House easy to see when they could not gain access to +President Wilson that kept a throng running to his quarters in the +Crillon; it was because there they found the line of least +resistance. There was the readiest sympathy. There was the greatest +desire to accommodate. He sought always for a formula that would +satisfy the claims of all. + +A man so ready to compromise is actuated by no guiding principle. +Mr. Scott, the editor of the "Manchester Guardian", said when +President Wilson was in England; "Yes, Lloyd George is honestly for +the League of Nations. But that won't prevent him from doing things +at Paris which will be utterly inconsistent with the principle of +such a league. It isn't intellectual dishonesty; but Lloyd George +hasn't a logical mind. He doesn't understand the implications of +his own position." + +Neither did Colonel House at Paris. The League of Nations was an +emotion with him, not a principle. It was a tremendous emotion. He +spoke of it in a voice that almost broke. I remember his glowing +eyes and the little catch in his throat as he said, at Paris, "The +politicians don't like the League of Nations. And if they really +knew what it would do to them, they would like it still less." + +But, for all that naive faith in the wonders it would do, Colonel +House had not thought out the League of Nations, and was quite +incapable of thinking it out, for he is not a man of analytical +mind; and what mental power he had was inhibited by the glow of his +feelings. His temperature was above the thinking point. Thus, like +Mr. Lloyd George, he could make compromises that played ducks and +drakes with his general position, since he had no real +understanding of the League, which was not an intellectual +conviction with him, arduously arrived at, but which possessed his +soul as by an act of grace, like an old-fashioned religious +conversion. + +He was loyal at heart to Mr. Wilson and to everything that was Mr. +Wilson's, his mind being absorbed into Mr. Wilson's, and having no +independent existence. There are natures which demand an utter and +unquestioning loyalty in those to whom they yield their confidence, +and Mr. Wilson's was of that sort, as a remark of his about +Secretary Colby will indicate. + +When Mr. Lansing was removed from office, the country was astounded +to learn that he was to be succeeded by Bainbridge Colby. The +President communicated his decision first to one of the few who +then had access to his sick room. This adviser ventured to +expostulate. + +"Mr. Colby," he said, "is brilliant, but he is uncertain. His whole +career has lacked stability. He is not known to have the qualities +which the Nation has been taught to expect in a Secretary of +State." + +"At any rate," replied the President sharply, "he is loyal." + +At any rate, Colonel House was loyal. + +The ego of Mr. Wilson demanded and received utter loyalty from him, +a loyalty that forbade thinking, forbade criticism, forbade +independence of any sort. Moreover, Colonel House was in contact +with a mind much stronger than his, with a personality much more +powerful than his. He was caught into the Wilson orbit. He revolved +about Mr. Wilson. He got his light from Mr. Wilson, who had that +power, which Colonel Roosevelt had, of irradiating minor +personalities. Colonel House was nothing until he gravitated to Mr. +Wilson. He is going back to be nothing to-day, nothing but a kind, +lovable man, a gentle soul rather unfitted for the world, with an +extraordinary capacity for friendship and sympathy, and that fine +pair of eyes. + +I remember at Paris the affecting evidences of the little man's +loyalty to his great friend, of whom he could not speak without +emotion. He was never tired of dilating upon the wonder of +President Wilson's mind: + +"I never saw," he would say, "so quick a mind, with such a capacity +for instant understanding. The President can go to the bottom of +the most difficult question as no one else in the world can." + +House's endless "formulae" always bore the self-effacing condition, +"if Mr. Wilson approves." "If Mr. Wilson approves" was the D. V. of +Colonel House's religion. Too much awe of another mind is not good +for your own, or carries with it certain implications about your +own. + +Colonel House's loyalty to Mr. Wilson did not, however, make him +hate the men at Paris who stood across the President's path. The +personal representative's heart was too catholic for that. He-- + + Liked what e're he looked on + And his looks went everywhere. + +He had a kindly feeling for the "old man," Clemenceau. He was a +warm friend of Orlando, with whom Mr. Wilson had his quarrel over +Fiume. He though well of Lloyd George, whom Mr. Wilson went abroad +hating. + +The Peace Conference was to him a personal problem. Peace was peace +between Wilson and Clemenceau and Lloyd George and Orlando. +Compromises were an accommodation among friends. + +I never saw a man so utterly distressed as he was when President +Wilson threatened to break up the Peace Conference and sent for the +George Washington to take him home from Brest. It was as if his own +dearest friends had become involved in a violent quarrel. He did +not see the incident in terms of the principles involved, but only +as the painful interruption of kindly personal relations. Men speak +of him sometimes as the one of our commissioners who knew Europe; +and Europeans, appreciating his sympathy, have fostered this idea +by referring to his understanding of European problems. + +But the Europe Colonel House knew was a personal Europe. The +countries on his map were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando. +The problems of his Europe were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and +Orlando. He knew what Lloyd George wanted. He knew what Clemenceau +wanted. He knew what Orlando wanted. That was enough. + +His kindness of heart, his desire for pleasant personal relations, +his incapacity to think in terms of principles, whether of the +League of Nations or not, betrayed him in the matter of Shantung. +Whether the Peace Conference should return Shantung to China, or +leave it to Japan to return to China was to him, he often said, +"only a question of method. There is no principle involved." The +Japanese were a sensitive people, why should a kind heart question +the excellence of their intentions with respect to China? Shantung +would of course be returned. It was only a question of how. + +The simple heart of Colonel House did not save him, either as a +diplomat or as a friend. The failures at Paris plunged Mr. Wilson +into depression in which he went as far down into the valley as he +had been up on the heights during his vision--of a world made +better by his hand. In his darker moments he saw nothing but enmity +and disloyalty about him--even, a little later, "usurpation" in the +case of the timorous and circumspect Mr. Lansing. + +Colonel House says that he does not yet know what caused the breach +between the President and himself. Relations stopped; that was all. + +This is what occurred: Shortly after Colonel House had convinced +the President that the disposal of Shantung was only a question of +method he disappeared from Paris "to take a rest"; and it became +known that after all he was not to sit in the Council of the League +of Nations representing America, as Mr. Wilson had originally +intended. + +At this time, a close friend of President Wilson and one of his +most intimate advisers, said to me, "The most insidious influence +here is the social influence." + +British entertainment of members of the House family had been +marked and assiduous, and the flattery had had its effect, though +not probably upon the Colonel, who remained unspoiled by social +contacts to the last. Nevertheless, a member of Mr. Wilson's family +had called the President's attention to the social forces that the +British were bringing to bear. The President by this time was in a +mood to be made angry and suspicious. Doubt was lodged in his mind. +And when he found this country critical of the Shantung settlement, +that doubt became a conviction; the British through social +attentions, had wheedled House into a position favorable to their +allies, the Japanese. The loyal House was convicted of the one +unforgivable offense, disloyalty. + +When the casting off of House became, later, in this country +unmistakable, I inquired regarding it of the friend and adviser of +the President whom I have just mentioned, and he repeated to me, +forgetting that he used them before, the exact words he had said at +Paris, "The most insidious influence at the Peace Conference was +the social influence." + +The most insidious influence with Colonel House was the kindness of +his own heart. He had too many friends. His view of international +relations was too personal. Principles will make a man hard, cold, +and unyielding, and Colonel House had no principles, or had them +only parrot-like from Mr. Wilson. He was the human side of the +President, who for those contacts which his office demanded had +found a human side necessary and accordingly annexed the amiable +Texan. + +Wilson's human side had offended him, and he cut it off, +accordingly to the scriptural injunction against the offending +right hand. The act was cruel, but it was just, as just as the +dismissal of Mr. Lansing; for House failed Wilson at Paris, being +one of Wilson's greatest sources of weakness there. His excessive +optimism, his kindheartedness, his credulity, his lack of +independence of mind, his surrender of his imagination to a +stronger imagination, his conception of politics not as morals but +as the adjustment of personal differences, left Wilson without a +capable critical adviser at the Conference. + +When House talked to Wilson, it was a weaker Wilson talking to the +real Wilson. Colonel House in retirement and since the breach, is +still Colonel House, kindhearted and unobtrusive. He has seen, and +he is satisfied. He has a fine and perhaps half-unconscious loyalty +to the great man from whose shoulders he surveyed the world. His is +an ego that brushes itself off readily after a fall and asks for no +alms of sympathy. + +He does not, like Mr. Lansing, fill five hundred octavo pages with +"I told you so," and you can not conceive of his using that form of +self-justification. + +I hope to see him some day playing Santa Claus in a children's +Christmas celebration at a village church! + + + + +HERBERT HOOVER + + +One reads in the press daily of Hughes and Hoover, or Mellen and +Hoover, or Davis and Hoover, or Wallace and Hoover. If it is a +question of foreign relations, it is the Secretary of State and +Hoover. If it has to do with using our power as a creditor nation +to compel the needy foreigners to buy here, in spite of the tariff +wall we are going to erect against their selling here, it is the +Secretary of the Treasury and Hoover. If strikes threaten, it is +the Secretary of Labor and Hoover. If the farmers seek more direct +access to the markets, it is the Secretary of Agriculture and +Hoover. + +It is always "and Hoover." What Mr. Hughes does not know about +international affairs--and that is considerable--Mr. Hoover does. +What Mr. Mellen does not know about foreign finance--and that is +less--Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Davis does not know about labor--and +that is everything--Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Wallace does not +know about farm marketing--and that is nothing--Mr. Hoover does. + +Herbert Hoover is the most useful supplement of the administration. +He possesses a variety of experiences, gained in making money +abroad, in administering the Belgian relief, in husbanding the +world's food supply after our entrance into the War, in helping +write the peace treaty, which no one else equals. He is as handy as +a dictionary of dates or a cyclopedia of useful information, +invaluable books, which never obtain their just due; for no one +ever signs his masterpiece with the name of its coauthor, thus, by +"John Smith and the Cyclopedia of Useful Information." + +A bad particle to ride into fame behind, that word "and," begetter +of much oblivion! Who can say what goes after the "and" which +follows the name McKinley, or Hayes, or Cleveland, or even +Roosevelt? Who has sufficient "faith in Massachusetts" to remember +long the decorous dissyllable connected by "and" with the name +Harding? The link, "and," is not strong enough to hold. You recall +the "and"; that is all; as in the case of that article of food, +origin of many "calories," to use Mr. Hoover's favorite word, in +the quick-serve resorts of the humble, where it supplements ably +and usefully, but without honorable mention, slender portions of +beef, pork, and ham. + +To describe briefly, in a phrase, what has happened to Hoover; two +years ago, it was "Hoover"; to-day, it is "and Hoover." + +Why the connective? Because, to put it bluntly, however great his +other gifts are--and they are remarkable--he lacks political +intelligence. He reminds one now of a great insect caught in the +meshes of a silken web. He struggles this way and that. He flutters +his wings, and the web of politics fastens itself to him with a +hundred new contacts. + +Facing possible elimination from public life, he accepted a dull +and unromantic department under President Harding. He was told that +he could "make something of it." Modern Greeks bearing gifts always +bring you an opportunity which "you, and you alone, can make +something of." He is trying to make something of it, something more +than Mr. Harding and the party advisers intended when they gave him +the Secretaryship of Commerce. He is trying to dramatize some turn +of fate and be once more a "big figure." He is tireless. He arrives +at his office fabulously early. Clerks drop in their tracks before +he leaves at night. He has time to see everyone who would see him; +for he can never tell when "the man with the idea" will knock at +his door. Unlike the British naval officer charged with the duty of +examining inventions to win the War, who is described by Guedalla as +sitting like an inverted Micawber "waiting for something to turn +down," he is waiting for something to turn up. He does more than +wait; he works twenty hours a day trying to turn something up. + +And he will turn something up. The chances are that he will do as +much for the infant foreign trade of this country as Alexander +Hamilton did for the infant finances of this country. He promises +to be the most useful cabinet officer in a generation. But this is +less than his ambition. If he were an unknown man, it would be +enough; but you measure him by the stature of Hoover of the Belgian +Relief. Like the issue of great fathers, he is eclipsed by a +preceding fame. As well be the son of William Shakespeare as the +political progeny of Hoover, The Food Administrator! + +The War spoiled life for many men; for Wilson, for Baruch, for +Hoover. After its magnificent amplifications of personality, it is +hard to descend to every day, and be not a tremendous figure, but a +successful secretary of an unromantic department. + +He might concentrate with advantage to his future fame. A brief +absence from front pages, under the connective "and," would cause +the public heart to grow fonder when he did "make something" of his +own department. + +But two disqualifications stand in his way;--his lack of political +intelligence, and his consequent inability to make quick decisions +in a political atmosphere. His present diffusion of his energies +springs, I think, from indecision; for in politics he can not make +up his mind, as he can in business, where the greatest profit lies. + +I first heard of this weakness of his when he was Food +Administrator in Washington, and when other members of the Wilson +War Administration, equal in rank with him and having to cooperate +with him, complained frequently of his slowness. He had able +subordinates, they said, the leading men in the various food +industries, and they had to make up his mind for him. I set this +charge down, at the time, to jealousy and prejudice, Mr. Hoover +being always an outsider in the Wilson administration; but the long +delay and immense difficulty he made over deciding, although all +his life a Republican, whether he was or was not a Republican in +the campaign of 1920, seemed all the proof of indecision that was +needed. + +It sounds like heresy about one who has been advertised as he has; +but remember that we know little about him except what the best +press agents in history have said of him. He achieved his +professional success in the Orient, far from observation, and his +financial success far from American eyes. His public career in the +relief of Belgium and in the administration of food was the object +of world-wide good will. And, moreover, indecision in politics is +common enough among men who are strong and able in other activities. +Mr. Taft was a great judge but wrecked his administration as +President by inability to make up his mind. Senator Kellogg was a +brilliantly successful lawyer; but in public life he is so hesitant +that Minnesota politicians speak of him as "Nervous Nelly," and +even Mr. Taft, during the Treaty fight, rebuked him to his face +for lack of courage. + +Mr. Hoover's face is not that of a decisive character. The brow is +ample and dominant; there is vision and keen intelligence; but the +rest of the face is not strong, and it wears habitually a wavering +self-conscious smile. This smile, as if everybody were looking at +him, makes him remind one as he comes out of a Cabinet meeting of a +small boy in a classroom carrying a bouquet of flowers up to his +teacher. He has, moreover, a strain of pessimism in his nature, +which may account for his indecision. You catch him in moods of +profound depression. He was in one just before his appointment to +the Cabinet, when his European relief work was not going to his +liking, and when the politicians, he felt, were forcing him into a +position of little scope and opportunity. + +In politics, he has enough vanity and self-consciousness to be +aware constantly of forces opposed to him, covert, hostile, +unscrupulous, personal forces--forces that he does not understand. +Give him a mining problem, he can reckon with the forces of nature +that have to be overcome. Give him a problem of finance, he knows +the enmities of finance. He is in his element. In politics he is +not. He is baffled. + +An illustrative incident occurred in the spring of 1920, when both +parties were talking of him as their candidate for President and he +was uncertain whether he was a Republican or not. Mr. Hearst, in +his newspapers, published an attack upon him, saying that he was +more Briton than American, and to prove it printed a list of +British corporations of which he was a director. + +All his suspicions were aroused over this everyday occurrence of +politics. Where had Mr. Hearst obtained the unfortunate +information? He saw plots and treachery. Someone in his confidence +must have betrayed him for money. A careful investigation was made, +and it was discovered that the editor had drawn upon "Who's Who," +to which Mr. Hoover himself had furnished the information before he +began thinking of the Presidency. + +The politicians tricked him so completely in the preconvention +campaign of 1920 that he has the best reasons for distrusting +himself. He was always, during that campaign, a candidate for the +Republican nomination to the Presidency. At the very time when his +spokesman, Julius Barnes, was saying for him that he could not +choose between the two parties until he had seen their candidates +and read their platforms, and when the Democrats were most +seriously impressed with his availability, the manager of his paper +in Washington said to me, "This talk of Hoover for the Democratic +nomination is moonshine. He won't take it." + +"Why not," I asked him. + +"Because," he replied, "he does not think it is worth having," a +quite practical reason which differed wholly from the official +explanation that Mr. Hoover was waiting to see which party was +progressive so that he might oppose reaction. + +His subsequent support of the more conservative candidate and the +more conservative party bore out the truth of what his newspaper +manager had said. And in reality, Mr. Hoover is as conservative as +Mr. Harding himself, being a large capitalist with all the +conservatism of the capitalist class. + +A little while ago, Mr. Roosevelt had made it unfashionable to +admit that you were conservative. You wished it to be understood +that you were open-minded--"forward looking," as Mr. Wilson, who +turned reactionary at the test, called it; that you were broad, +sympathetic, free from mean prejudices, progressive, in short. Our +very best reactionaries of to-day all used to call themselves +progressive. Some still do. + +The young editor of a metropolitan newspaper, born to great wealth, +and imbibing all the narrowness of the second generation, once +asked me in those bright days when everybody was thrilling over his +"liberality," "Would you call me a radical, or just a progressive?" +He was "just a progressive." In a somewhat similar sense, Mr. +Hoover was quite unconsciously "just a progressive"--a belated +follower of a pleasant fashion, having lived abroad too long when +he made his announcement to note the subtle changes that had taken +place in our thinking--the rude shock that Russia had given to our +"liberality." + +But living abroad, it is only fair to add, has created a difference +between his conservatism and that, let us say, of Judge Gary. He +has grown used to labor unions and even to labor parties, so that +they do not frighten him. His is conservatism, none the less, +definite conservatism, if more enlightened than the obscurant +American variety. + +His hesitation and indecision in the spring of 1920 thus did not +spring from doubt of the Republican party's progressiveness. He +always desired the Republican nomination; but his vanity would +suffer by the open seeking of it and the defeat which seemed +likely; and his sensitiveness would suffer from the attacks, like +that of Mr. Hearst, which an open candidacy would entail; for he is +at once vain and thin-skinned. + +Springing thus from reluctance to make up his mind, the +announcement was received as the evidence of a very large mind. +Among the public, Mr. Hoover was taken for a man who cared more for +principle than for party or for politics. Among the politicians, he +assumed the proportions of a portent, with a genius for politics +second only to that of Roosevelt himself, who in a difficult +situation could take the one position and say the one thing that +might force his nomination. + +The Democrats pricked up their ears. Mr. Wilson, sick and +discouraged, began to entertain hopes of a candidate who would save +the Democracy from ruin. Homer Cummings, National Chairman of Mr. +Wilson's party, began to regard Mr. Hoover's possible nomination +favorably. The Republican managers became alarmed. They knew from +Mr. Hoover's friends that he, as his Washington newspaper manager +had said, thought the Democratic nomination not worth having; but +they feared lest by the course he was pursuing he might make it +worth having, might take it, and might rob them of the election +which they felt safely theirs. If they could induce him to declare +his Republicanism, the Democrats would drop him, the public would +cease to be interested in him as a dramatic personality too big for +party trammels, and they themselves could ignore him. + +It was decided to have him read out of the Republican party as a +warning to him of how he was imperiling his hopes of the only +nomination he valued, and at the same time have Republican leaders +go to him or his friends and advise him and them that if he would +only declare his Republicanism, a popular demand would force his +nomination at Chicago. + +Senator Penrose was chosen as the Republican whose pontifical +damnation would most impress Mr. Hoover. The late W. Murray Crane, +whom I have heard described at Mr. Roosevelt's dinner table as "the +Uriah Heap of the Republican party," was the emissary who would +advise Mr. Hoover to confess the error of his ways and seek the +absolution of Penrose. A diary kept at Republican National +Headquarters in New York reveals the visits there at the time the +plan was made of Mr. Crane and others who took part in the +enterprise. Mr. Penrose got up from a sick bed and thundered: under +no circumstances would he permit the nomination of Mr. Hoover. + +The plot succeeded. In a few days, Mr. Hoover declared that he +would not take the Democratic nomination. The Democrats dropped +him. The public was bewildered by his finding out that he was a +Republican after saying that he could not tell whether he was one +or not until he had seen the Republican candidate and the platform. + +At the Chicago Convention he received the support of Mr. Crane, +Governor Miller, of New York, and, on the last ballot, of William +Allen White, who having voted for Harding on the just previous +ballot, said he wanted to "leave the bandwagon and ride with the +undertaker." + +This guilelessness of Mr. Hoover in politics will prevent him from +realizing his larger ambitions; but is a source of strength to him +in his present position, with American business men who have +learned to distrust politicians. At any rate, he is no politician; +he thinks as business men think; his interests are their interests; +and when he comes to them bearing gifts,--the aid and cooperation +of the United States Government in their efforts to win foreign +trade,--they do not take him for a Greek. + +He possesses great special knowledge which they desire: he knows +much about economics and enjoys the advantage of believing that he +knows all; he has immense prestige, as a result of all the +advertising he received during the War; they come to Washington and +sit at his feet like children; he gives them fatherly lectures, +even upon the morals of their business, which must be clean, to +enter this foreign trade of his, with the Government behind it. +They make mental resolutions of reform. To no politician, to no +one, even with an instinct for politics, would they listen as they +listen to him. He speaks to American business with immense +authority. His selection is an example of that unusual instinct for +putting the right man in the right place which President Harding +has, when he chooses to exercise it. + +The post was disappointing to Mr. Hoover; but it was the one in +which he will be most useful. Not a lawyer, he would hardly have +done for Secretary of State, in spite of his exceptional knowledge +of foreign conditions. Not a banker, he lacked the technical +equipment for Secretary of the Treasury. Not a politician, he +should have, and he has a place in which there are the least +possible politics. Mr. Harding denatured him politically by giving +him the one business department in the Cabinet. Even Hiram Johnson +may come no longer to hate him. + +For his present task, besides his special knowledge, his remarkable +industry, his tireless application to details, he has one great +gift, his extraordinary talent for publicity. There is no one in +Washington, not even Mr. Hughes, who knows so well as he does how +to advertise what he is doing. + +As business recovers and foreign trade develops, the magazine pages +will blossom with articles about what American enterprise is +achieving in foreign lands, about the cooperation between American +business and the American government, and, once more, about Mr. +Hoover. Finding markets for American wares all over the earth will +be made a romance only second in interest to the feeding of +Belgium. + +It was not an accident that he was better advertised than any +general, admiral, or statesman of the War. It was not all due to +the good will of the public, to the work which he did in Belgium +and in this country, nor to the extraordinary press agents whose +services he was able to command because of that good will. Back of +it all was his own instinct for publicity, his sense of what +interests the people, his assiduous cultivation of editors and +reporters. He has magazine and newspaper contacts only exceeded by +those of Roosevelt in his time, and a sense of the power of +publicity only exceeded by Roosevelt's. + +When he was threatening to win the Democratic nomination for the +Presidency in spite of the fact that he was not a Democrat, a +supporter of McAdoo complained bitterly to me, "Confound him! He +has a genius for self-advertising. He is not half the man McAdoo +is. He hasn't McAdoo's courage, optimism, force, or general +statesmanship; but he has this infernal talent for getting himself +in the papers. There is not much to him but press agenting; but how +can you beat that?" + +But though his own name has come to count for more than the causes +he represents, so that the best way to obtain aid is to ask for it +with "Hoover" in big letters and with the suffering children of +Central Europe in small letters, still he remains only a name to +the American people. They know that he always wears a blue suit of +clothes cut on an invariable model, which he adopted years ago. +They know that he worked his way through college as a waiter. They +know that he grew rich as a mining engineer in the East. That is +all. They think of him as a symbol of efficiency, as one who may +save their money, as one who may find markets for them and develop +their trade, as one who may help the world upon its feet again +after the War, as a superman, if you will; but not as a man, not as +a human being. + +All his advertising has made him appeal to the American +imagination, but not to the American heart. He is a sort of +efficiency engineer, installing his charts and his systems into +public life,--and who loves an efficiency engineer? There are no +stories about him which give him a place in the popular breast. It +is impossible to interest yourself in Hoover as Hoover; in Hoover +as the man who did this, or the man who did that, or the man who +will do this or that, yes,--but not in Hoover, the person. + +The reason is that he has little personality. On close contact, he +is disappointing, without charm, given to silence, as if he had +nothing for ordinary human relations which had no profitable +bearing on the task in hand. His conversation is applied efficiency +engineering; there is no lost motion, though it is lost motion +which is the delight of life. At dinner, he inclines to bury his +face in his plate until the talk reaches some subject important to +him, when he explodes a few facts, and is once more silent. + +Had he a personality with his instinct for publicity, he would be +another Roosevelt. But he is a bare expert. + +I doubt if he really thinks of human beings as human beings; on the +contrary, some engineering graph represents humanity in his mind. +It is characteristic of him that he always speaks of the relief of +starving populations not in terms of human suffering, but in terms +of chemistry. The people, of whatever country he may be feeding, +have so many calories now, last month they had so many calories; if +they had ten calories more, they could maintain existence. Many +times have I heard this formula. It is a weakness in a democracy to +think of people in terms of graphs, and their welfare in terms of +calories; that is, if you hope to be President of that democracy-- +not if you are content to be its excellent Secretary of Commerce. + +When he came to Washington as a Food Administrator, he brought with +him an old associate, a professor from California. A few days later +the professor's wife arrived and went to live at the same house +where Mr. Hoover and her husband resided. Mr. Hoover knew her well. +She and her husband had long been his friends. He met her in the +hall, shook hands with her, welcomed her and then lapsed into +silence. After some moments, he said, "Well,--" and hesitated. + +"Mr. Hoover," she said, "I know you are a busy man. You don't have +to stand here trying to think of something to say to me. I know you +well enough not to be offended if you don't talk to me at all while +I am here." + +He laughed and took her at her word. He had the habit of too great +relevancy to be human. If he could have said more than "Well" to +that woman, he might have been President. + + + + +HENRY CABOT LODGE + + +When Henry Cabot Lodge was elected to Congress thirty-four years +ago there were no portents in the heavens, but there was rejoicing +in his native city of Boston and in many other places. It was +hailed as the dawn of a new era. Young, he was only thirty-seven, +well educated, a teacher of history, and with six serious books to +his credit, he was a new figure in politics; Providence, moving in +its mysterious way, had designed him to redeem politics from its +baseness and set a shining example. + +Everything was in his favor; he was not only learned, so learned, +in fact, that he was promptly dubbed the "scholar in politics," but +he was rich, and therefore immune from all sordid temptation; he +was a gentleman. Mr. Lodge's forbears had been respectable +tradesmen who knew how to make money and to keep it--and the latter +trait is strongly developed in their senatorial descendant. From +them he inherited a fortune; he had been educated in a select +private school and then gone through Harvard, whence he emerged +with an LL.B. and a Ph.D. attached to his name. By all the +established canons he was a "gentleman" as well as a scholar. In +the intervals between teaching and writing he had found time to be +admitted to the Boston bar. + +With that equipment it could be safely predicted Mr. Lodge would go +far. He has. To-day he is the leader of the Republican party in the +Senate of the United States. + +He early justified the promise. While still a Congressional +freshman he drafted and introduced into the House the "Force Bill," +which came to a violent death in the Senate. That Bill was not only +a prophecy but it is a resume of Mr. Lodge's career. It is +partisanship gone mad. + +On the pretense that it was intended to secure fair elections in +the South, but actually, as described by a member of the House at +the time, to prevent elections being held in several districts, it +placed the election machinery in the control of the Federal +Government, which, through the Chief Supervisor of Elections, to be +appointed by the President, and his Praetorian Guard of Deputy +Marshals, would have controlled every election and returned an +overwhelming Republican majority from the Southern States. + +The Bill was typical of Mr. Lodge and the way he plays politics. +The Force Bill would probably have ended ingloriously the political +career of any other man, but Mr. Lodge had the luck of being a +gentleman born in Boston. Boston is slow to forget. A quarter of a +century after the Civil War, Boston still remembered that conflict, +its heart still bled for the negro deprived of his vote; and a +Boston gentleman could do no wrong--to the Democratic Party. + +The House amused Mr. Lodge, but it was too promiscuous for a person +of his delicate sensibilities who shrank from intimate contact with +the uneducated and the socially unwashed. Henry Cabot Lodge always +creates the impression that it is a condescension on his part to +God to have allowed Him to create a world which is not exclusively +possessed by the Cabots and the Lodges and their connections. + +All that is only an unfortunate manner. He is really the friend of +the people, abominating snobbishness and aristocratic pretensions; +in his younger days, when he was campaigning for Congress, he was +known to have slapped a constituent on the back and called him +familiarly by his first name; even now, although he has long ceased +to be a politician and has been canonized as a statesman, the old +impulses are strong in him. When the time draws near for his +reelection to the Senate, he goes back to Massachusetts, there to +take part with the common people in their simple pleasures, and +affably to extend a cold and clammy hand to voters, who still +venerate him as a scholar in politics and a gentleman. So it will +be easily understood why one of Mr. Lodge's temperament should +early have cast his covetous eye on the Senate, and at the first +opportunity moved over to that more select atmosphere, which he did +in 1893. + +When Senator Lodge entered public life the flagrant spoils system +was rampant. A little band of earnest men was fighting to reform +the civil service so as to make it a permanent establishment with +merit and fitness the tests for appointment instead of political +influence. It was a cause naturally to appeal to the "best people" +of Boston, and Mr. Lodge, being one of them, having inflexible +principles and a high code of honor, threw himself eagerly into the +reform movement and became its apostle. His principles were so +stern and unyielding, he demanded such an exalted standard of +private and public morality, that, although he worshipped the +Republican Party with a devotion almost as great as the memory of +that grandfather who laid the foundation of the family fortunes, +with a sorely stricken heart he was compelled to differ with Mr. +Blaine and to flirt with those Ruperts of American politics, the +Mugwumps. + +"The man who sets up as being much better than his age is always to +be suspected," says a historian, "and Cato is perhaps the best +specimen of the rugged hypocrite that history can produce." + +As a summary of the character of Cato, this is admirable, but no +one would call Mr. Lodge "rugged." + +Mr. Lodge's principles, it has been observed, are inflexible and +rest on solid foundation, but like good steel they can bend without +breaking. An ardent civil service reformer, a champion of public +morality, so long as offices were being awarded to the faithful, he +saw no reason why he should be the victim of his own self denying +ordinance. Early in his career he became a very successful purveyor +of patronage, developing a keen scent for vacant places or a post +filled by a Democrat. As a theoretical civil service reformer Mr. +Lodge left nothing to be desired; as a practical spoilsman he had +few equals. A Senator's usefulness to his friends is much greater +than that of a member of the House, and if a Senator works his pull +for all that it is worth he can accomplish much. Mr. Lodge was not +idle. + +With his grandfathers and his fortune Mr. Lodge inherited a violent +and bitter dislike of England. Probably no man--not even the most +extreme Irish agitator--is more responsible for the feeling +existing against England than Mr. Lodge; because the outspoken +Irish agitator is known for what he is and treated accordingly; +carrying out Mr. Roosevelt's thought, he will be execrated by +decent people; but Mr. Lodge, posing as the impartial historian and +the patriotic statesman, is applauded. + +Just as Mr. Lodge gained a certain fame when he was a member of the +House from the Force Bill, which his own party repudiated, so he +signalized his admission into the Senate by proposing to force +England to adopt free silver. It was an opportunity to strike at +England in a vital spot; it was as statesmanlike and patriotic as +his attempt to deprive the South of their representatives. + +Mr. Cleveland was fighting with splendid courage to save the +country from free silver, caring nothing for politics and animated +solely by the highest and most disinterested motives, and Mr. Lodge +was thinking only of his spite. President Cleveland, said a Boston +paper, deserved and had the right to expect Mr. Lodge's support, +instead of which "we find our junior Senator introducing a +legislative proposition intended to appeal at once to the +anti-British prejudices of a good many Americans, and to the desire +of the then preponderating sentiment of the country to force a silver +currency upon the American people. It was an effort to strike at +England." + +Mr. Lodge proposed that all imports from Great Britain or her +colonies should pay duties double those of the regular rates, and +any article on the free list should be made dutiable at thirty-five +per cent; these additional and discriminating duties were to remain +in force until Great Britain assented to and took part in an +international agreement "for the coinage and use of silver." + +Mr. Lodge's free silver amendment shared the same tomb with his +Force Bill; in the Senate fortunately there were men with broader +vision and less passion. + +In his biography in the Congressional Directory (written by +himself) and in the numerous biographies and sketches which have +been published with such frequency (Mr. Lodge has a weakness for +seeing himself in print) curiously enough no mention can be found +either of the Force Bill or the attempt to coerce England with a +silver club. One can only explain this reticence by excessive +modesty. + +Two years later Mr. Lodge deserted his silver allies and was as +enthusiastic in support of the gold standard as he had previously +been zealous for the purification of the civil service. A Boston +paper said that he "was made to realize, by the influences brought +to bear upon him, that he must advocate the gold standard or else +provoke the active hostility of the prominent business men of this +State." That perhaps is as infamous as anything ever written. That +any influences, even those "of the prominent business men of +Massachusetts," could cause Mr. Lodge to swerve from his +convictions no one will believe. He must have had convictions when +he sought to drive England to a silver standard, he must have been +convinced that it was for the good of the United States as well as +the whole world, he must have satisfied himself, for Mr. Lodge +never permits his emotions to control his intelligence, that his +action was wise and patriotic. But although Mr. Lodge will not +surrender his convictions he has no scruples about consistency. + +Mr. Lodge's principles are so stern that he refused to consent to +Colombia being paid for the territory seized by President +Roosevelt. Mr. Lodge made a report (this was when Mr. Wilson was +President, and I mention it merely as an historical fact) in which +he denounced Colombia's claim as blackmail, resented it as an +insult to the memory of Mr. Roosevelt, and declared in approved +copybook fashion (being fond of platitudes), that friendship +between nations cannot be bought. Later (this was when Mr. Harding +was President, and I mention it merely as an historical fact) as +Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he brought in a +report urging the ratification of the treaty, and discovered that +Mr. Roosevelt had really been in favor of the treaty, expunged the +unpleasant word blackmail from his lexicon, and sapiently observed, +so impossible is it for him not to indulge in platitudes, that +sometimes a nation has to pay more for a thing than it is really +worth; a reflection that would have done credit to the oracular +wisdom of Captain Jack Bunsby. + +Mr. Lodge attacked the treaty of peace with Germany while it was +still in process of negotiation and severely criticised Mr. Wilson +for not having consulted the Senate. That the Senate has no right +to ask about the details of a treaty before the President sends it +in for ratification is a constitutional axiom which Mr. Lodge, with +his customary mental infidelity, caressed at one time and spurned +at another. + +When the treaty with Spain was before the Senate (that was when Mr. +McKinley was President, and I mention it merely as an historical +fact) it was attacked by some of the Democrats. To silence these +criticisms Mr. Lodge said, "We have no possible right to break +suddenly into the middle of a negotiation and demand from the +President what instructions he has given to his representatives. +That part of treaty making is no concern of ours." + +The Democrats attempted to defeat the ratification of the treaty, +and if that was done, said Mr. Lodge, "we repudiate the President +and his action before the whole world, and the repudiation of the +President in such a matter as this is, to my mind, the humiliation +of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world." The +President could not be sent back to say to Spain "with bated +breath" (even in his most solemn moments Mr. Lodge cannot resist +the commonplace) "we believe we have been too victorious and that +you have yielded us too much and that I am very sorry that I took +the Philippines from you." + +But that was precisely what Mr. Lodge demanded should and must be +done when Mr. Wilson brought back the peace treaty. Inconsistency, +as I have before remarked, Mr. Lodge cares nothing about, but his +patriotism and partisanship are so inextricably intertwined that it +is always difficult to discover whether in his loftiest flights it +is the patriot who pleads or the partisan who intrigues. + +Thus, in the debate on the Spanish treaty, Mr. Lodge delivered +himself of these noble sentiments: "I have ideals and beliefs which +pertain to the living present, and a faith in the future of my +country. I believe in the American people as they are to-day and in +the civilization they have created," and many more beautiful words +to the same effect. It was the language of a statesman with +aspirations and convictions. It sounded splendidly. Mr. Lodge is a +classical scholar, and one wonders whether he remembers his +Epictetus: "But you utter your elegant words only from your lips; +for this reason they are without strength and dead, and it is +nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your miserable virtue; +which is talked of everywhere." + +It was the late Senator Wolcott, one of the most brilliant orators +of his day, who explained why Mr. Lodge's oratory left men cold. +Wolcott was commenting on a speech delivered by Lodge a few days +earlier and someone said to him that men listened to Lodge with +eyes undimmed. + +"To bring tears from an audience," said Wolcott, "the speaker must +feel tears here (and he pointed to his throat), but Lodge can speak +for an hour with nothing but saliva in his throat." + +Mr. Lodge's dislike of Mr. Wilson was almost malignant. Rumor +ascribes it to professional jealousy. Before Mr. Wilson came into +prominence Mr. Lodge was the only scholar in politics, but Mr. +Wilson was so far his superior in erudition, especially in Mr. +Lodge's chosen profession of history, that he resented being +deprived of his monopoly. Perhaps there is another reason. Mr. +Lodge has cherished two ambitions, neither of which has been +gratified. The Presidency has been the ignis fatuus he has pursued; +he was the residuary legatee of Mr. Roosevelt's bankrupt political +estate in 1916, it will be recalled; last year, after his fight on +the treaty, he considered himself the logical candidate and +believed he had the nomination in his grasp. He has longed to be +Secretary of State, and it was a bitter disappointment when Mr. +Harding did not invite him to enter the Cabinet. + +Mr. Lodge is a curious and not uninteresting study in psychology. +He has no great talent, but he is not without some ability; in his +youth he was an industrious plodder and fond of study. He has read +much but absorbed little; he is well educated in the narrow sense +of the schoolmaster, but he has no philosophic background; his is +the parasitic mind that sucks sustenance from the brains of others +and gives nothing in return. He is without the slightest +imagination and is devoid of all sense of humor; and without these +two, imagination, which is the gift of the poet, and humor, which +is the dower of the philosopher, no man can see life whole. + +He has genius almost for misunderstanding public sentiment. To him +may be applied Junius' characterization of the Duke of Grafton: "It +is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do +right by mistake." + +With all these defects, the defects of heritage and environment and +temperament, so much was expected from Mr. Lodge, and so much he +might have done, that it is a disappointment he has accomplished so +little. He has been thirty-four years in Congress, and his career +can be summed up in three achievements--the Force Bill, the attempt +to wreck England by driving her to silver coinage, and the part he +took in defeating the treaty of peace with Germany. The Force Bill +and the silver amendment his biographers have charitably forgotten; +will the future biographer deal as gently with the closing years of +his life? And if so, what material will the biographer have? + +Macaulay, reviewing Barere's Memoirs--and allowing for the +difference in time and manners and morals there is a strange +similarity between the leader of the French Revolution and the +leader of the Senate--said, "We now propose to do him, by the +blessing of God, full and signal justice." + +We think we may say, with proper humility, that, by the blessing of +God, we have done Senator Henry Cabot Lodge full and signal +justice. + + + + +BERNARD M. BARUCH + + +A clever woman magazine writer once asked Bernard M. Baruch for +some information about the peace treaty. The question was not in +his special field, the economic sections of the treaty, and he told +her so. + +"It took him one sentence to say that he could not tell me what I +wanted to know," she described the interview afterward. "And then +he talked to me for two hours about himself. He told me of his +start in life as a three-dollar-a-week clerk, how rich he was, his +philosophy of life; how you should recognize defeat when it was +coming, accept it before it was complete and overwhelming and start +out afresh, how liberal and advanced were his social views, how +with all his wealth he was ready to accept a capital tax as perhaps +the best way out of the bog in which the war had left the world, +how democratic he was in his relations with his employees and his +servants. It all seemed as amazing to him as if he were describing +someone else, or as if it had just happened the day before." + +Perhaps it is only to women and to journalists that men talk so +frankly about themselves, to the most romantic and best trained +listening sex and profession, who perforce survey the heights from +below. But this young woman's experience was, I have reason to +believe, a common one. + +Is it vanity? You say that a man who talks so much about himself +must be vain. To conclude that he is vain is not to understand Mr. +Baruch. Is a child vain when it brings some little childish +accomplishment, some infantile drawing on paper, and delightedly +and frankly marvels at what he has done? It is given to children +and to the naive openly to wonder at themselves without vanity, +with a deep underlying sense of humility, and in Mr. Baruch's case +the unaffected delight in himself proceeds from real humility. + +After twenty-five years in the jungle of Wall Street, there +is--contradictions multiply in his case--much of the child about Mr. +Baruch, simple, trustful--outside of Wall Street,--incapable of +concealment,--outside of Wall Street--of that which art has taught +the rest of us to conceal. His humility makes him wonder; his +naivete makes him talk quite frankly, unrestrained by the +conventions that balk others. After all, is not wondering at +yourself a sign of humility? A vain man, become great by luck, by +force of circumstances, by the possession of gifts which he does +not himself fully understand, would still take himself for granted. +He would not be a romance to himself, but a solid, unassailable +fact. + +For Baruch the great romance is Baruch, the astonishing plaything +of fate, who started life as a three-dollar-a-week broker's clerk; +made millions, lost millions, made millions again, lost millions +again; finally, still young, quit Wall Street with a fortune that +left the game of the market dull and commonplace, seeking a new +occupation for his energies; became during the war next to the +President, the most powerful man in Washington; emerged from the +war, which wrecked most reputations, with a large measure of +credit, prepared by the amazing past for an equally amazing future. +A career like that makes it impossible for the man who knows it +best not to expect anything. Why not the "Disraeli of America?"--a +phrase he once, rather confidentially, employed concerning his +anticipated future. + +Did you ever see a portrait bust smiling, not softly with the eyes +or with a slight relaxation of the mouth, but firmly, definitely, +lastingly smiling, with some inward source of satisfaction? Look at +Jo Davidson's bust of Baruch, among the famous men at the Peace +Conference. + +I once saw the various sketches in clay that went to the making of +that portrait--the subject was proving elusive to the sculptor. +There were two obvious traits to be represented; the unusual knot +in the brow between the eyes and the smile, without which it was +evident that you had not Baruch. The extraordinary concentration in +the forehead was easy enough to transfer to clay; but the smile +kept defying the artist. When a smile was traced in the clay it +softened the face out of character, destroyed that intensity which +the central massing of the brow denoted; and when the smile was +deleted the face lost all its brilliance, became merely intense, +concentrated, racial, acquisitive perhaps, clearly not Mr. Baruch's +face. Ultimately the sculptor succeeded in wedding a smile to that +brow, and the bust went on exhibition with those of Wilson, Foch, +House, Clemenceau, and the others; but the union was never more +than a compromise, a marriage of convenience for the artist. + +That smile is as inevitable a part of Baruch as his engaging +naivete in talking about himself. It is always there, brilliant, +unrelated to circumstances. It does not spring from a sense of +humor,--Mr. Baruch, like the rest of the successful, has not a +marked sense of humor; a sense of the irony of fate he has, +perhaps, but not more. It does not denote gaiety, nor sympathy, nor +satire; it is not kind nor yet unkind; it does not relax the +features, which remain tense as ever even when smiling; it suggests +satisfaction, self-confidence, and a secret inner source of +contentment. It is with Mr. Baruch when he is tired, or ought to be +tired; the romance of Baruch is an internal spring of refreshment. +It does not leave him when he is angry, if he is ever angry; the +romance of Baruch diverts him. Though always there, it is not a +fixed smile, a mask, something worn for the undoing of Wall Street; +it is a real smile. Somewhere subconsciously there abides the +picture of the poor clerk become amazingly rich, of power in +Washington, of a beckoning future with possibilities as +extraordinary as the wonders of the past. Life is not logical, +dull, commonplace, a tissue of cause and effect; it proceeds +delightfully by daily miracles. The American Disraeli is no further +away to-day than was the Baruch of to-day from the Baruch of +yesterday. Enough to account for a smile in marble, bronze, or in +whatever metal the human face is made of. + +Take the miracle of the War Administration. It was not vanity but +humility, the kind of humility that would have saved Wilson, that +served Mr. Baruch there. He came to Washington out of Wall Street +and Wall Street is always anathema. More than that he came out of +that part of Wall Street which is beyond the pale; he did not +belong to the right monied set there; which is to be anathema with +that part of the community to which Wall Street itself is not +anathema; moreover he had been unjustly accused in connection with +the famous Wall Street "leak." And he entered an administration +which was the center of much prejudice and hatred. Yet he was +modest enough, however, to assume that his personality did not +count, that it was the work to be done which mattered, and that he +could depend upon the friendliness both of the Republicans and of +the great industrial interests of the country to that work if it +should be properly done. + +The belief Mr. Wilson has and a much lesser man, Hiram Johnson, +has, that men are thinking exclusively about them personally and +not about the causes they advocate or the measures they propose is +a more dangerous form of vanity than the habit of admiring oneself +audibly. It requires colossal egotism to imagine the existence of +many enemies and Mr. Baruch is genuinely humble in the matter of +enmity. After watching him during the war, in an administration +which was enemy mad, I fancy he counts his genuine foes on the +fingers of one hand. Moreover he was quite impersonal about his +task. He did not do everything himself on the theory that no one +else was quite big enough to do it. There is no practical snobbism +about him. His knowledge of the industries of the country was that +of the speculator; it was not that of the practical industrialist, +and he knew it. + +He surrounded himself with the best men he could find. He trusted +them implicitly, his habit being not to distrust men until he finds +that they can be trusted but to trust them unless he finds that +they cannot be trusted--also a modest and naive trait. He was never +tired of praising Legg, Replogle, Summers, and the other business +men whom he brought to Washington, praising himself, of course, for +his skill in choosing them--he never achieves self-forgetfulness--but +giving them full credit for the work of the War Industries Board. +And he inspired an extraordinary loyalty among his associates, big +and little. He treated the Republicans as he treated big business +as if all had only one interest, above politics and personalities, +and that was to win the war. And when President Wilson, in response +to Republican criticism of the war organization, gave him real power +to mobilize American industry, the Republicans applauded the bestowal +of authority as constructive and took credit to themselves for +accomplishing it. + +Baruch and Hoover, alone of the business men who came to Washington +during the war achieved real successes in the higher positions, and +he showed vastly the greater capacity of the two to operate in a +political atmosphere. A man who was nothing but a Wall Street +speculator, not an industrial organizer, organized successfully the +biggest industrial combination the world has ever seen; a man who +was suspect of American business got on admirably with American +business, and a man who had not been in politics accomplished the +impossible task of adjusting himself to work under political +conditions. It is another chapter in the romance of Baruch. + +He cannot explain it, so why should not he wonder about it quite +openly and quite delightedly, with all his engaging naivete? That +inability to explain anything is one of the characteristics of Mr. +Baruch. When you begin to apprehend it you begin to see why he is a +romance to himself. He cannot explain himself to himself, nor to +anyone else, no matter how much he tries. And even more, he cannot +explain his opinions, his conclusions, his decisions to anyone in +the world with all the words at his command. He can never give +reasons. Mentally nature has left him, after a manner, incommunicado. +His mind does not proceed as other men's minds do. + +The author of the "Mirrors of Downing Street" describes Lord +Northcliffe's mind as "discontinuous." If I had never talked to +Lord Northcliffe I should be led to suppose that his mind resembled +Mr. Baruch's. But the British journalist's mental operations are a +model of order and continuity compared to those of the former +American War Industries Chairman. Like the heroes of the ancient +poems Mr. Baruch's mind has the faculty of invisibility. You see it +here; a moment later you see it there, and for the life of you +cannot tell how it got from here to there, a gift of incalculability +which must have been of great service in Wall Street, but which does +not promote understanding nor communication. And the more Mr. Baruch +tries to give you the connecting links between here and there the +worse off you are, both of you. + +The ordinary mind is logical and is confined within the three +dimensions of the syllogism. You watch it readily enough shut in +its little cage whose walls are the major premise, the minor +premise, and the conclusion. There is no escape as we say, from the +conclusion. There is no escape anywhere. + +But Mr. Baruch's mind escapes easily. It possesses the secret of +some fourth mental dimension, known only to the naive and the +illogical, or perhaps supralogical. He has brilliant intuitions, +hunches, premonitions, the acute perceptions of some two or three +extra senses that have been bred or schooled out of other men. + +Perhaps he is like Lloyd George, who is not logical but achieves +his successes through two or three senses which ordinary men have +not; however, unlike Lloyd George, he cannot simulate logic and, +after jumping to his conclusions, reduce them to the understanding +of the three-dimensional mind. It is a grief to him that he cannot; +for if he could make a speech, that is to say, translate himself, +that figure of Disraeli would, he thinks, be less remote. But when +your mental operations are a succession of miracles, you may have +brilliant intuitions and extraordinary prevision about the mineral +supplies necessary to win the war,--which he had--you may have +wonder, like the naive and the poets, about that extraordinary +thing yourself, or about that still more extraordinary thing which +is life or destiny, but you cannot move the masses. + +Still there are compensations. A perfectly logical mind would have +explained all the wonder away, reduced the miracle of personality +to a stolid operation of cause and effect, quite self-approbatively +no doubt, and made Mr. Baruch talk of himself as the rest of the +great do, modestly, after this fashion: "Behold me! I am what I am +because when I was nine years old I saved nine cents and resolved +then and there always to save as many cents each year as I was +years old. Young man, SAVE!" + +There is no fun in being not a wonder but a copy book. And a +perfectly logical mind would flirt with Disraeli warily. It would +say, "One does not at fifty change from business to politics with +success. Disraeli didn't start out in Wall Street. As the Germans +say, 'what will become vinegar sours early.'" + +Mr. Baruch slips easily through the three sides of this reasoning. +Life is not logical. Fate is not logical. He is not logical. + +He has had his taste of public life under Wilson and he wants more. +I venture to say that he would give every one of his many millions +and be as poor, well, poorer than any member of the present +cabinet, to be in the place Mr. Hughes occupies to-day. + +Everyone who knows him has heard him say that when he entered +office he resolved to quit business because he learned so much as +head of the War Industries Board that it would be improper for him +ever to go into the market again. There is more to it than that; +public life has given him a profound distaste for mere money-making. +He wrote to Senator Kenyon the other day that he had not +made a dollar since he went to work for the government. I believe +that to be true for I have found him an extraordinarily truthful +and honest man. He has that desire for public distinction which is +so often characteristic of his race. He has the idealism, a +characteristic also of the race which gave to the world two great +religions. He has the same passion for public service now that he +once had for the market. And he belongs to a race, which, in spite +of all our national catholicity on the subject of races, has never +yet produced its Disraeli in America, and to a party out of power, +perhaps for a long time, and he spent his youth learning a trade +which is not the trade he would follow now. + +All of this accounts for his restlessness. He is still youthful and +has enormous energies and no occupation for them. He loves personal +publicity and has an instinct for it, not so keen as Hoover's or +Will H. Hays', but still keen. + +Whither shall he turn? To the organization of his party? There he +may buy the right to be lampooned and in the end, if his party +succeeds, to be introduced into the Cabinet apologetically, as Hays +and Daugherty were, on the plea that the President must appoint a +number of party workers. To the Senate? It is a body which affords +escape from the boredom of small town life for men who have grown +rich on the frontier or in the dull Middle West. It carries with it +an excuse to live in Washington, some social position there, and a +title envied in Marion, Reno, Butte, or Salt Lake City. Senators +who start young serve long and obediently, suppressing all their +natural instincts for self-expression, and attain if they are +lucky the scant distinction of a committee chairmanship in a +legislature that has steadily tended toward submergence. To the +House? Individuals are lost in the House. And the Presidency comes +to few, and by chance. + +Knowing his ambition for public distinction and his wealth, men go +to him every day to sell him the road to power and influence, and, +if you will, public service. Let him have the Democratic +organization on condition of paying its debts and financing its +activities. One faction of the Democratic party recently sought +control, spreading the understanding that Mr. Baruch would, in the +event of its success, open wide his pocket book. After the meeting +of the National Committee at which this faction met its defeat I +said to a prominent member of the victorious group: "Now that you +have won you will probably get Baruch's money. He is restless, +eager to find an outlet for his energies, less interested in any +personality than in his party. Hang on and wait and he must come to +you." + +"Do you know," he replied, lowering his voice confidentially, "That +is just the way I diagnose it." + +And at this very time the Republicans, hearing much of Mr. Baruch's +money and its use to build up such an intensive organization for +the Democrats, as Chairman Hays with a million or two at his +disposal had erected for them, considered seriously whether or not +it would not be wise themselves to occupy Mr. Baruch's energies and +divert his ambitions away from party organization. They debated +putting Mr. Baruch on the commission to reorganize the executive +departments of the government. All had their eyes on the same +ambition and the same wealth! + +Several daily newspapers in New York, and I know not how many +magazines and weeklies, have been offered at one time or another to +Mr. Baruch, for it is known that one of his ideas of public service +is to own and edit a great liberal journal, a "Manchester Guardian" +of America. But an opportunity to buy a newspaper in New York is an +opportunity to invest $3,000,000 or $4,000,000, to lose $500,000 or +more for several years thereafter and to become the national figure +that Mr. Ochs is, or Mr. Reid is, or Mr. Munsey is, certainly +something far short of the American Disraeli or even the Baruch of +the War Industries Board. + +Mr. Baruch, you will observe, has no vulgar illusions about what +money will buy. He likes money. It brings with it a certain +personal enlargement. It adds to the romance of himself in his own +eyes, as well as in the eyes of others. It procures the flattering +ears of journalists, and a place on front pages, and, if one +inclines toward ostentation, even the ownership of a newspaper +itself. + +But money will not buy a commanding place in public life. And even +if it would buy such a place he would not be content to do other +than earn one. He wants to repeat the thrills of his youth in the +market, in the thrills of a second youth in Washington. He is +incurably romantic. + +To sum him all up in a sentence--he has an extraordinary sense of +wonder and an unequalled sense of reality, the sense of wonder +directed toward himself, the sense of reality directed largely but +not exclusively elsewhere. + + + + +ELIHU ROOT + + +Elihu Root might have been so much publicly and has been so little +that a moral must hang somewhere upon his public career. + +He might have been many things. He might have been President of the +United States if his party ever could have been persuaded to +nominate him. He might have been one of the great Chief Justices of +the Supreme Court if a President could have been persuaded to +appoint him. He might have given to the United States Senate that +weight and influence which have disappeared from it, if he had had +a passion for public service. He might have been Secretary of State +in the most momentous period of American foreign relations if a +certain homely instinct in Mr. Harding had not led him to prefer +the less brilliant Mr. Hughes. He might have made history. But he +has not. Out of his eight years in the Cabinet and six years in the +Senate nothing constructive came that will give his name a larger +place in history than that of Rufus Choate, another remarkable +advocate who was once Attorney General. + +Distrust has always barred his way, distrust of a mind and +character to which problems appear as exercises in ingenuity rather +than questions of right and justice. His greatest opportunity for +constructive statesmanship was offered in the making of the New +York State constitution. But when it became known that Mr. Root had +dominated the Constitutional Convention, that the proposed +constitution was Mr. Root's constitution, that was enough; the +voters rejected it in the referendum. + +Distrust spoiled the mission to Russia during the war. The Russians +distrusted him while he was with them. President Wilson distrusted +his report when he returned. And Mr. Wilson's successor equally +distrusted him when he chose a man to finish the work which Mr. +Wilson had badly done or to correct the work that Mr. Wilson had +left undone at Paris. + +Light on President Harding's attitude toward Mr. Root is thrown by +an incident at Marion during the campaign. The Republican candidate +had made his speech of August 28th in which he indicated his views +upon the League of Nations. Two days later a newspaper arrived in +Marion containing a dispatch from abroad where Mr. Root then was, +at work upon the international court. + +The correspondent represented Mr. Root as "amazed" at the position +Mr. Harding had taken. + +The candidate came to the headquarters early that morning. One of +the headquarters attaches handed him a copy of the paper. Mr. +Harding read the dispatch and was angry. + +"That man Root," he exclaimed, "has done more harm to the +Republican party than any other man in it! He is always pursuing +some end of his own or of some outside interest." He started away; +then turned back, still angry, and added: "You remember the Panama +Canal tolls incident. That was an example of the kind of trouble he +has always been making for the party." + +Many reasons have been given why the President passed over the +obvious man for Secretary of State. Mr. Root himself, who would +have taken the place gladly as an opportunity for his extremely +keen intelligence, but who did not seek it, thinks that the Senate, +flushed with its recent victory over Mr. Wilson and desiring itself +to dominate foreign relations, conspired to prevent his choice. The +Senators did oppose Mr. Root, but their lack of influence with the +President has been sufficiently exposed by events. + +The real obstacle to Mr. Root's appointment was Mr. Harding's +distrust of him, the instinctive feeling of a simple direct nature +against a mind too quick, too clever, too adroit, too invisible in +many of its operations. Mr. Harding, being commonplace himself, +likes a more commonplace kind of greatness than Mr. Root's. Those +who were close to him said the President feared that Mr. Root would +"put something over on him." A certain moral quality in Mr. Hughes +outweighed Mr. Root's special experience and wider reputation. + +Mr. Roosevelt used to tell a story boastfully of his own +practicality which throws much light on Mr. Root and upon the +reason for Mr. Root's comparative failure as a public man. + +"When I took Panama," he would say, "I found all the members of my +Cabinet helpful except one. Mr. Root readily found numerous +precedents. Mr. Taft was sympathetic and gave every assistance +possible. Mr. Knox alone was silent. At last I turned to him in the +Cabinet meeting and I said, 'I should like to hear from the +Attorney General on the legality of what we are doing.' Mr. Knox +looked up and said, 'Mr. President, if I were you I should not have +the slightest taint of legality about the whole affair.'" + +Such was Mr. Root. Public questions always were likely to occur to +him first as exercises in mental adroitness rather than as moral +problems. His extremely agile mind finds its chief pleasure in its +own agility. Then he was always the advocate, always instinctively +devoting himself to bolstering up another man's cause for him. + +"He is a first class second," said Senator Penrose, objecting to +him as a candidate for President at the Republican Convention of +1916, "but he is not his own man." + +He is always someone else's mouthpiece and publicly he is chiefly +remembered as Mr. Roosevelt's mouthpiece. When he came to New York +and made the speech that elected Hughes Governor and made possible +Hughes as Secretary of State he said, "I speak for the President." +He equally spoke for the President when he delivered that other +remembered address, warning the States that unless they mended +their ways the Federal Government would absorb their vitality. + +The law is a parasitic profession and Mr. Root's public career is +parasitic. He lacks originality, he lacks passion--there is no +place for passion in that clear mind--he lacks force. He elucidates +other men's ideas, works out or puts into effect their policies, +presents their case, is, by temperament, by reason of gifts +amounting almost to genius, of defects that go with those gifts +always and everywhere, the lawyer. His public career has been +controlled by this circumstance. + +I doubt if he ever had a real love of public life. He turned to it +late, after he had made his success in the profession of his +choice, and he carried over into it the habits of the law. He +always seemed to be taking cases for the public. He took a case for +Mr. McKinley as Secretary of War because the War Department needed +reorganization and the case promised to be interesting. He took a +case for Mr. Roosevelt as Secretary of State because Mr. Roosevelt +was the most interesting client in the world. He took a case for +New York State, to remodel its constitution, a case that ended +disastrously. He took a case for Mr. Wilson in Russia and another, +the League of Nations, to form its international court for it. He +was willing to take a case for Mr. Harding to make a going concern +of the world for him following the smash-up of the war, something +like the task of counsel of a receivership, the most interesting +receivership of all time. + +For a few years Mr. Roosevelt made public life interesting to Mr. +Root who, it looked then, might devote the rest of his career to +national affairs. + +It was a sparkling period for America. We have never had an "age" +in the history of this country like the age of Elizabeth or the age +of Louis XIV, or the age of Lorenzo, the Magnificent; time is too +short and democracy too rigid for such splendors; but the nearest +equivalent to one was the "age," let us call it that, of Theodore +Roosevelt. There was the central figure--an age must have a central +figure--a buoyant personality with a Renaissance zest for life, and +a Renaissance curiosity about all things known, and unknown, and a +boundless capacity for vitalizing everyone and everything with +which he came in contact. + +Dull moments were unknown. Knighthood was once more in flower, +wearing frock coats and high hats and reading all about itself in +the daily press. Lances were tilted at malefactors of great wealth, +in jousts where few were unhorsed and no blood spilled. Fair +maidens of popular rights were rescued; great deeds of valor done. +Legends were created, the legend of Leonard Wood, somewhat damaged +in the last campaign, the legend of the Tennis Cabinet, with its +Garfields and its Pinchots, now to be read about only in the black +letter books of the early twentieth century, and the legend of +Elihu Root, still supported in a measure by the evidences of his +highly acute intelligence, but still like everything else of those +bright days, largely a legend. + +Roosevelt, the Magnificent, made men great with a word, and his +words were many. His great were many likewise, great statesmen, +great public servants, great writers, great magazine editors, great +cowboys from the West, great saints and great sinners, great +combinations of wealth and great laws to curb them; everything in +scale and that a great scale. Mr. Root acquired his taste for +public life in that "age" just as Mr. Hoover, Mr. Baruch and a +dozen others did theirs in the moving period of the Great War. It +is easy to understand how. + +Like all remarkable ages this age was preceded by discoveries. The +United States had just fought a war which had ended in a great +victory, over Spain. The American people were elated by their +achievement, aware of their greatness, talked much and surely of +"destiny," the period in Washington being but a reflection of their +own mood. Their mental horizon had been immensely widened by the +possession, gained in the war, of some islands in the Pacific whose +existence we had never heard of before. + +Until that time there had been for us only two nations in the +world, the United States and England, the country with which we had +fought two wars, and innumerable national campaigns. Historically +there had of course been another country as friendly as England had +sometimes been inimical, France, but France had ceased to be a +nation and became a succession of revolutions. + +Manila Bay had been a series of revelations, besides teaching us +that Philippines is spelled with two "ps" and only one "l." We had +there discovered Germany, a country whose admirals had bad sea +manners. We knew at once that our next war would be with Germany, +although the day before Dewey said, "You may fire when you are +ready, Gridley," we would as soon have thought that our next war +would be with Patagonia. + +There too we had an interesting and surprising experience with +England, hitherto known chiefly for her constant designs on the +national dinner pail. She behaved in striking and pleasing contrast +with Germany. Blood, on that bright day, May 1, 1898, began to be +thicker than water. Learning once more had come out of the East. +From Manila Bay flowed such a tide of new ideas, such a +reassessment of old conceptions as had not visited the world since +the discovery of Greek and Latin letters put an end to the Middle +Ages. + +Perceiving our widened interest, John Hay, as Secretary of State, +took our foreign relations on a grand Cook's tour of the world. He +showed us Europe and the Orient. In honor of Manila Bay he invented +that brilliant fiction, the "open door" in the East. Turning our +attention to the world we discovered the General Staff. Hitherto +our army had fought mostly with the scattered Indian tribes of the +West and you cannot use a General Staff in conducting six separate +wars at once, each no bigger than a good-sized riot. But as Admiral +Perry had opened the eyes of the Hermit Kingdom of Japan, so +Admiral whatever-his-name-was who consented to be sunk by Dewey, +the unremembered hero of this great enlightenment, had opened the +eyes of this Hermit Republic of the West to the world across the +seas. + +We had to have a General Staff. Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, gave +us one, faithfully copied from the best European models. Roosevelt, +the Magnificent, stood by and said "Bully." Everything was of this +order; so it was to a tremendously interesting job that Mr. Root +succeeded when he took the place of John Hay as Secretary of State. +The mood of the hour was expansive and a luminous personality +pervaded the national life. + +But public service cannot always be so interesting as it is at its +fullest moments. The luminous personality went out. And Mr. Root's +next experience, in the United States Senate, was disillusioning. + +The Senate is a body in which you grow old, ungracefully waiting +for dead men's shoes. The infinite capacity for taking pains which +Senators have is not genius. If the gods have been good to you, as +they were to Henry Cabot Lodge, you enter the upper house young, a +scholar and idealist, with the hope of the Presidency as the reward +of generous service. Where the race is to the slow you lay aside +your winged gifts one by one and your ambition centers finally not +on the Presidency but on some committee chairmanship clung to by a +pertinacious octogenarian. + +Hope deferred makes you avaricious of little favors, until when a +British journalist writes of you as one did of Henry Cabot Lodge, +making his speech before the last Republican national convention at +Chicago, that you "looked like an elderly peer addressing a labor +gathering," your cup of happiness, is full to the brim, as Henry +Cabot Lodge's was,--whether because you are compared to a lord or +because other people, lesser than Senators, are put into their +proper inferior place. Mr. Lodge is the perfect flower of the +Senate. It is a flower that does not bloom in a night. It is almost +a century plant. + +Into this Senate came Mr. Root, full stature, as he might walk into +the Supreme Court of the United States, preceded by his reputation. +On Olympus one may spring full grown like Minerva from the head of +Jove. But not in the Senate, where strong prejudice exists against +any kind of cerebral generation. A young Senator from Ohio, Mr. +Harding, arrived in the upper House early enough to see the portent +of Mr. Root there. He keeps to this day a sense of its unbecomingness. + +From his desk on the floor Mr. Root talked to the country, but the +Senate did not listen. One does not speak in the Senate by the +authority of intellect or of personality. One speaks by the +authority of dead men's shoes. + +Not being a big committee chairman, Mr. Root was not of counsel in +the big cases. He tried to associate himself with counsel but the +traditions of the Senate and the jealousy of Senators were against +him. He had not the passion for public service that makes Reed +Smoot and Wesley Jones miraculously patient with the endless +details of legislation. After six years he quit. + +"I am tired of it," he said to Senator Fall, "the Senate is doing +such little things in such a little way." It was different from +public life under Roosevelt where one did not notice size of what +they did--one has not yet noticed the size of what they did--for +the grandeur of the way they did it. + +I have said that Mr. Root's mind with its advocate's bent always +occupied itself with the justification of other men's views, his +chief's or his party's. There was one notable exception, his break +with the Republicans while he was in the Senate on the question of +discriminating in favor of American shipping through the Panama +Canal. A clever lawyer's argument can be made that when the United +States said "all nations" in its treaty with Great Britain +regarding the Canal it meant all nations except itself. But Mr. +Root declined to make it, holding that plain morality and a greater +respect for the obligations of a treaty than Bethman Hollweg +expressed when he called them scraps of paper required this country +to charge just the same tolls for American ships using the canal as +for British ships or any other ships using it. + +The general Republican argument is that thus interpreted, the +Hay-Pauncefote treaty is so foolish and so inconvenient a treaty that +Mr. Hay must not have meant what he said when he wrote it, and +really did mean something that he wholly failed to say. The reasons +for contending that Mr. Hay meant no tolls for the United States +and tolls for England, when he wrote the same tolls for everybody +are highly ingenious and as it was a Democratic President who was +asserting that Mr. Hay used language in its ordinary sense, Mr. +Root as a Republican might have been expected to declare that Mr. +Hay used it in quite the reverse of its ordinary sense. But he did +not. He supported the Democratic President and treated the +Republican position as if it had not the slightest taint of +legality in it, to the lasting shock of Mr. Harding, on whose side +the precedents are, for nations do say "all nations," and are later +found to mean all nations but themselves when their virtuous +promises to make no exceptions in their own favor turn out to be +inconvenient. + +When Mr. Root took a high moral stand on the treaty it was said +among Republican Senators that he was thinking more of the +transcontinental railroads which were fighting competition by water +than he was of the sanctity of international engagements. The +probability is that he was probably thinking more of John Hay and +Elihu Root than he was of either. He was in the Cabinet when John +Hay as Secretary of State made the treaty. Senator Lodge, the only +other Senator to agree with Mr. Root and disagree with his party +about the meaning of all nations, was John Hay's closest friend. +Probably both of them, intimately associated with Mr. Hay, had +their part in the making of the treaty. They had perhaps the +sensitiveness of authors about their capacity to say exactly what +they meant. They wanted to recognize their own international piece +when it was put on the stage by the commercially minded producers +of the Senate. + +The history of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty is interesting and +unfamiliar. Attaching Pauncefote's name to the treaty was a +delicate act of international courtesy since there is Pauncefote's +word for it, privately spoken, that he had nothing to do with the +writing of it. + +Hay draughted the treaty by himself probably with the cognizance of +Root and Lodge, the great lawyer who was his associate in the +Cabinet and his closest personal friend in the Capitol. Hay then +handed it to Pauncefote, the British minister here. Pauncefote +transmitted it to the foreign office in London which received it +with surprise and probably with satisfaction, for the Clayton-Bulwer +treaty which it in a sense revived, had been forgotten for nearly +half a century. Delay is the rule of foreign offices. + +Perhaps Mr. Hay's treaty was not so generous as it seemed on first +reading, a suspicion which seems to have been justified by the +interpretation put upon it by the final authority upon international +engagements, the Republican National Convention at Chicago. And if +it was as generous as it seemed let not America think Great Britain +too eager in accepting it, let America pay a little to overcome the +reluctance of Great Britain in setting her approval upon the new +contract. + +At last, after much apparent hesitation, the foreign office agreed +to the new treaty in consideration of America's throwing in, with +it an arbitration of the Bering Sea dispute. President Roosevelt +interpreted Mr. Hay's arbitration contract much as the Republican +National Convention interpreted Mr. Hay's treaty, by appointing +American arbitrators who promised beforehand, in giving a fair and +impartial hearing to the Canadian claims, always to vote for the +American position and to resign and be succeeded by others if they +found that they could not do so. + +Why, then, the prevailing distrust of Mr. Root? His public morals +regarding the Hay-Pauncefote treaty were better than those of his +party, even if we accept the view that they were dictated by +nothing more than a certain mental integrity, a certain consistency +with himself. He was as virtuous in the taking of the Panama Canal +as the virtuous Mr. Roosevelt. He had the advocate's honesty of +being true to his client, whether his client was the public or the +great corporations. Mentality was uppermost in him, so that he took +primarily a logical rather than a moral view of all questions; but +also so much that he could not pretend, could not act, and thus he +was more honest than the politicians. + +His statesmanship was discontinuous, being an interesting avocation +rather than a career. Of it little has been permanent. His General +Staff soon lapsed into incompetence; if it had not, it might have +been the danger to American national life that the German General +Staff was to German national life. Recently it was merged with the +high command. As Secretary of State he was not creative, Mr. +Harding turning back to the solid ground of American international +policy, rested upon John Hay's open door and Knox's dollar +diplomacy. Root in foreign relations merely succeeded with the +Senate where Hay had failed. Always the advocate, he takes other +men's ideas, Hay's or Wilson's and justifies them or makes them +practical. His New York constitution failed, being unjustly +suspected. His world court has little better hope of acceptance, +for Mr. Hughes is not a voluntary sharer of glory. + +In spite of it all, some greatness remains, the impression of a +powerful though limited intelligence. His career was to give us a +moral. It is: if you have an adroit and energetic mind you will +find public affairs uninteresting; except in their occasional +phases. If you have such a mind and must enter politics, hide it; +otherwise democracy will distrust you. Whatever you do, be dull. + + + + +HIRAM JOHNSON + + +Hiram Johnson would have enjoyed the French Revolution, if accident +had made him radical at that time. He would have been stirred by +the rising of the people; he would have given tongue to their +grievances in a voice keyed to lash them to greater fury. He would +have been excited by it as he never has been by the little risings +of the masses which he has made vocal. In all the noisy early +phases of it, he would have made the loudest noise. And he would +have gone to the block when the real business of the revolution +began with the fanatics at its helm. + +In the Russian Revolution, he would have been a Kerensky; and he +would have fled when the true believers in change arrived. He is +the orator of emeutes, who is fascinated by a multitude in a +passion. + +Johnson is not a revolutionary. Not in the least, not any more than +Henry Cabot Lodge is. But revolution has a fierce attraction for +him. He once said to me, speaking bitterly during the campaign, of +Mr. Harding's prospective election, "The war has set back the +people for a generation. They have bowed to a hundred repressed +acts. They have become slaves to the government. They are +frightened at the excesses in Russia. They are docile; and they +will not recover from being so for many years. The interests which +control the Republican party will make the most of their docility. +In the end, of course, there will be a revolution, but it will not +come in my time." + +That "it will not come in my time" was said in a tone of regret. It +was not so much that the Senator wanted revolution. I do not +believe he did. But he wanted his chance, that outburst of popular +resentment which would bring him to the front, with the excitement, +the sense of power that would come from the response of the nation +when his angry voice translated into words its elemental passion. + +Turbulent popular feeling is breath in Johnson's nostrils. Twice he +has thoroughly enjoyed its intoxication. + +His political life was blank paper when the tumult of popular +indignation swept California at the time Francis J. Heney, who was +prosecuting the San Francisco grafters, was shot in the court room. +He had thought nothing politically, he had felt nothing +politically. He had neither convictions, nor passions, nor morals, +politically speaking. He grew up in soil which does not produce +lofty standards. Something of the mining-camp spirit still hung +over California, which had been settled by adventurers, forty-niners, +gold seekers, men who had left the East to "make a new start" where +there was pay dirt. The State had a wild zest for life which was +untrammeled by Puritanism. San Francisco had its Barbary Coast +and in every restaurant its private dining rooms for women. +Johnson himself was sprung from a father who was a "railroad +lawyer," the agent of privileges in procuring special favors, by +methods once well known, from the state legislature. The atmosphere +of his youth was not one to develop a sensitive conscience or a +high conception of public morals. + +Johnson at this time was a practicing attorney, not noted for the +quality of his community service. The administration of San +Francisco had been a scandal for years. Few cared. It was a +"corrupt and contented" city. The corruption grew worse. Lower and +meaner grafters rose to take the place of the earlier and more +robust good fellows who trafficked in the city o' shame. Graft lost +class, and lost caste. It was ultimately exposed in all its +shocking indecency. The light and licentious town developed a +conscience. Public indignation arose and reached its height, when +the grafters ventured too far in the shooting of the attorney +charged with their prosecution. + +Johnson then felt for the first time something he had never felt +before--the stirring of the storm of angry popular feeling. It woke +something in him, something that he did not know existed before--his +instinct for the expression of public passion; his love of the +platform with yelling multitudes in front of him. + +He threw himself into the fray on the side of civic virtue. The +disturbance to the complacency of San Francisco disturbed the +complacency of the State, which had calmly endured misgovernment +for many years. Misgovernment procured by the railroad, the public +utility corporations, the other combinations of wealth, through +their agents, and through the corrupt politicians. Johnson became +the spokesman of public protest and the reform governor of the +State. + +After that came battling for the Lord at Armageddon--the most +intoxicating experience in American political history, for a man of +Johnson's temperament. It was a revolution, not in a government, +but in a party. Bonds were loosed. Immense personal enlargement +came to those who had known the ties of regularity. It was an hour +of freedom, unbridled political passion, unrestrained political +utterance. Docility did not exist. Vast crowds thrilled with new +hopes yelled themselves hoarse over angry words. + +Association with Roosevelt on the Progressive ticket lifted Johnson +from a local to a national importance. The whole country was the +audience which leaped at his words. It was a revolution in tittle, +a taste, a sample of what the real thing would be, with its +breaking of restraints, its making of the mob a perfect instrument +to play upon, its unleashing of passion to which to give tongue. +Johnson has felt its wild stimulation and like a man who has used +drugs the habit is upon him. + +Moreover, his one chance lies that way. I have said that he is, by +accident, radical. Let us imagine a great outburst of popular +passion for reaction. And suppose that Johnson was, when it +arrived, a political blank, as he was when Heney was shot. Johnson +would have raised his angry voice against radicalism, just as +readily as for it. + +The essential thing with him is popular passion, not a political +philosophy. He has no political philosophy. He has no real +convictions. He does not reason or think deeply. His mentality is +slight. He is the voice of many; instinctively he gives tongue to +what the many feel; that is all. + +Suppose the strong-lunged Californian were a political blank, just +reaching the national consciousness, when the reaction against +Wilson began and when the public swung to conservatism. + +You know those vast tin amplifiers employed in big convention +halls, or in out-door meetings, to carry the voice of the speaker +to the remotest depths of the audience; Johnson is a vast tin +amplifier of the voice of the mass. When the people had become +"docile" he would have thundered "docility" to the uttermost bounds +of the universe, if he had not by earlier utterances been +definitely placed on the side opposed to docility. + +But he had been definitely placed in the battle of Armageddon. A +thousand ennuies located him for all political time. No convictions +hold him where he is in case there be profit in changing sides; +other men habitually conservative would have the preference over +him on the other side. In this sense he is accidently radical, +accidently because he happened to emerge in politics at a radical +moment. That takes into account only the mental background of his +political position. There is an element that was not chance. Public +passion is almost invariably radical, springing as it does from the +resentment of inequality, and Johnson is the tongue of public +passion. + +Is he dangerous? He is, only if public passion becomes dangerous +and only up to the point where the speakers of revolution pass from +the stage and the doers of it rig up their chopping blocks. At +present he furnishes the words, the ugly words, which men throw +instead of stones at the objects of their hate. He is the safety +valve of gathering passion. Men listen to him and feel that they +have done something to vindicate their rights. They applaud him to +shake the roof, and vote for Mr. Harding. + +It is customary to speak of his magnetism over crowds. He has no +magnetism in personal contact. He walks toward you as if he were +about to deliver a blow, an impression that is strengthened by his +square menacing figure. His voice is unpleasant. His smile is wry. +He not unusually has a complaint to make against the public, +against the press, against fate, against you personally. He is not +interested in people, as Roosevelt was to so an amazing degree, and +as magnetic persons usually are. He is cold, hard, and selfish. His +quarrels are numerous, with the campaign managers of the Armageddon +fight, with his own campaign manager of 1920, with the newspaper +correspondents. He is habitually pessimistic, and pessimism and +magnetism do not go together. + +His complaint that the people were docile and would not recover +their confidence and self-assertion in his time, was a bit of his +inevitable gloom. His dark habit of thought hung over his campaign +for the presidential nomination of 1920, preventing his making a +real effort in many states, and lay in the way of his success. He +has few friends, love having been left out of his make-up. I do not +speak of family affection--but love in its larger implications. +Those who surround him--clerks and secretaries--have the air of +repressed, starving personalities. + +That which gathers the crowds and sets them shouting is not his +magnetism but the perfect expression of their passion. For them and +for it he is a sounding board. His voice with its hard angry tone, +its mechanical rise and fall, has the ring of a hundred guillotines +in operation. Having little culture, unintellectual, he is +primitive as the mass before him. He talks their language and an +instinct all his own gives him an exact sense of their emotions. + +And what he says leaves the impression of tremendous sincerity. His +sincerity does not arise from reasoned convictions but from hatred; +deep and abiding hatred. + +Senator Borah once said, "The difference between Johnson and me is +that I regard questions from the point of view of principles while +he regards them from the point of view of personalities. When a man +opposes me I do not become angry at him. On the next issue he may +agree with me. When a man opposes Johnson he hates him. He feels +that the opposition is directed personally against him, not against +the policy that separates them." + +Johnson's opponents are the elements of reaction, the malefactors +of great wealth, the supporters of that social inequality which the +crowd resents. They stood in his path in California. They made +impossible his nomination at Chicago. When the bitter enders, +during the treaty fight, planned to send him on a tour of the +country, these monied men closed their pocketbooks, exclaiming to +Senator Knox, "What do you mean to do? Advertise this man Johnson +and make him the Republican candidate for President? Not with our +money." + +Only the raising of a fund by Senator McCormick and some of the old +Progressives, gave him his chance to speak. He hates them and when +he attacks them it is with all the force and sincerity of his soul. +It is no mere question of hatred, such as Roosevelt would employ to +dramatize and make personal the issues he was representing to the +people; it is bitter, revengeful detestation. It makes Johnson the +most sincere man before the country to-day. And that pessimistic +strain in his nature causes the darkness of his diatribe to seem +all the more true. + +But he swallows for expediency as other men swallow their +convictions for it, and wrath is the bitterer dose. During the 1920 +campaign he trafficked with Senator Penrose, the representative of +hated wealth, for support at Chicago, offering, it has not been +disclosed what considerations, for his aid. + +He was ready at that time to take back his speech advocating the +government ownership of railroads, a gesture against "the +interests," made at the bidding of Hearst, at the beck of whose +agents he is prone to bestir himself. + +It must be an irksome livery, that of Hearst, for he hates all +service and overshadowing. Equally irksome is his service to +regularity under the rod of the Republican party. But he bows to +it, and supports Harding whom he hates. He bobs up like a +Jack-in-the-box and makes his laudatory speech whenever the name of +Roosevelt comes up, though in his heart he must reverence none too +deeply that overshadowing personality. + +He has no roots except in the mob and no hope except in its aroused +resentment against inequality. Not being interested in individuals +he has not that personal organization possessed by Roosevelt, with +his army of correspondents, friends and idolators, in every hamlet. + +And of course he has little hope of ever controlling his party +organization. He is curiously alone. + +"There are only three men in the world whom I trust," he once said +to a friend. There is no reason to regard this as an exaggeration. +His attitude toward his associates in the Senate is this: "If I +were crossing a desert with any one of them and there was only one +water bottle, I should insist upon carrying that bottle." + +On such pessimism and distrust it is impossible to build political +success. It can come only when his pessimism and distrust coincide +with like pessimism and distrust in the masses. He waits the day, +but gloomily, without confidence. + + + + +PHILANDER CHASE KNOX + + +"I like Knox and I admire him tremendously, but I will not ask him +to be my Secretary of State. He is too indifferent." + +This characterization of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, +attributed to his late colleague President Harding, summarizes very +aptly his strength and his weakness. One can very easily admire him +and, when he drops the mask of dignity, which seems almost pompous +in so diminutive a figure, one cannot help liking him. But in spite +of his successes,--which his enemies attribute to luck, and he +probably attributes to intellectual superiority,--he has never +quite achieved greatness and will probably go down in history as +one of the lesser luminaries in the political heavens. + +Knox IS indifferent, especially to those who do not know him +intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the +contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings +of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a +feeble and futile fluttering. + +I doubt if any man in public life has had so many honors thrust +upon him. He has held three great offices of the Republic without +so much as raising a hand for any of them. Unlike most men he did +not travel the mucky road of politics to reach Washington nor +compromise with circumstance to gain distinction. Three Presidents +invited him to sit at their cabinet tables. Three times the +Republican machine in Pennsylvania invited him to sit in the +Senate. With graceful dignity he accepted all of these invitations +not, indeed, unconscious of the fact that the selection in each +case was a very happy one. + +I do not mean by this that he is conceited. He is merely conscious +of the fact that intellectually he is somewhat superior to his +colleagues, most of whom, strangely enough, quite agree with him. +They consult him and accept his counsel with almost childlike +faith. To the mediocre politicians and provincial lawyers who +constitute the bulk of the Senate and House of Representatives, he +is a figure apart, who looks upon their antics with a kindly, but +never amused, tolerance. + +"I know nothing of politics," he said to me a short time ago. "I +have never been interested in politics as such." + +This remark is rather enigmatical to the average member, who would, +ordinarily, look upon the author as a dolt or pretender. They do +not dare to do either in the case of Mr. Knox; therefore, the +conclusion that he is indifferent. Never have the men associated +with Mr. Knox questioned his capacity. + +Robert Lansing, when he was Secretary of State, said of him; +"Senator Lodge will not understand the treaty but he will fight for +it for political reasons. Senator Knox will understand it +thoroughly." + +The observation seems almost prophetic in the light of what has +since been disclosed. Mr. Lansing's faith in Mr. Knox's judgment +seems to have been fully justified. I know of no one who has held +more steadfastly the respect of colleagues in the Senate or at the +Cabinet table, nor who has been more easily successful up to a +certain point or so singularly unsuccessful beyond it. He has done +valiant service for his country but he has failed lamentably to +reach the heights from which he could look upon broader horizons. + +In the early days of his career no one strove more whole heartedly. +Destiny smiled upon him and the White House seemed to beckon. He +was not unaware of the opportunity nor was there anyone more eager +to grasp it. But he discovered that he could not stir the +enthusiasm that begets political power. The secret, which enabled +many other men, many of whom he despised, to succeed, was not his. + +A temperamental dislike of the methods of politicians was followed +by a strong animosity towards those who crossed his political path +and some of those who went along beside it. He became hypercritical +of those with whom he associated and allowed a natural germ of +cynicism to develop and flourish within him. Little by little he +has withdrawn from the active combat, a philosopher in politics +enamored of public life but unwilling to suffer the inconveniences +it involves. + +It is no wonder then that his colleagues in the Senate, especially +the younger members, are somewhat in fear of the incisive tongue, +for he wields it frequently and contemptuously. When after his +election, Mr. Harding went South with Senator Frelinghuysen, +Senator Davis Elkins, and Senator Hale, the older Senators, not, +perhaps, without a tinge of disappointment at having been left out, +marveled at the entourage the President had selected for himself, +but Knox was cynically undisturbed. + +"It is quite simple," he said, "I see nothing mysterious about it +at all. The President wants relaxation--complete mental +relaxation." + +No less biting was his comment on Robert Lansing when that +gentleman started on the high road of public service as Counselor +of the State Department. The bandy-legged messenger who guards the +door of the Secretary of State is the negro, Eddie Savoy. Eddie, in +his way, is a personage. For forty years he has ushered +diplomatists in and out of the Secretary's office; his short bent +figure gives the only air of permanence to an institution which +seems to be in a constant state of flux. When the Lansing +appointment was announced Mr. Knox observed: "I would as soon ask +Eddie Savoy an opinion on foreign affairs as Robert Lansing." + +The roots of Mr. Knox's superciliousness dip down deep into the +relationships begun a score of years ago. To understand him as he +is it is necessary to understand him as he was when his career was +before him. William McKinley asked him to become Attorney General +in his Cabinet. He was then forty-two years old, a political +nobody. What reputation he had was confined to Pittsburg and a +selected few of the steel millionaires in Wall Street, but among +the selected few were names to be conjured with, such as Andrew +Carnegie and Henry C. Frick. Whether President McKinley's interest +in Knox was spontaneous or prompted by Mr. Frick I do not know. Mr. +Knox likes to believe that Mr. Frick did not enter into the +equation. Mr. Knox declined, saying that he could not sacrifice his +lucrative practice but that in four years he would accept the +invitation if the President cared to renew it. + +It was renewed. At the age of forty-six, Mr. Knox quit the bar for +politics, or, as he would say, statecraft. His appointment evoked a +storm of protest from such immaculate journals as the New York +World. They dubbed him, "Frick's man," and predicted that the +Department of Justice would be turned into a Wall Street anteroom +for the convenience of the capitalistic combinations then flouting +the Sherman anti-trust law. The charges, of course, were as wide of +the mark as most of the ebullitions of the yellow journals. + +Mr. Knox began his public career by attacking the Northern +Securities merger, against the judgment of some of the highest-paid +lawyers of the country. The Supreme Court sustained him. It was the +greatest victory the government ever won under the Sherman law. +Thereafter Mr. Knox, who had been labeled a corporation lawyer, was +proclaimed a trust buster. By the time he was fifty he had become +the greatest Attorney General in a half century. Certainly the mark +he set has never been reached by any of his successors. + +When Mr. Roosevelt came into the White House Mr. Knox was at the +pinnacle of his career and was as much admired by his new chief as +by his martyred predecessor. In ability Mr. Roosevelt considered +him next to Elihu Root, for which Mr. Root was never quite +forgiven. It is generally known that President Roosevelt believed +that Mr. Root was the best qualified man in the country to succeed +him, but at the same time, being an astute politician, he knew that +he could not be elected. His attitude to his Secretary of State was +the same as Senator Lodge's toward himself, when he said in 1920: +"I know that I would make an excellent President, but I realize +that I would make a poor candidate." + +Root being out of it because of this obvious defect, President +Roosevelt proceeded to groom Mr. Knox for the nomination. Mr. Knox +at the President's suggestion, prepared and delivered several +speeches in the hope that he would awaken popular enthusiasm. The +attempt failed dismally. + +There was not a responsive throb, not even a vague echo. Mr. Knox +knew that he possessed not the merest shred of the leadership +necessary to a presidential candidate. + +He went back to the Senate, where he had succeeded Matthew Quay +upon his resignation from the Cabinet, sadder if wiser, while +William H. Taft draped upon his broad shoulders the mantle of +Roosevelt. + +Mr. Knox has never quite recovered from that disappointment, but he +did not altogether abandon hope. He accepted a place in the Taft +Cabinet as Secretary of State, more for the opportunities it +offered than for the pleasure of the associations, for Mr. Knox's +attitude toward President Taft was never more than passive +tolerance tinged with contempt. This new venture was no more +successful than the old. He made it quite evident that a new regime +was to be established in the State Department. The policies +originated by John Hay and developed with singular brilliancy by +Mr. Root were shunted into the background and a new era was +proclaimed. It is unnecessary to comment on the dismal essay at +"dollar diplomacy" and the Mexican policy of that period. The +simple fact is that Mr. Knox's name is not associated with a single +successful foreign policy. Some might have succeeded but +unfortunately the energy displayed at the outset of his career in +this new field was soon dissipated. Mr. Knox disliked the methods +of diplomacy. He lacked both the patience and the finesse. He went +to the Department, over which he was supposed to preside, but +rarely. For weeks at a time Washington saw nothing of him. The +administration of the Department was left largely to Huntington +Wilson, whose ineptitude was colossal. + +Fortunately for Mr. Knox the extent of his failure was somewhat +screened from public view by the dust and clatter of the collapse +of the Taft Administration, but it left its mark on him. He had +failed dismally to eclipse his predecessor, Elihu Root. He had +eliminated himself from all consideration as one of the very great +statesmen of his period. He was a bitterly disappointed man. Not +only his associates but the members of the diplomatic corps were +made to feel the sting of his resentment against overwhelming +circumstances. Such references as that directed at the French +Ambassador, M. Jules Jusserand, now dean of the diplomatic corps, +whom he called "the magpie," cost him many friends. + +Upon the inauguration of President Wilson Mr. Knox slipped quietly +away to Valley Forge. Public life, however, still had for him its +attractions, and when Senator Oliver retired, he returned to the +Senate. During the war his great talents were dormant. He merely +came and went, a curious little detached figure apparently quite +unresponsive to the emotions which swept the country during that +eventful period. + +With the signing of the armistice he aroused himself from his +apparent torpor. Although he was quite without feeling during the +stress and storm, the situation created by the presentation of the +Treaty of Versailles with its interwoven League of Nations stirred +his intellectual interest. He became the leader of the little band +of "irreconcilables" who girded their armor to prevent what they +regarded as a catastrophic sacrifice of American interests. At the +same time Mr. Knox narrowly missed another opportunity to lift +himself conspicuously above the heads of stump speakers who, for +the most part, to-day comprise the Senate. + +During that memorable fight Senator Lodge incurred the enmity at +one time or another of every faction in the Senate. He could not be +trusted to maintain the same position over night, shifting as +expediency demanded until most of his colleagues, particularly the +irreconcilables, were exasperated beyond endurance. At one of the +most critical periods Senator Borah appealed to Senator Knox to +wrest the leadership from the Massachusetts Senator, with +intimations that he would have the support of the "bitter enders" +at the forthcoming convention at Chicago. Mr. Knox does not love +Mr. Lodge but he refused to consider the proposal. He was +indifferent. His last great political opportunity went glimmering. + +As I have said Mr. Knox can be very charming but I doubt that he +sincerely admires any of the public men with whom he has been +associated, or can call any of them, from the purely personal +viewpoint, his friends, with the possible exception of Andrew +Mellon, whom he caused to be appointed Secretary of the Treasury. +Of course, he likes many of his colleagues, after a fashion, +especially those who admire him, but that is another matter. The +intimacy usually implied in the term friendship does not enter into +such relations. + +For some of the more important men he has known, he has shown a +very distinct dislike. It is said of him that he thought President +Harding overlooked a real opportunity when he failed to invite him +to become Secretary of State, but his disappointment was somewhat +mollified by the fact that Mr. Root was not asked to take the post. + +Mr. Knox prefers to look upon Mr. Root as a lucky lawyer who has +taken to himself much of the credit of John Hay's great work. He +shows an even less regard for Mr. Lodge's talents. And he is +doubtful of Mr. Hughes. + +His attitude towards the Secretary of State dates back to the +insurance scandals. At that time Mr. Frick asked Mr. Knox to make +an investigation and suggest a course of action to avert a national +disaster. This Mr. Knox did in his thorough and painstaking way. A +little later, when Mr. Hughes was appointed to make a public +inquiry, the Knox report was laid before him, and according to the +author of it, he followed precisely the lines therein indicated +creating for himself a national reputation and laying the +foundation of a public career. Credit was not given Mr. Knox. It +has been suggested that the incident might have been an +illustration of two great minds seeking the same channel. Mr. Knox +does not think so. + +In spite of his disappointments and failures, the dignified little +Senator from Pennsylvania who has been so many times on the verge +of greatness, seems to think that he could have done just a little +better than any of those who have achieved it, had circumstance +given him the opportunity. Perhaps he might. It is a compliment +that few men merit to be called merely indifferent. + + + + +ROBERT LANSING + + +He who believes in luck should study the career of Robert Lansing. +Mr. Lansing probably thinks that the goddess of chance played him a +scurvy trick, after having admitted him to the Olympian heights, to +break him as suddenly as she made him. + +Robert Lansing's real misfortune was not knowing how to play his +luck. It is curious the fear men have of death. The former +Secretary of State's only hope of immortality was to commit +political suicide, and he lacked the courage or the vision to fall +upon his sword. + +When Woodrow Wilson was elected President for the first time he +appointed Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. The opinion Mr. Wilson +entertained of Mr. Bryan we all know. Mr. Wilson was not given to +letting his thoughts run wild, but on one occasion, with pen in +hand, he permitted himself the luxury of saying what he thought and +expressed the pious hope that somebody would knock the distinguished +Nebraskan into a cocked hat and thus dispose of the perpetual +candidate who was the Old Man of the Sea to the Democratic Party. + +Circumstances alter cases; Mr. Wilson as a private citizen could +say and think what he pleased; as President he was compelled to +make Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. As Mr. Bryan knew nothing of +history and less of European politics and had a superb disdain of +diplomacy--diplomacy according to the tenets of Bryanism being an +unholy and immoral game in which the foreign players were always +trying to outmaneuver the virtuous and innocent American--he was +provided with a political nurse, mentor, and guardian in the person +of John Bassett Moore, who had a long and brilliant career as an +international lawyer and diplomatist. Mr. Bryan busied himself with +finding soft jobs for deserving Democrats, preaching and +inculcating the virtues of grape juice to the diplomatic corps, and +concocting plans whereby the sword was to be beaten into a +typewriter and war become a lost art. Meanwhile Mr. Moore was doing +the serious work of the Department. + +No two men were more unlike than Mr. Bryan and Mr. Moore; Mr. Bryan +a bundle of loosely tied emotions to whom a catchy phrase or an +unsound theory is more precious than a natural law or the wisdom of +the philosopher; Mr. Moore an intellect who has subordinated his +emotions, and to whom facts are as important as mathematics to an +engineer. It was an incompatible union; it could not last. Mr. +Moore became impatient of his chief's vagaries and, about a year +later, returned to the dignified quiet of Columbia University. + +This was early in 1914. Now for the random way in which chance +weaves her skein. Mr. Moore went out of the Department and left the +office of Counselor vacant, an office, up to that time, so little +known that the public, if it gave the matter any thought, believed +its occupant was the legal adviser of the Department, while, as a +matter of fact, he is the Under Secretary, which is now the +official designation. + +At this stage of his career Mr. Lansing was connected with the +Department as an adviser on international affairs and had +represented the United States in many international arbitrations. +He was known to a small and select circle of lawyers specializing +in international law, but to the public his name meant nothing. He +had always been a good Democrat, although he was married to the +daughter of the late John W. Foster, who wound up a long and +brilliant diplomatic life as Secretary of State in President +Harrison's Cabinet after Mr. Blaine's resignation. + +Mr. Lansing had made Washington his home for many years, and when +the new Democratic Administration came into power he believed his +services to the party entitled him to recognition, and he sought +the appointment of Third Assistant Secretary of State. The Third +Assistant Secretary is the official Social Secretary of the +Government. When royalty or other distinguished persons come to +this country as the guests of the nation the Third Assistant +Secretary is the Master of Ceremonies. He has to see that all the +forms are properly complied with and nothing happens to mar the +visitors' enjoyment; he sends out invitations, in the name of the +State Department, to the funerals of Ambassadors or the +inauguration of the President. But for some reason Mr. Lansing's +praiseworthy ambition was defeated. + +Mr. Moore had knowledge, learning, and experience, but he was +denied the gift of divination. Had he known that a few months later +a half crazed youth in an unheard of place was to be the +unconscious agent to set the whole world aflame, undoubtedly he +would have put up with Mr. Bryan's curious ideas and peculiar +methods and stuck to his desk at the State Department, and Mr. +Lansing would never have been heard of. But at the turning point in +Mr. Moore's career his luck deserted him and Mr. Lansing became the +beneficiary. Mr. Lansing, who would have been satisfied with the +appointment of Third Assistant Secretary of State, a minor place in +the hierarchy, was appointed by Mr. Wilson Counselor of the +Department of State. + +The appointment created no excitement. In March, 1914, foreign +affairs had little interest for the American people. There was +Mexico, of course, and Japan; there were the usual routine +questions to form the customary work of the department; but the +skies were serene; murder, rape, and sudden death no one thought +of; Lloyd's, which will gamble on anything from the weather to an +ocean tragedy, would have written a policy at a ridiculously low +premium on the maintenance of the peace of Europe; any statesman +rash enough to have predicted war for the United States within +three years would have aroused the concern of his friends and the +professional solicitude of his physician. Apparently Mr. Lansing +had tumbled into an easy and dignified post which would not unduly +tax his physical or mental strength. He could congratulate himself +upon his good fortune. + +A few months later the situation changed. The State Department +became not only the center about which the whole machinery of the +Government revolved but on it was focused the attention of the +country and the thoughts of Europe. The Counselor of the Department +was lifted out of his obscurity; despatches to the belligerents +signed "Lansing" were published in the newspapers, statements were +issued by him, he was interviewed; he received Ambassadors, and +when an Ambassador visited the State Department the nerve centers +of the whole world were affected. Again, a few months later, in +June, 1915, Mr. Bryan kindly accommodated Mr. Wilson by knocking +himself into a cocked hat, and Mr. Lansing was appointed Secretary +of State. Few men had risen so rapidly. He had no reason to +complain of his luck. + +Mr. Wilson made some extraordinary appointments--a close observer +has said he could read motives but not men--and his appointment of +Mr. Lansing at a time of crisis would have been inexplicable were +it not logical as Mr. Wilson reasoned. Mr. Wilson did not invite as +his associates his intellectual equals or those who dared to oppose +him; it was necessary that the State Department should have a +titular head, but Mr. Wilson was resolved to be his own Secretary +of State and take into his own hands the control of foreign policy. +No great man, no man great enough to be Secretary of State when the +world was in upheaval, would have consented to that indignity; no +man jealous of his own self-respect could have remained Mr. +Wilson's Secretary of State for long. A Secretary of State or any +other member of the Cabinet must of course subordinate his judgment +to that of the President, for the President is the final court of +appeal. But Mr. Wilson went further than that; he heaped almost +unparalleled affront upon Mr. Lansing; he made the great office of +Secretary of State ridiculous, and he invested its incumbent with +no greater authority than that of a copyist. + +Perhaps Mr. Wilson reads men better than his critics believed; +perhaps Mr. Wilson had fully taken the measure of Mr. Lansing and +knew how far he could go. + +Nature never intended Mr. Lansing to be a leader of men, to fight +for a great cause, or to engage in physical or intellectual combat. +His life has been too soft for that, and he is naturally indolent. +He is fond of, and has more than the amateur's appreciation for, +music, painting, poetry, and the classics of literature. He has +dabbled in verse, he sketches and he has written, but without +brilliancy. Accident made him a lawyer, but he was really intended +to be an artist; he would have produced no masterpiece, for genius +is not in him, but he would have been happy in his work and perhaps +have given inspiration to men of greater talent. Without being a +fanatic or dogmatic, he is strongly religious; religion to him has +a meaning and is not merely a convention; he has a code which he +has always observed and ideals which he has preserved; he is +charitable in his judgments and has never allowed his prejudices to +influence his actions; he is, to use a word so often misapplied, a +gentleman, and his motto is Noblesse oblige. Typical of the +standard he sets for himself was the admirable restraint he showed +after his abrupt dismissal from the Cabinet. He neither sought +vindication through the newspapers, nor posed as a victim, nor +soothed his feelings by denunciations of the President; he did not +make a nuisance of himself by inflicting the recital of his +grievances upon his friends or hinting darkly at revelations. He +kept quiet and went about his affairs as a gentleman should. + +Why, it may be asked, should a man with so many fine qualities have +cut such a sorry figure? The answer perhaps is that he suffers from +the defects of his qualities, fine as we must admit them to be; too +fine, perhaps, for a coarser world. + +When a weak and somewhat easy-going man, immensely pleased with his +own exalted position, has to deal with a man of iron will, ruthless +in his methods, he is necessarily at a disadvantage. Considering +Mr. Lansing's temperamental defects and the effect of his training, +his failure is no mystery. + +Until Mr. Lansing became Secretary of State he had never known +responsibility. Practically his entire life had been spent as a +subordinate, carrying out with zeal and intelligence the tasks +assigned to him, but always in obedience to a stronger mind. +Nothing more weakens character or intellect than for a man +habitually to turn to another for direction or inspiration; always +to play the part of an inferior to a mental superior. For years Mr. +Lansing had been connected with many international arbitrations +which, theoretically, was a magnificent training for a future +Secretary of State, and actually would have destroyed the creative +and administrative usefulness of a much stronger man than Robert +Lansing. + +In the whole mummery of international relations there is nothing +more farcical than an international arbitration. It is always +preceded by great popular excitement. A ship is seized, a boundary +is run a few degrees north or south of the conventional line, +something else equally trivial fires the patriotic heart. The flag +has been insulted, the offending nation is a land grabber, national +honor must be vindicated. Secretaries of State write notes, +ambassadors are instructed, the press becomes rabid, speeches are +made; the public is advised to remain calm, but it is also assured +there will be no surrender. After a few weeks the public forgets +about the insult or the way in which it has been robbed; but the +responsible officials who have never allowed themselves to become +excited, continue the pleasing pastime of writing notes. + +Months, sometimes years, drag on, then a new Secretary of State or +a Foreign Minister, to clean the slate, proposes that the childish +business be ended by an international arbitration. More weeks, more +often months, are spent in agreeing upon the terms of reference, +and finally the dispute goes before an "impartial arbitral +tribunal." Both sides appoint agents and secretaries, an imposing +array of counsel, technical experts; and as the counsel are always +well paid they have a conscientious obligation to earn their fees. + +More months are required to prepare the case, which frequently runs +into many printed volumes; and the more volumes the better pleased +everybody is, as size denotes importance. The arbitrators, although +they are governed by principles of law, know what is expected of +them, and they rarely disappoint. Almost invariably their decision +is a compromise, so nicely shaded that while neither side can claim +victory neither side suffers the humiliation of defeat. As by that +time both nations have long forgotten the original cause of the +quarrel their people are quite content when they are told the +decision is in their favor. As junior counsel Mr. Lansing's name +appears in many international arbitrations, and it was precisely +the work for which he was fitted. + +If Mr. Lansing had been a man of more robust fiber, he would have +returned his portfolio to Mr. Wilson as early as 1916, for the +President was writing notes to the belligerents and did not, even +as a perfunctory courtesy, consult his Secretary of State; he made +it only too patent he did not consider his advice worth asking. Mr. +Lansing was too fond of his official prominence to surrender it +easily, and that is another curious thing about the man. Somewhat +vain, holding himself in much higher estimation than the world did, +few men have so thoroughly enjoyed office as he. But he remained +the quiet and unassuming gentleman he had always been; and he +certainly could not have deluded himself into believing that there +was a still higher office for him to occupy. + +Mr. Lansing could not screw up his courage to resign in 1916. The +following year the United States was at war and he naturally could +not desert his post; but in 1919 Mr. Lansing was given another +opportunity, and still he was obdurate. He has told us in his +public confession that he tried to persuade the President not to go +to Paris. Mr. Wilson, as usual, remained unpersuaded, and Mr. +Lansing humbly followed in his train. + +Then, of course, Mr. Lansing could not resign, but in Paris he was +even more grossly humiliated; he was completely shut out from the +President's confidence; he wrote letters to Mr. Wilson which the +President did not deign to answer; so little did Mr. Lansing know +what was being done that he sought information from the Chinese +Delegates! It sounds incredible, it seems even more incredible that +a Secretary of State should put himself in such an undignified +position, and having done so should invite the world to share his +ignominy. But he has set it down in his book as if he believed it +was ample defense, instead of realizing that it is condemnation. + +Curious contradictions! One might expect a sensitive man, a man who +has never courted publicity, who has none of the genius of the +self-advertiser, to crave forgetfulness for the Paris episode, to +shrink from publicly exposing himself and his humiliations, but Mr. +Lansing seemingly revels in his self-dissection. The President +slaps his face; in his pride he summons all the world to look upon +the marks left by the Executive palm. He feels the sting, and he +enters upon an elaborate defense to show it is the stigmata of +martyrdom. A treaty was framed of which he disapproved, yet he +could sign it without wrench of conscience. Unreconciled to +resignation in Paris, he returned to Washington as if nothing had +happened, again to resume his subservient relations to the +President. + +Opportunity, we are told, knocks only once at a man's door, but +while opportunity thundered at Mr. Lansing's portal "his ear was +closed with the cotton of negligence." + +Early in 1920 Mr. Wilson dismissed him, brutally, abruptly, with +the petulance of an invalid too tired to be fair; for a reason so +obviously disingenuous that Mr. Lansing had the sympathy of the +country. He should either have told the truth then and there or +forever have held his peace; and had he remained mute out of the +mystery would have grown a myth. The fictitious Lansing would have +become an historical character. But he must needs write a book. It +does not make pleasant reading. It does not make its author a hero. + +It does, however, answer the question the curious asked at the time +of his appointment: "Why did the President make Mr. Lansing +Secretary of State?" + + + + +BOIES PENROSE + + +The most striking victim of the American propensity for +exaggeration is the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Boies +Penrose. He has a personality and contour that lend themselves to +caricature. Only a few deft strokes are needed to make his +ponderous figure and heavy jowl the counterpart of a typical boss, +an institution for which the American people have a pardonable +affection in these days of political quackery. For, when the worst +is said of the imposing array of bosses from Tweed down to the +present time, they could be forgiven much because they were what +they were. That is why, perhaps, the altogether fanciful picture of +Penrose, propped on his pillows with his telephone at his bedside +directing the embattled delegates at Chicago, who in sheer +desperation turned to Warren G. Harding, is dwelt upon fondly by a +deluded public. + +Penrose does not despise the appurtenances of bossism. If the truth +were told he probably likes the idea of being represented as the +hard-fisted master of party destinies. He knows that such a +reputation inspires awe if not respect, on the part of the rank and +file, from the humble precinct worker to the gentleman of large +affairs who provides the necessary campaign funds. It has its +value, sentimental as well as practical, for the American people +likes to set up its own political idols. The politicians who for +the moment guide the destinies of the nation are so misdrawn, so +illuminated with virtues and endowed with vices quite foreign to +them, that they frequently achieve a personality quite fictitious, +but which, none the less, passes current in the popular mind as +genuine. + +Nothing could be more grotesque, for example, than the picture of +Senator Smoot, who is merely a sublimated messenger boy, as one of +the arbiters of the Republican policies; or of Senator Lodge, by +sheer strength of leadership, restraining the discordant Republican +elements in the Senate from kicking over the traces. This is +journalist "copy" written for a popular imagination which finds the +truth too tepid. + +Boies Penrose serves the purpose of appeasing national appetite for +what the magazine editors call "dynamic stuff." + +But the real Boies Penrose is not all as he is pictured. At a +cursory glance he might appear to be a physiological, psychological, +and political anachronism. At least he is sufficiently different +from his colleagues to be, if not actually mysterious, not easily +understandable. There is something fundamental about him. He +inspires a certain awe which may not be magnetic but has the same +effect upon those who surround him; where he sits is the head of +the table. + +I doubt if Lodge or Knox or Hughes could ever fathom the secret of +his power; they are not cast in the same mould. His colleagues +smile at his idiosyncracies--behind his back--but they approach him +with the respect due to a master. Many of them admire him, not a +few hate him, but all of them fear him. It is rather a singular +thing that Senator La Follette, himself at the pinnacle of his +championship of the Wisconsin progressive idea, was probably on +friendlier terms with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania than any +of the other leaders of those reactionary forces with whom he was +tilting. He knew where Penrose stood and it is not at all +improbable that behind the Penrose reticence there was a modicum of +admiration for the methods of the redoubtable little colleague, who +in his way, was a more inexorable boss than Penrose himself ever +dreamed of being. The mutual understanding was there, even if it +never became articulate. + +Penrose has peculiarities which put him in a niche quite his own. +He eschews conversation as an idle affectation. He dislikes to +shake hands, preferring the Chinese fashion of holding his on his +own expansive paunch. When he finds it necessary to talk at all he +speaks the precise truth as he sees it without consideration for +the feelings of those he happens to be addressing. The results are +frequently so ludicrous, particularly when he enters a colloquy on +the Senate floor, that he is given credit for a much more +pronounced sense of humor than he actually possesses. I doubt that +he is always conscious of the element of humor and I suspect that +if he realized that his observations were to evoke laughter he +would deliberately choose a less satirical or flippant method of +expression. + +This temperamental characteristic was illustrated by an episode in +the Senate chamber not long ago. Penrose, entering, found his chair +occupied by a Democratic colleague who had overestimated his +capacity for the doubtful stuff that is purveyed in these days of +Volsteadism and whose condition was apparent to everyone on the +floor and in the galleries. Penrose is, perhaps, the most widely +known personage in the Senate. His towering figure makes him +conspicuous. But the most of the myriads of trippers who visit the +Capitol do not know one senator from another. They rely for +identification upon little charts showing the arrangements of the +seats on the floor each one of which is labeled with a senator's +name. + +Now Penrose, might or might not have suspected that these trippers +following their charts, would pick out the snoring recumbent figure +as his own. He decided to remove all possibility of error and +addressing the chair with usual solemnity said, "Mr. President, I +desire the chair to record the fact that the seat of the senior +Senator from Pennsylvania has not been occupied by himself at the +present session. It is occupied by another." The galleries roared; +the somnolent Senator shambled over to his own side of the aisle +and Senator Penrose was given credit, by the unwise, for humor +quite unintended. + +Life with Mr. Penrose is a much more serious business than most +people imagine. And it became even more serious a little while ago +when illness laid hold of him and his brother, a physician, +prescribed dietary rules restricting the freedom that he had once +exercised without restraint. There was something lion-like in the +gaunt figure in the rolling chair which he occupied when he +returned to the Senate from his sick bed. It was amazing that he +recovered; it was even more amazing that he should have submitted +to the rigorous rules laid down by his doctor, even if that doctor +was his own brother. The bated breath with which Pennsylvania +politicians awaited bulletins from his bedside was a striking +acknowledgment of the power he wields. + +The evolution of Boies Penrose is an amusing commentary upon +American politics in more ways than one. Three years after he was +graduated from Harvard College he was elected to the Pennsylvania +State Legislature on a reform ticket. His election was made the +occasion for great rejoicing on the part of the good people of +Philadelphia. And well might they rejoice. They had at last driven +a wedge into the sinister political machine that had brought the +city of brotherly love into disrepute as a boss-ridden municipality. + +Their young leader had wealth, which has its advantages, and social +position, which to a Philadelphian is as dear as life itself. +Moreover he had ability and all that makes for success. His fame as +a reform leader spread throughout the land and across the seas. +James Bryce, in his first edition of his American Commonwealth +cited him as an example of the sterling type of young Americans who +were arousing themselves at that time to rescue the municipal and +state governments from the grip of the vicious boss system. + +In the subsequent editions of the American Commonwealth you will +find no reference to Mr. Penrose. Something had happened to him and +to the reform movement. Whether he was struck by a bolt from the +heavens or a bolt from Matthew Stanley Quay is immaterial. The fact +is that after a few years' residence in Harrisburg, the seat of the +government of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he counseled with +himself and solemnly decided that Providence had never selected him +to be the apostle of the political millenium. + +Most men are born radicals and die conservatives. The development +is gradual and represents the result of years of experience. But +Penrose repented while there was time to make amends for his error. +He sought a very short cut. He went directly from the legislature +to the Republican organization of Philadelphia and stood as its +candidate for mayor. But his late friends, the reformers, happened +to be in the ascendency that year and he was defeated. + +The story told of him at that time, whether true or not, that he +announced his willingness to take as his bride any estimable young +lady the organization might select, since the fact that he was a +bachelor was given by his henchmen as the reason of his defeat, is +typical of him. The "organization," the Republican Party, +constitutes his political creed and philosophy. He has devoted his +life to it. The "party" is his life, his religion, his family, his +hobby. Down in his soul he believes that the destiny of the +American people is so inextricably interwoven with its fortunes +that its destruction would be nothing less than national hari kari. + +He does not believe that the Republican Party is perfect, but he +believes that it is as perfect as any political organization is +ever likely to be. He has no illusions concerning the men it +chooses for high places. He is never disturbed by stories of +political corruption or graft unless they are serious enough to +jeopardize forthcoming elections. Otherwise they are merely +unpleasant incidents that arise in the life of every business +organization. + +If he were supreme he would not tolerate political corruption, any +more than he would tolerate murder; but since he is not supreme and +cannot dictate to all men, he accepts their efforts in the interest +of the organization even though their hands may be slightly soiled. +Like the wise general who raises a volunteer army he is not +meticulous in the choice of his privates, providing they are +capable of performing the tasks assigned to them. No seeker after +souls ever believed the end justifies the means more sincerely than +Boies Penrose believes his vote-seekers are justified in stretching +the code a bit for the benefit of the organization--particularly if +it is actually endangered. + +Just as he believes in the Republican Party he believes in a high +tariff--the higher the better. Prosperity without protection is +inconceivable. During a Washington career of more than twenty years +he has been constantly caricatured as the tool of the interests--the +man upon whom they could rely to raise the tariff wall an inch +or two for their personal benefit. + +He has raised it whenever he has had the opportunity to do so, but +not for the reason assigned. He is no man's tool. The suggestion +that Boies Penrose personally has ever profited financially through +politics is too absurd to be entertained for a moment. Of course, +he expects the interests, whom the party serves with tariff +protection, to save the party at the polls and they usually do so. +But that in the opinion of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania is +the essence of sound politics. + +Unbelievable as it may sound in these days, Senator Penrose +actually thinks that most men are dependent for their daily bread +upon the success of a very small group of financiers, magnates, or +whatever you care to call the great leaders of the world of +business. + +Years of experience has convinced him that the human race is +composed, for the most part, of hopelessly improvident people and +that a great part of the globe would be depopulated through +starvation and disease if it were not for the foresight, ability, +and thrift of the handful of leaders whom Divine Providence has +provided. He looks upon himself as one of the instruments of +Providence and he sincerely believes that the policies which he has +supported since his early experience with the reformers are +responsible for the happiness and prosperity of many a family. He +would consider it the height of absurdity for any of these poor, +worthy, but ignorant people to expect the comforts which they have +enjoyed without the protection afforded their employers by the +Republican Party. + +By this somewhat unpopular method of reasoning, he believes that he +of all the men in public life has made the most persistent and +consistent fight for the masses. It is undoubtedly this calm faith +and sincere belief in his own rectitude which has enabled him to +hold the tremendous power he has exerted since Nelson Aldrich +retired from the Senate. + +I have presented his political philosophy in some detail because he +is probably the most misjudged man in Washington. People are +inclined to look upon him as a glorified boss who deals in politics +as other men deal in commodities;--it is hardly a fair estimate of +the man. He considers himself the chosen leader of the most +intelligent people of a great commonwealth who is rendering +tremendous service to the country. I do not agree with that +estimate either. But taken all and all it seems to me that the +country owes him a debt of gratitude for having been sincere when +another course would have been more profitable. It is a relief to +find one at least who has never been called a hypocrite. + +Senator Penrose does not hate Democrats; he does not consider them +important enough for that; he merely despises them. They are to his +mind an inferior class of human beings who should not be intrusted +with the affairs of the nation. Reformers irritate him. They are +either self-seeking hypocrites or deluded. In neither case has he +the time nor inclination to listen to their suggestions or heed +their maledictions. + +He had an abiding hatred for Theodore Roosevelt when he was in the +White House, but he supported him loyally so long as he was the +leader of the Party. When Colonel Roosevelt bolted the hatred ran +the last gamut. He was classed as an arch criminal for having +smashed the organization. + +Penrose is an enigma to those who know him only casually, +especially those who view life through the rose glasses of culture. +They marvel at the extent to which he has been able to dictate to +men who appear to be his superiors. I have heard him called a cave +man by some, by others a boor; but he is neither. He observes the +amenities of life so far as they are necessary, but only so far. He +is impatient of mediocrity; he will not tolerate stupidity and he +loathes hypocrisy. I would not say that he has bad manners; he has +none at all. + +Throughout the recent eclipse of the Republican Party, which began +with the Roosevelt default, no member remained more steadfast than +the Pennsylvania leader. He accepted the inevitable and bided his +time like the politicians of the old school of which he is one of +the few conspicuous surviving examples. Expediency does not enter +into his make-up; he made no effort to keep himself in the +limelight, for he is by the Party, of the Party, and for the Party. + +Now that the Party is back again, in power, more than one of his +colleagues suspect that Penrose, if his health permits, will emerge +from the background as the real leader of the Senate majority. His +political past is against him. But he knows men and his tutelage +under Aldrich has not been forgotten. + + + + +WILLIAM E. BORAH + + +Taken at its best, life, to William E. Borah, is little more than a +troublesome pilgrimage to the grave. + +This does not mean that he is a misanthrope or a seer of distorted +vision. On the contrary his sympathies are broad and he has an +elusive charm, more apparent in the early years of his political +career than now. But, for some reason, probably temperamental, he +is in the habit of dwelling upon the dangers that beset the +republic--dangers which are sometimes very real. Nevertheless an +hour in his presence is more often than not depressing; it leaves +one with a sense of impending calamity. There are few bright spots +on his horizon. + +It is not altogether to his discredit that his more venerable +colleagues look upon him as a young man--he is fifty-six; nor does +it imply merely arrested political development. For all of his +pessimism he maintains a certain freshness, if belligerency, of +spirit which is puzzling not only to those who have long since +accustomed themselves to the party yoke but to those whom +experience has taught the art of compromise. For Borah hates the +discipline that organization entails, in spite of his respect for +organization, and he dislikes compromise however often he is driven +to it. + +This may be accounted for by the fact that he was not obliged to +fight his way laboriously upward on the lower rungs of politics--he +landed in the Senate from an Idaho law office in one pyrotechnical +leap when he was only forty two--and by the fact that in his make-up +he is singularly unpolitical. Disassociating him from his +senatorial environment it is much easier to imagine him as a +devotee of academic culture, a university professor, a moral +crusader, even a poet, than as a politician. + +There is in his make-up an underlying Celtic strain which may +account for his moodiness, his emotionalism, and his impulsiveness. +These characteristics are constantly cropping up. For many years he +has buried himself in a somber suite of rooms in the Senate office +building as far away from his colleagues as he could get. There he +lives in an atmosphere of academic quiet. There he reads and +studies incessantly, far from the maddening crowd of politics. This +detachment has probably bred a suspicion that marks his actions. He +has no intimates, no associates who call him "Bill." He is not a +social being. He is rarely seen where men and women congregate. He +is virtually unknown in that strange bedlam composed largely of +social climbers and official poseurs called Washington society. He +neither smokes, drinks, nor plays. What relaxation he gets is on +the back of a western nag in Rock Creek Park where he may be seen +any morning cantering along--alone. He does not ride for pleasure; +his physician ordered it and it is a very businesslike matter. If +he experiences any of the exhilaration that comes to men in the +saddle he contrives to conceal it. + +On the floor of the Senate he is quite a different person. There +his unmistakable genius for oratory is given full sweep and when he +speaks his colleagues usually listen, not because they agree with +what he says but because they are charmed by the easy and melodious +flow of his words. There is a hint of Ingersoll in his speeches +which are full of alliteration and rhythmic phrases. He has a sense +of form sadly lacking in his stammering and inarticulate +colleagues, for oratory in the Senate is probably at its lowest +ebb. But, strangely enough, it is only occasionally that he makes a +lasting impression. His eloquence ripples like water and leaves +scarcely more trace. + +Mr. Borah's entire political career has been characterized by an +impulsiveness which has given him a halo of popularity but has +never enabled him to garner the fruits of plodding labor. At one +time or another this has led him to break with nearly every faction +with which he has been identified. The "regular" Republicans have +felt that they never could rely upon him; the "progressive" element +has found him inconstant and at intervals he has threatened to pull +down the party house of the Republicans and to bring destruction to +one or other of the leaders whom he dislikes. + +This was illustrated by an observation he made to me one spring +morning in 1919 when the Republican attitude toward the League of +Nations was still in the formative process. Borah was "convinced" +that Elihu Root and Will H. Hays were conspiring to induce the +Republicans to accept the League and he said, quite seriously, that +he had about come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to +wreck the Republican Party to save the country. Root, he told me, +was pro-British to the last degree and Hays, he said, was cajoled +by the great international bankers who trembled at the delay of +peace. + +"If such men are to lead the Republican Party," he declared, "the +sooner it is destroyed the better." Of course, he did not take the +stump. He has failed so often to carry out his threats of rebellion +that they no longer inspire the fear they once did. Although he has +repeatedly turned against the organization he has managed to escape +being an outlaw. This singular trait of political conservatism came +conspicuously into play in 1912 when Roosevelt turned upon the +machine. All through the stormy days of that stormy Chicago +convention Senator Borah could be found at the side of that one +leader for whom he had a consistent regard. He was with him up to +the very last moment before the die was cast. He was almost +successful at the eleventh hour in inducing Mr. Roosevelt to +abandon his mad project. They were closeted together on the evening +of the clamorous meeting of the progressives in a hotel across the +street. + +"We have come to the parting of the ways, Colonel," Borah said to +his chief. "This far I have gone with you. I can go no further." He +urged Roosevelt not to take the step which would mean the +disruption of the party and defeat. Roosevelt wavered. But before +he could reach the decision Borah sought a committee from the +outlaw meeting, burst into the room, and enthusiastically announced +that the stage was set for the demonstration that was to mark a new +political era. + +Roosevelt, hat in hand, turned to Borah and said, "You see, I can't +desert my friends now." The ex-President went his way and Borah +came back to the old Republican fold. + +From that time to this he has followed his own way which, +fortunately for the Republican Party, has been within organization +limits, but his relations with his fellows are neither intimate nor +serene. Some of the Republicans, who can be forgiven for not +understanding a man who respects neither party decrees nor +traditions, feel that Borah is so American that he possesses one of +the characteristics of the aboriginal Indian--in other words, that +he is cunning, that he will not play the game according to +organization rules. He has a habit of making too many mental +reservations. I am not quite sure that these allegations could be +supported before an impartial tribunal. I am rather inclined to the +belief that to maintain his position in the Senate Borah has had to +become a shrewd trader. + +Fortunately for himself he is too much of a personage to be ignored +or suppressed, and manages to be a power in a party which has no +love for him. + +He is virtually a party to himself. He cannot be controlled by the +ordinary political methods. His constituency is small and evidently +devoted to him and his state is remote; he is not compelled to do +the irksome political chores that cost Senators their political +independence. However doubtful he might be as a positive asset his +dexterity and power of expression are such that he would be very +dangerous as a liability. A report that Borah is on the rampage +affects Republican leaders very much as a run on a bank affects +financial leaders. They are not quite sure when either is going to +stop. Borah knows that most of the men with whom he is dealing are +clay and estimates with uncanny accuracy the degree to which he can +compel them to meet his demands. + +This method has not always been successful. It was singularly +unsuccessful in the case of Senator Penrose. Borah is the +antithesis of Penrose, whom he dislikes intensely. Several years +ago he interpreted a remark made by the Senator from Pennsylvania +to another Senator as a thrust at his own political ethics, or lack +of them. It was a petty affair at most and Penrose never admitted +the accuracy of Borah's construction, but Borah has had nothing to +do with him since. When the present Congress was in process of +organization Borah announced that he would bolt the party caucus if +Penrose were slated for the chairmanship of the Finance Committee +to which he was entitled according to the rule of seniority. It was +a ticklish situation. The Republicans had a bare majority in the +Senate and if any of them deserted the organization it might mean +Democratic control. The leaders were disturbed and tried to mollify +the defiant Senator from Idaho with every means at hand even giving +assurance that the Senator from Pennsylvania would vote against the +Peace Treaty and the League of Nations which was supposed to +represent his vital interest at that time. He refused to compromise +and announced that Penrose must go. He was offered every committee +assignment that he or his friends wanted, and accepted them, but as +a matter of right. + +Penrose was determined not to be displaced to satisfy what he +regarded as a colleague's whim. He sat silent in his office +receiving reports from hour to hour on Borah's state of mind. On +the day before the caucus Borah whispered that he intended to make +charges against the Pennsylvania leader that would provide a +sensation regardless of any effect they might have upon the party +or the country. The report was brought to Penrose. Instead of +trembling he sent word to Borah that he might say what he pleased +concerning his political career but that if he made any personal +charges he would regret them to his dying day. Borah appeared to +understand. He did not even attend the caucus and Penrose was duly +elected. Whether he was trading for committee assignments or +initiated the fight on political grounds is a question he alone can +answer, if anyone should have the temerity to ask it. + +The same violence of his likes and dislikes is shown in his +attitude toward the British and his espousal of the Irish cause. At +the time of the visit of the British mission to Washington, +Vice-President Marshall designated Senator Borah a member of the +committee appointed to escort the British visitors into the +chamber. This Borah resented as a personal affront. + +"Marshall has a distorted sense of humor," he said. "He knows I +dislike the British and that I despise the hypocrite Balfour." This +feeling was probably due in large measure to the Irish lineage +which Borah can trace in his ancestry as well as a temperamental +dislike of the British methods of maintaining control over subject +peoples. + +It is difficult to label Senator Borah from a political standpoint. +His most striking characteristic is his inconsistency. For a long +time in the early days of the progressive movement he displayed a +marked inclination to be "irregular" and he is to be found voting +for most measures for which the "progressives" claimed sponsorship, +but when the more radical leaders began to advocate the recall of +the judiciary, Borah rose up and delivered an invective the memory +of which lingers in the Capitol. It was one of the few speeches he +has made that had a permanent effect and, strangely enough, it was +the kind of speech that might have well been delivered by Root or +Knox. + +There has always been reason to believe that Borah was never more +enamored of La Follette in his prime, or of Hiram Johnson, than he +has been of the "reactionary" leaders with whom he has been +oftentimes in open conflict. When the latter deluded himself with +the hope of securing the Republican nomination, Borah was supposed +to be his chief supporter. When Johnson had eliminated Lowden and +Wood, and seemed to have eliminated Harding, Borah showed more +interest in the Knox candidacy. He wanted Knox at the head of the +ticket mainly because he knew that Knox was an implacable foe of +the League of Nations. On that fateful Friday night in Chicago when +the signs of the trend toward Harding had begun to appear, the +Senator from Idaho was anxious and prepared to place Knox's name in +nomination and begged Johnson to swing his delegates in that +direction. + +Borah has succeeded very well in concealing his own ambitions, +possibly because he is more cautious than some of his impetuous +colleagues, or because the opportunity has never come for an +avowal. But among those who have followed his career there is a +very strong suspicion that his one great desire was to be the +successor of Roosevelt. This might be one reason for his antagonism +toward the politicians of the old regime, such as Penrose, who have +barred his way in that direction, and his fitful devotion to +progressivism championed by others. The failure to realize this +ambition might account in some measure for his later reticence and +his suspicion of politicians in general. He has shown a pronounced +distrust of them. The only exception has been the audacious +Ambassador to the Court of Saint James who in his REVIEW and in his +WEEKLY flattered the Senator from Idaho with an absence of +restraint that might have made a more trusting person skeptical. + +The Senator from Idaho has too many years before him to justify +predictions concerning his career. Whatever faults he might have +they do not entirely obscure his virtues. It is possible that the +occasion might arise for him to serve as the spokesman of a popular +cause, which he would do with undoubted earnestness and eloquence, +in which event he might still become a dominating figure in +American politics. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirrors of Washington, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON *** + +***** This file should be named 3812.txt or 3812.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/3812/ + +Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/3812.zip b/3812.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ff395f --- /dev/null +++ b/3812.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3829400 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #3812 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3812) diff --git a/old/tmrow10.txt b/old/tmrow10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03539c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmrow10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5421 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Mirrors Of Washington, by Anonymous + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words +are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they +need about what they can legally do with the texts. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below, including for donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + + + +Title: The Mirrors Of Washington + +Author: Anonymous + +Release Date: March, 2003 [Etext #3812] +[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule] +[The actual date this file first posted = 09/19/01] +[Most recently updated: March 21, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Mirrors Of Washington, by Anonymous +*********This file should be named tmrow10.txt or tmrow10.zip********* + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, tmrow11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tmrow10a.txt + +This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after +the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +http://gutenberg.net +http://promo.net/pg + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 +or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of July 12, 2001 contributions are only being solicited from people in: +Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, +Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, +Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North +Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, +Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising +will begin in the additional states. Please feel +free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork +to legally request donations in all 50 states. If +your state is not listed and you would like to know +if we have added it since the list you have, just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in +states where we are not yet registered, we know +of no prohibition against accepting donations +from donors in these states who approach us with +an offer to donate. + + +International donations are accepted, +but we don't know ANYTHING about how +to make them tax-deductible, or +even if they CAN be made deductible, +and don't have the staff to handle it +even if there are ways. + +All donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541, +and has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal +Revenue Service (IRS). Donations are tax-deductible to the maximum +extent permitted by law. As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the +additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +*** + + +Example command-line FTP session: + +ftp ftp.ibiblio.org +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON + + + + + +CONTENTS + +WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES + + + +HARDING, Warren G., + +President of the United States; b. Corsica, Morrow Co., O., Nov. 2, +1865; Educ. student of Ohio Central Coll. (now defunct), Iberia, +1879-82; engaged in newspaper business at Marion, O., since 1884; +pres. Harding Pub. Co., pubs. Star (daily); mem. Ohio Senate, 1900- +4; lt.-gov. of Ohio, 1904-6; Rep. nominee for gov. of Ohio, 1910 +(defeated); mem. U. S. Senate, from Ohio, 1915-21; Baptist; +President of the United States, 1921 + +WILSON, Woodrow, + +Twenty-eighth President of the United States; b. Staunton, Va., +Dec. 28, 1856; Educ. Davidson Coll., N. C., 1874-5; A.B., +Princeton, 1879, A.M., 1882; grad. in law, U. of Va., 1881; post- +grad, work at Johns Hopkins, 1883-5, Ph.D., 1886; (LL.D., Wake +Forest, 1887, Tulane, 1898, Johns Hopkins, 1902, Rutgers, 1902, U. +of Pa., 1903, Brown, 1903; Harvard, 1907, Williams, 1908, +Dartmouth, 1909; Litt. D., Yale, 1901); pres. Aug. 1, 1902--Oct. +20, 1910, Princeton U.; gov. of N. J., Jan. 17, 1911--Mar. 1, 1913 +(resigned); nominated for President in Dem. Nat. Conv. Baltimore, +1912, and elected Nov. 4, 1912, for term, Mar. 4, 1913-Mar. 4, +1917; renominated for President in Dem. Nat. Conv., St. Louis, +1916, and reelected, Nov. 7, 1916; for term Mar. 4, 1917-Mar. 4, +1921; Left for France on the troopship "George Washington", Dec. 4, +1918, at the head of Am. Commn. to Negotiate Peace; returned to U. +S., arriving in Boston, Feb. 24,1919; left New York on 2d trip to +Europe, Mar. 5; arrived in Paris, Mar. 14; signed Peace Treaty, +June 28, 1919 + +HARVEY, George (Brinton McClellan), + +Editor; b. Peacham, Vt., Feb. 16, 1864; Educ. Peacham Academy; +(LL.D., University of Nevada, University of Vermont, Middlebury +Coll. and Erskine Coll.). Consecutively reporter Springfield +Republican, Chicago News, and New York World, 1882-6; ins. commr. +of N. J., 1890-1; mng. editor New York World, 1891-93; constructor +and pres. various electric railroads, 1894-8; purchased, 1899, and +since editor North American Review, Pres. Harper & Bros., 1900-15; +North Am. Review Pub. Co., 1899-; editor and pub. Harvey's Weekly; +dir. Audit Co. of New York; Col. and a.-d.-c. on staffs of Govs. +Green and Abbett, of N. J., 1885-92; hon. col. and a.-d.-c. on +staffs of Govs. Heyward and Ansel, of S. C.; U. S. Ambassador to +Court of Saint James + +HUGHES, Charles Evans, + +Secretary of State; b. at Glens Falls, N. Y., Apr. 11, 1862; Educ. +Colgate U., 1876-8; A.B., Brown U., 1881, A.M., 1884; LL.B., +Columbia, 1884; (LL.D., Brown, 1906, Columbia, Knox, and Lafayette, +1907, Union, Colgate, 1908, George Washington, 1909, Williams +College, Harvard, and Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1910, Yale Univ., +1915); admitted to N. Y. bar, 1884; prize fellowship, Columbia Law +Sch., 1884-7; nominated for office of mayor of New York by Rep. +Conv., 1905, but declined; gov. of N. Y. 2 terms, Jan. 1, 1907-Dec. +31, 1908, Jan. 1, 1909-Dec. 31, 1910; resigned, Oct. 6, 1910; +apptd., May 2, 1910, and Oct. 10, 1910, became asso. justice +Supreme Court of U. S.; nominated for President of U. S. in Rep. +Nat. Conv., Chicago, June 10, 1916, and resigned from Supreme Court +same day; Secretary of State, 1921 + +HOUSE, Edward Mandell, + +B. Houston, Tex., July 26, 1858; Educ. Hopkins Grammar Sch., New +Haven, Conn., 1877; Cornell U., 1881; active in Dem. councils, +state and national, but never a candidate for office. Personal +representative of President Wilson to the European governments in +1914, 1915, and 1916; apptd. by the President, Sept., 1917, to +gather and organize data necessary at the eventual peace +conference; commd. as the special rep. of Govt. of U. S. at the +Inter-Allied Conference of Premiers and Foreign Ministers, held in +Paris, Nov. 29, 1917, to effect a more complete coordination of the +activities of the Entente cobelligerents for the prosecution of the +war; designated by the President to represent the U. S. in the +Supreme War Council at Versailles, Dec. 1, 1917; Oct. 17, 1918; +designated by the President to act for the U. S. in the negotiation +of the Armistice with the Central Powers; mem. Am. Commn. to +Negotiate Peace, 1918-19 + +HOOVER, Herbert Clark, + +Secretary of Commerce; Engineer; b. West Branch, Ia., Aug. 10, +1874; Educ. B.A. (in mining engring.), Leland Stanford, Jr., U., +1895; (LL.D., Brown U., U. of Pa., Harvard, Princeton, Yale, +Oberlin, U. of Ala., Liege, Brussels; D.C.L., Oxford); Asst. Ark. +Geol. Survey, 1893, U. S. Geol. Survey, Sierra Nevada Mountains, +1895; in W. Australia as chief of mining staff of Bewick, Moreing & +Co. and mgr. Hannan's Brown Hill Mine, 1897; chief engr. Chinese +Imperial Bur. of Mines, 1899, doing extensive exploration in +interior of China. Took part in defense of Tientsin during Boxer +disturbances; Chmn. Am. Relief Com. London, 1914-15, Commn. for +Relief in Belgium, 1915-18; chmn. food com. Council of Nat. +Defense, Apr.-Aug. 1917; apptd. U. S. food administrator by +President Wilson, Aug. 10, 1917, resigned June, 1919. Secretary of +Commerce, 1921 + +LODGE, Henry Cabot, + +Senator; b. Boston, May 12, 1850; Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1871, LL.B., +1875, Ph.D. (history), 1876; (LL.D., Williams, 1893, Yale, 1902, +Clark U., 1902, Harvard, 1904, Amherst, 1912, also Union Col., +Princeton U., and Dartmouth Coll., and Brown, 1918); Admitted to +bar, 1876; editor North American Review, 1873-6, International +Review, 1879-81; mem. Mass. Ho. of Rep., 1880, 81; mem. 50th to 53d +Congresses (1887-93), 6th Mass. Dist.; U. S. senator, since 1893; +mem. Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, 1903; mem. U. S. Immigration +Commn., 1907 + +BARUCH, Bernard Mannes, + +Educ. A.B., Coll. City of New York, 1889; mem. of New York Stock +Exchange many yrs.; apptd., 1916, by Pres. Wilson, mem. Advisory +Commn. of Council Nat. Defense; was made chmn. Com. on Raw +Materials, Minerals and Metals, also commr. in charge of purchasing +for the War Industries Bd., and mem. commn. in charge of all +purchases for the Allies; apptd. chmn. War Industries Bd., Mar. 5, +1918; resigned Jan. 1, 1919; connected with Am. Commn. to Negotiate +Peace as member of the drafting com. of the Economic Sect.; mem. +Supreme Economic Council and chmn. of its raw materials div.; Am. +del. on economics and reparation clauses; economic adviser for the +Am. Peace Commn.; mem. President's Conf. for Capital and Labor, +Oct. 1919 + +ROOT, Elihu, + +Ex-Secretary of State; senator; b. Clinton, N. Y., Feb. 15, 1845; +Educ. A.B., Hamilton Coll., 1864, A.M., 1867; taught at Rome Acad., +1865; LL.B., New York U., 1867; (LL.D., Hamilton, 1894, Yale, 1900, +Columbia, 1904, New York U., 1904, Williams, 1905, Princeton, 1906, +U. of Buenos Aires, 1906, Harvard, 1907, Wesleyan, 1909, McHill, +1913, Union U., 1914, U. of State of N. Y., 1915, U. of Toronto, +1918, and Colgate U., 1919; Dr. Polit. Science, U. of Leyden, 1913; +D.C.L., Oxford, 1913; mem. Faculty of Political and Administrative +Sciences, University of San Marcos, Lima, 1906); Admitted to bar, +1867; U. S. dist. atty. Southern Dist. of N. Y., 1883-5; Sec. of +War in cabinet of President McKinley, Aug. 1, 1899-Feb. 1, 1904; +Sec. of State in cabinet of President Roosevelt, July 1, 1905-Jan. +27, 1909; U. S. senator from N. Y., 1909-15; mem. Alaskan Boundary +Tribunal, 1903; counsel for U. S. in N. Atlantic Fisheries +Arbitration, 1910; mem. Permanent Court of Arbitration at The +Hague, 1910-; pres. Carnegie Endowment for Internat. Peace, 1910; +president Hague Tribunal of Arbitration between Great Britain, +France, Spain, and Portugal, concerning church property, 1913; +ambassador extraordinary at the head of special diplomatic mission +to Russia, during revolution, 1917. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize for +1912. + +JOHNSON, Hiram Warren, + +Senator; b. Sacramento, Cal., Sept. 2, 1866; Educ. U. of Cal., +leaving in jr. yr.; began as short-hand reporter; studied law in +father's office; admitted to Cal. bar, 1888; mem. staff of pros. +attys. in boodling cases, involving leading city officials and +almost all pub. utility corpns. in San Francisco, 1906-7; was +selected to take the place of Francis J. Heney, after latter was +shot down in court while prosecuting Abe Ruef, for bribery, 1908, +and secured conviction of Ruef; gov. of Cal., 1911-15; reelected +for term, 1915-19 (resigned Mar. 15, 1917); a founder of +Progressive Party, 1912, and nominee for V.-P. of U.S. on Prog. +ticket same yr.; U. S. senator from Cal. for term 1917-23 + +KNOX, Philander Chase, + +Ex-Secretary of State; b. Brownsville, Pa., May 6, 1853; Educ. +A.B., Mt. Union Coll., Ohio, 1872; read law in office of H. B. +Swope, Pittsburgh; (LL.D., U. of Pa., 1905, Yale, 1907, Villanova, +1909); Admitted to bar, 1875; asst. U. S. dist. atty., Western +Dist. of Pa., 1876-7; Atty.-Gen. in cabinets of Presidents McKinley +and Roosevelt, Apr. 9, 1901-June 30, 1904; apptd. U. S. senator by +Governor Pennypacker, June 10, 1904, for unexpired term of Matthew +Stanley Quay, deceased; elected U. S. senator, Jan., 1905, for +term, 1905-11; Sec. of State in cabinet of President Taft, Mar., +1909-13; Reelected U. S. senator, for term 1917-23 + +LANSING, Robert, + +Ex-Secretary of State; b. at Watertown, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1864; Educ. +A.B., Amherst, 1886; (LL.D., Amherst, 1915, Colgate, 1915, +Princeton, 1917, Columbia, 1918, Union, 1918, U. State of N. Y., +1919); Admitted to bar, 1889; Asso. counsel for U. S. in Behring +Sea Arbitration, 1892-3: counsel for Behring Sea Claims Commn., +1896-7; solicitor and counsel for the United States under the +Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, 1903; counsel, North Atlantic Coast +Fisheries Arbitration at The Hague, 1909-10; agent of United +States, Am. and British Claims Arbitration, 1912-14; counselor for +Dept. of State, Mar. 20, 1914-June 23, 1915; Secretary of State in +Cabinet of Pres. Wilson, June 23, 1915-Feb., 1920; mem. Am. Commn. +to Negotiate Peace, Paris, 1918-19 + +PENROSE, Boies, + +Senator; b. Phila., Nov. 1, 1860; Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1881; +Admitted to the bar, 1883; mem. Pa. Ho. of Rep., 1884-6, Senate, +1887-97 (pres. pro tem., 1889,1891); U. S. senator, 4 terms, 1897- +1921; Chmn. Rep. State Com., 1903-5; mem. Rep. Nat. Com. since 1904 + +BORAH, William Edgar, + +Senator; b. at Fairfield, Ill., June 29, 1865; Educ. Southern Ill. +Acad., Enfield, and U. of Kan.; Admitted to bar, 1889; U. S. +senator from Idaho, Jan. 14,1903; elected U. S. senator for terms +1907-13, 1913-19, 1919-25 + + + + + +WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING + + +Every time we elect a new President we learn what a various +creature is the Typical American. + +When Mr. Roosevelt was in the White House the Typical American was +gay, robustious, full of the joy of living, an expansive spirit +from the frontier, a picaresque twentieth century middle class +Cavalier. He hit the line hard and did not flinch. And his laugh +shook the skies. + +Came Wilson. And the Typical American was troubled about his soul. +Rooted firmly in the church-going past, he carried the banner of +the Lord, Democracy, idealistic, bent on perfecting that old +incorrigible Man, he cuts off the right hand that offends him and +votes for prohibition and woman suffrage, a Round Head in a Ford. + +Eight years and we have the perfectly typical American, Warren +Gamaliel Harding of the modern type, the Square Head, typical of +that America whose artistic taste is the movies, who reads and +finds mental satisfaction in the vague inanities of the small town +newspaper, who has faith in America, who is for liberty, virtue, +happiness, prosperity, law and order and all the standard +generalities and holds them a perfect creed; who distrusts anything +new except mechanical inventions, the standardized product of the +syndicate which supplies his nursing bottle, his school books, his +information, his humor in a strip, his art on a screen, with a +quantity production mind, cautious, uniformly hating divergence +from uniformity, jailing it in troublous times, prosperous, who has +his car and his bank account and can sell a bill of goods as well +as the best of them. + +People who insist upon having their politics logical demand to know +the why of Harding. Why was a man of so undistinguished a record as +he first chosen as a candidate for President and then elected +President? + +As a legislator he had left no mark on legislation. If he had +retired from Congress at the end of his term his name would have +existed only in the old Congressional directories, like that of a +thousand others. As a public speaker he had said nothing that +anybody could remember. He had passed through a Great War and left +no mark on it. He had shared in a fierce debate upon the peace that +followed the war but though you can recall small persons like +McCumber and Kellogg and Moses and McCormick in that discussion you +do not recall Harding. To be sure he made a speech in that debate +which he himself says was a great speech but no newspaper thought +fit to publish it because of its quality, or felt impelled to +publish it in spite of its quality because it had been made by +Harding. + +He neither compelled attention by what he said nor by his +personality. Why, then, without fireworks, without distinction of +any sort, without catching the public eye, or especially deserving +to catch it, was Warren Harding elected President of the United +States? + +One plausible reason why he was nominated was that given by Senator +Brandegee at Chicago, where he had a great deal to do with the +nomination. "There ain't any first raters this year. This ain't any +1880 or any 1904. We haven't any John Shermans or Theodore +Roosevelts. We've got a lot of second raters and Warren Harding is +the best of the second raters." + +Once nominated as a Republican his election of course inevitably +followed. But to accept Mr. Brandegee's plea in avoidance is to +agree to the eternal poverty of American political life, for most +of our presidents have been precisely like Warren G. Harding, +first-class second raters. + +Mrs. Harding, a woman of sound sense and much energy, had an +excellent instructive answer to the "why." The pictures of the +house in Marion, the celebrated front porch, herself and her +husband were taken to be exhibited by cinema all over the land. She +said, "I want the people to see these pictures so that they will +know we are just folks like themselves." + +Warren Harding is "just folks." A witty woman said of him, alluding +to the small town novel which was popular at the time of his +inauguration, "Main Street has arrived in the White House." + +The Average Man has risen up and by seven million majority elected +an Average Man President. His defects were his virtues. He was +chosen rather for what he wasn't than for what he was,--the +inconspicuousness of his achievements. The "just folks" level of +his mind, his small town man's caution, his sense of the security +of the past, his average hopes and fears and practicality, his +standardized Americanism which would enable a people who wanted for +a season to do so to take themselves politically for granted. + +The country was tired of the high thinking and rather plain +spiritual living of Woodrow Wilson. It desired the man in the White +House to cause it no more moral overstrain than does the man you +meet in the Pullman smoking compartment or the man who writes the +captions for the movies who employs a sort of Inaugural style, +freed from the inhibitions of statesmanship. It was in a mood +similar to that of Mr. Harding himself when after his election he +took Senators Freylinghuysen, Hale, and Elkins with him on his trip +to Texas. Senator Knox observing his choice is reported to have +said, "I think he is taking those three along because he wanted +complete mental relaxation." All his life Mr. Harding has shown a +predilection for companions who give him complete mental +relaxation, though duty compels him to associate with the Hughes +and the Hoovers. The conflict between duty and complete mental +relaxation establishes a strong bond of sympathy between him and +the average American. + +The "why" of Harding is the democratic passion for equality. We are +standardized, turned out like Fords by the hundred million, and we +cannot endure for long anyone who is not standardized. Such an one +casts reflections upon us; why should we by our votes unnecessarily +asperse ourselves? Occasionally we may indulge nationally, as men +do individually, in the romantic belief that we are somebody else, +that we are like Roosevelt or Wilson--and they become typical of +what we would be--but always we come back to the knowledge that we +are nationally like Harding, who is typical of what we are. "Just +folks" Kuppenheimered, movieized, associated pressed folks. + +Men debate whether or not Mr. Wilson was a great man and they will +keep on doing so until the last of those passes away whose judgment +of him is clouded by the sense of his personality. But men will +never debate about the greatness of Mr. Harding, not even Mr. +Harding himself. He is modest. He has only two vanities, his vanity +about his personal appearance and his vanity about his literary +style. + +The inhibitions of a presidential candidate, bound to speak and say +nothing, irked him. + +"Of course I could make better speeches than these" he told a +friend during the campaign, "but I have to be so careful." + +In his inaugural address he let himself go, as much as it is +possible for a man so cautious as he is to let himself go. It was a +great speech, an inaugural to place alongside the inaugurals of +Lincoln and Washington, written in his most capable English, +Harding at his best. It is hard for a man to move Marion for years +with big editorials, to receive the daily compliments of Dick +Cressinger and Jim Prendergast, without becoming vain of the power +of his pen. It is his chief vanity and it is one that it is hard +for him who speaks or writes to escape. He has none of that egotism +which makes a self-confident man think himself the favorite of +fortune. + +He said after his nomination at Chicago, "We drew to a pair of +deuces and filled." He did not say it boastfully as a man who likes +to draw to a pair of deuces and who always expects to fill. He said +it with surprise and relief. He does not like to hold a pair of +deuces and be forced to draw to them. He has not a large way of +regarding losing and winning as all a part of the game. He hates to +lose. He hated to lose even a friendly game of billiards in the +Marion Club with his old friend Colonel Christian, father of his +secretary, though the stake was only a cigar. + +When he was urged to seek the Republican nomination for the +Presidency he is reported to have said, "Why should I. My chances +of winning are not good. If I let you use my name I shall probably +in the end lose the nomination for the Senate. (His term was +expiring.) If I don't run for the Presidency I can stay in the +Senate all my life. I like the Senate. It is a very pleasant +place." + +The Senate is like Marion, Ohio, a very pleasant place, for a +certain temperament. And Mr. Harding stayed in Marion all his life +until force--a vis exterior; there is nothing inside Mr. Harding +that urges him on and on--until force of circumstances, of +politics, of other men's ambitions, took him out of Marion and set +him down in Washington, in the Senate. + +The process of uprooting him from the pleasant place of Marion is +reported to have been thus described by his political transplanter, +the present Attorney General, Mr. Daugherty: "When it came to +running for the Senate I found him, sunning himself in Florida, +like a turtle on a log and I had to push him into the water and +make him swim." + +And a similar thing happened when it came to running for the +Presidency. It is a definite type of man who suns himself on a log, +who is seduced by pleasant places like Marion, Ohio, whom the big +town does not draw into its magnetic field, whose heart is not +excited by the larger chances of life. Is he lazy? Is he lacking in +imagination? Does he hate to lose? Does he want self-confidence? Is +he over modest? Has he no love for life, life as a great adventure? +Whatever he is, Mr. Harding is that kind of man, that kind of man +to start out with. + +But this is only the point of departure, that choice to remain in a +pleasant place like Marion, not to risk what you have, your sure +place in society as the son of one of the better families, the +reasonable prospect that the growth of your small town will bring +some accretion to your own fortunes, the decision not to hazard +greatly in New York or Chicago or on the frontier. Life asks little +of you in those pleasant places like Marion and in return for that +little gives generously, especially if you are, to begin with, well +placed, if you are ingratiatingly handsome, if your personality is +agreeable--"The best fellow in the world to play poker with all +Saturday night," as a Marionite feelingly described the President +to me, and if you have a gift of words as handsome and abundant as +your looks. + +Mr. Harding is a handsome man, endowed with the gifts that +reinforce the charm of his exterior, a fine voice, a winning smile, +a fluency of which his inaugural is the best instance; an ample +man, you might say. But he is too handsome, too endowed, for his +own good, his own spiritual good. The slight stoop of his +shoulders, the soft figure, the heaviness under the eyes betray in +some measure perhaps the consequences of nature's excessive +generosity. Given all these things you take, it may be, too much +for granted. There is not much to stiffen the mental, moral, and +physical fibers. + +Given such good looks, such favor from nature, and an environment +in which the struggle is not sharp and existence is a species of +mildly purposeful flanerie. You lounge a bit stoop-shoulderedly +forward to success. There is nothing hard about the President. I +once described him in somewhat this fashion to a banker in New York +who was interested in knowing what kind of a President we had. + +"You agree," he said, "with a friend of Harding's who came in to +see me a few days ago. This friend said to me 'Warren is the best +fellow in the world. He has wonderful tact. He knows how to make +men work with him and how to get the best out of them. He is +politically adroit. He is conscientious. He has a keen sense of his +responsibilities. He has unusual common sense.' And he named other +similar virtues, 'Well,' I asked him, 'What is his defect?' 'Oh,' +he replied, 'the only trouble with Warren is that he lacks +mentality.'" + +The story, like most stories, exaggerates. The President has the +average man's virtues of common sense and conscientiousness with +rather more than the average man's political skill and the average +man's industry or lack of industry. His mentality is not lacking; +it is undisciplined, especially in its higher ranges, by hard +effort. There is a certain softness about him mentally. It is not +an accident that his favorite companions are the least intellectual +members of that house of average intelligence, the Senate. They +remind him of the mental surroundings of Marion, the pleasant but +unstimulating mental atmosphere of the Marion Club, with its +successful small town business men, its local storekeepers, its +banker whose mental horizon is bounded by Marion County, the value +of whose farm lands for mortgages he knows to a penny, the lumber +dealer whose eye rests on the forests of Kentucky and West +Virginia. + +The President has never felt the sharpening of competition. He was +a local pundit because he was the editor. He was the editor because +he owned the Republican paper of Marion. There was no effective +rival. No strong intelligence challenged his and made him fight for +his place. He never studied hard or thought deeply on public +questions. A man who stays where he is put by birth tends to accept +authority, and authority is strong in small places. The acceptance +of authority implies few risks. It is like staying in Marion +instead of going to New York or even Cleveland. It is easier, and +often more profitable than studying hard or thinking deeply or +inquiring too much. + +And Mr. Harding's is a mind that bows to authority. What his party +says is enough for Mr. Harding. His party is for protection and Mr. +Harding is for protection; the arguments for protection may be +readily assimilated from the editorials of one good big city +newspaper and from a few campaign addresses. His party is for the +remission of tolls on American shipping in the Panama Canal and Mr. +Harding is for the remission of tolls. Mr. Root broke with his +party on tolls and Mr. Harding is as much shocked at Mr. Root's +deviation as the matrons of Marion would be over the public +disregard of the Seventh Commandment by one of their number. His +party became somehow for the payment of Colombia's Panama claims +and Mr. Harding was for their payment. + +A story tells just how Senator Kellogg went to the President to +oppose the Colombia treaty. After hearing Mr. Kellogg Mr. Harding +remarked, "Well, Frank, you have something on me. You've evidently +read the treaty. I haven't." + +A mind accepting authority favors certain general policies. It is +not sufficiently inquiring to trouble itself with the details. Mr. +Harding is for all sorts of things but is content to be merely for +them. A curious illustration developed in Marion, during the visits +of the best minds. He said to the newspaper men there one day, "I +am for voluntary military training." + +"What would you train, Mr. President," asked one of the +journalists, "officers or men?" + +The President hesitated. At last he said, "I haven't thought of +that." + +"But," said one of his interlocutors, "the colleges are training a +lot of officers now." + +This brought no response. + +Another who had experience in the Great War remarked, "In the last +war we were lacking in trained non-coms; it would be a good idea to +train a lot of them." + +"Yes," rejoined Mr. Harding eagerly, "That would be a good idea." + +A more inquiring mind would have gone further than to be "for +voluntary military training." A quicker, less cautious, if no more +thorough mind would have answered the first question, "What would +you train, officers or men?" by answering instantly "Both." + +In that colloquy you have revealed all the mental habits of Mr. +Harding. He was asked once, after he had had several conferences +with Senator McCumber, Senator Smoot, Representative Fordney, and +others who would be responsible for financial legislation, "Have +you worked out the larger details of your taxation policy?" + +"Naturally not!" was his reply. That "naturally" sprang I suppose +from his habit of believing that somewhere there is authority. +Somewhere there would be authority to determine what the larger +details of the party's financial policy should be. + +Now, this authority is not going to be any one man or any two men. +The President, his friends tell us, is jealous of any assumption of +power by any of his advisers. He is unwilling to have the public +think that any other than himself is President. A man as handsome +as Harding, as vain of his literary style as he is, has an ego that +is not capable of total self-effacement. He will bow to impersonal +authority like that of the party, or invoke the anonymous +governance of "best minds," calling rather often on God as a well +established authority, but he will not let authority be personal +and be called Daugherty, or Lodge or Knox or whomever you will. + +The President's attitude is rather like that of the average man +during the campaign. If you said to a voter on a Pullman, "Mr. +Harding is a man of small public experience, not known by any large +political accomplishment," he would always answer optimistically, +"Well, they will see to it that he makes good." Asked who "They" +were he was always vague and elusive, gods on the mountain perhaps. +There is an American religion, the average man's faith: it is +"Them." "They" are the fountain of authority. + +As Mr. Harding knew little competition in Marion so he has known +little competition in public life which in this country is not +genuinely competitive. Mr. Lloyd George is at the head of the +British government because he is the greatest master of the House +of Commons in a generation and he is chosen by the men who know him +for what he is, his fellow members of the House of Commons. An +American President is selected by the newspapers, which know little +about him, by the politicians, who do not want a master but a +slave, by the delegates to a national convention, tired, with hotel +bills mounting, ready to name anybody in order to go home. The +presidency, the one great prize in American public life, is +attained by no known rules and under conditions which have nothing +in them to make a man work hard or think hard, especially one +endowed with a handsome face and figure, an ingratiating +personality, and a literary style. + +The small town man, unimaginative and of restricted mental horizon +does not think in terms of masses of mankind. Masses vaguely appall +him. They exist in the big cities on which he turned his back in +his unaudacious youth. His contacts are with individuals. His +democracy consists in smiling upon the village painter and calling +him "Harry," in always nodding to the village cobbler and calling +him "Bill," in stopping on the street corner with a group, which +has not been invited to join the village club, putting his hand on +the shoulder of one of them and calling them "Fellows." + +Politics in the small town is limited to dealing with persons, to +enlisting the support of men with a following at the polls. + +Mr. Harding once drew this picture of his idea of politics. "If I +had a policy to put over I should go about it this way," he said. +"You all know the town meeting, if not by experience, by hearsay. +Now if I had a program that I wanted to have adopted by a town +meeting I should go to the three or four most influential men in my +community. I should talk it out with them. I should make +concessions to them until I had got them to agree with me. And then +I should go into the town meeting feeling perfectly confident that +my plan would go through. Well it's the same in the nation as in +the town meeting, or in the whole world, if you will. I should +always go first to the three or four leading men." + +Mr. Harding thinks of politics in this personal way. He does not +conceive of it as the force of ideas or the weight of morality +moving the hearts of mankind. Mankind is only a word to him, one +that he often uses,--or perhaps he prefers humanity, which has two +more syllables--a large loose word that he employs to make his +thought look bigger than it really is, something like the stage +device for making an ordinary man seem ten feet tall. + +Thus he will never try to move the mass of the people as his +predecessors have. He will not "go to the country." He will not +bring public opinion to bear as a disciplinary force in his +household. He will treat the whole United States as if it were a +Marion, consulting endless "best minds," composing differences, +seeking unity, with the aid of his exceptional tact. + +This attitude has its disadvantages. If you have a passion for +ideas and an indifference for persons you can say "yes" or "no" +easily; you may end by being dictatorial and arrogant, as Mr. +Wilson was; but you will not be weak. If, on the contrary, you are +indifferent to ideas and considerate of persons you find it hard to +say "Decided" to any question. And somewhere there must be +authority, the passing of the final judgment and the giving of +orders. + +But he compensates for his own defects. Almost as good as greatness +is a knowledge of your own limitations; and Mr. Harding knows his +thoroughly. Out of his modesty, his desire to reinforce himself, +has proceeded the strongest cabinet that Washington has seen in a +generation. He likes to have decisions rest upon the broad base of +more than one intelligence and he has surrounded himself for this +purpose with able associates. His policies will lack imagination, +which is not a composite product, but they will have practicality, +which is the greatest common denomination of several minds; and he, +moreover, is himself unimaginative and practical. + +Whatever superstructure of world organization he takes part in, +behind it will be the reality, a private understanding with the +biggest man in sight; for this reason the fall of Lloyd George and +the succession of a Labor government in England will disconcert him +terribly. The democratic passion for equality, which dogs the +tracks of the great, he mollifies by reminding the nation always +that he is "just folks," by opening the White House lawn gates, by +calling everyone by his first name. So constant is his aim to +appease it that I wonder if he is not sometimes betrayed into +addressing his Secretary of State as "Charley." + + + + + +WOODROW WILSON + + +The explanation of President Wilson will be found in a certain +inferiority. When all his personal history becomes known, when his +papers and letters have all been published and read, when the +memoirs of others have told all that there is to be told, there +will stand clear something inadequate, a lack of robustness, mental +or nervous, an excessive sensitiveness, over self-consciousness, +shrinking from life, a neurotic something that in the end brought +on defeat and the final overthrow. He was never quite a normal man +with the average man's capacity to endure and enjoy but a strange, +impeded, self-absorbed personality. + +History arranged the greatest stage of all time, and on it placed a +lot of little figures, "pigmy minds"--all save one, and he the +nearest great, an unworldly person summoned from a cloister, with +the vision of genius and the practical incapacity of one who has +run away from life, hating men but loving all mankind, eloquent but +inarticulate in a large way, incapable of true self expression in +his chosen field of political action, so self-centered that he +forgot the world's tragedy and merged it into his own, making great +things little and little things great, one of "life's ironies," the +everlasting refutation of the optimistic notion that when there is +a crisis fate produces a man big enough to meet it. + +The world finds it hard to speak of Mr. Wilson except in +superlatives. A British journalist called him the other day, "the +wickedest man in the world." This was something new in +extravagance. I asked, "Why the wickedest?" He said, "Because he +was so unable to forget himself that he brought the peace of the +world down in a common smash with his own personal fortunes." + +On the other hand General Jan Christian Smuts, writing with that +perspective which distance gives, pronounces it to be not Wilson's +fault but the fault of humanity that the vision of universal peace +failed. Civilization was not advanced enough to make peace without +vindictiveness possible. + +This debate goes on and on. Mr. Wilson is either the worst hated or +the most regretted personality of the Great War. The place of no +one else is worth disputing. Lloyd George is the consummate +politician, limited by the meanness of his art. Clemenceau is the +personification of nationality, limited by the narrowness of his +view. Mr. Wilson alone had his hour of superlative greatness when +the whole earth listened to him and followed him; an hour which +ended with him only dimly aware of his vision and furiously +conscious of pin pricks. + +You observe this inadequacy in Mr. Wilson, this incapacity to +endure, at the outset of his career. It is characteristic of +certain temperaments that when they first face life they should run +away from it as Mr. Wilson did when, having studied law and having +been admitted to the bar, he abandoned practice and went to teach +in a girls' school. That was the early sign in him of that sense of +unfitness for the more arduous contacts of life which was so +conspicuous a trait during his presidency. He could not endure +meeting men on an equal footing, where there was a conflict of +wills, a rough clash of minds, where no concession was made to +sensitiveness and egotism. + +Some nervous insufficiency causes this shrinking, like the quick +retreat from cold water of an inadequate body. Commonly a man who +runs away from life after the first contact with it hates himself +for his flight and there begins a conflict inside him which ends +either in his admission of defeat and acknowledgment of his +unfitness or in his convincing himself that his real motive was +contempt of that on which he turned his back. If he admits to +himself that he is really a little less courageous, a little more +sensitive, a little less at home in this world, then he is gone. If +he does satisfy himself that he is superior, has higher ideals, +worthier ends, despises the ordinary arts of success he becomes +arrogant, merely in self defense. + +Mr. Wilson's "intellectual snobbism" was this kind of arrogance, +acquired for moral self preservation, like that of the small boy +who when his companions refuse to play with him says to himself +that he is smarter than they are, gets higher marks in school, that +he has a better gun than they have or that he, when he grows up, +will be a great general while they are nobody. Almost everyone who +feels himself unequal in some direction can satisfy himself that he +exceeds in others. It is a common and human sort of arrogance, and +Mr. Wilson had it inordinately. + +He hated and contemned the law, in which life had given him his +first glimpse of his frailty. He would have no lawyers make the +peace or draft the covenant of the league of nations. Lawyers were +pitiful creatures,--he kept one of them near him, Mr. Lansing, +admirably chosen, to remind him of how contemptible they were, +living in fear of precedents, writing a barbarous jargon out of +deeds and covenants, impeding the freedom of the imagination with +their endless citations. + +He despised politicians, he despised business men, he despised the +whole range of men who pursue worldly arts with success. He +despised the qualities which he had not himself, but like all men +who are arrogant self protectively he was driven to introspection +and analyzed himself pitilessly. + +The public got glimpses of these analyses. Sometimes he called that +something in him which left him less fit for the world than the +average, a little regretfully, "his single track mind." Sometimes +it leaped to light as an object of pride, his arrogance again, a +pride that was "too great to fight," like the common run of men,-- +in the law courts or on the battlefields. He kept asking himself +the question, "Why am I not as other men are?", and sometimes his +nature would rise up in protest and he would exclaim that he was as +other men were and would pathetically tell the world that he was +"misunderstood," that he was not cold and reserved but warm and +genial and kindly, only largely because the world would see him as +he was. + +But always the one safe recourse, the one assurance of personal +stability was arrogance. Contempt was the most characteristic habit +of his mind. Out of office he is no sage looking charitably at the +fumbling of his successor. + +A friend who has seen him since his retirement describes him as +watching "with supreme contempt" the executive efforts of Mr. +Harding. Washington gossip credits him with inventing the phrase, +"the bungalow mind," to describe the present occupant of the White +House. Another remark of his about the new President is said to +have been "I look forward to the new administration with no +unpleasant anticipations, except those caused by Mr. Harding's +literary style." + +There is always his contrast of others with himself to their +disadvantage, mentally or morally, as writers, or leaders, or +statesmen. So full a life as Mr. Wilson led in the last dozen or +more years ought to have made him less self-conscious. A robuster +person would have hated with a certain zest, continued with a +certain gaiety, laughed as he fought, found something to respect in +his foes, seen the curtain fall upon his own activities with a +certain cheerfulness. + +He seems deficient in resources. He had not that gusto which richly +endowed natures ordinarily have. He found no fun in measuring his +strength with other men's. There was a certain overstrain about +him, which made him cushion himself about with non-resistant +personalities. He lacked curiosity. His fine mind seemed to want +the energy to interest itself in the details of any subject that +filled it, and this was one of his fatal weaknesses at the Peace +Conference. Perhaps it was a deficiency of vital force. Moreover he +came to his great task tired. His life till he was past fifty was +one of defeat. There was the early disappointment and turning back +from law practice, the giving up of his youthful ambition for a +public career to which he had trained himself passionately by the +study of public speaking. Dr. Albert Shaw, who was his fellow +student at Johns Hopkins, says that in the University Mr. Wilson +was the finest speaker, except possibly the old President of the +College, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman. + +Then there were the long years of poverty as a college professor, +when he overworked at writing and university extension lectures, to +make his small salary as a teacher equal to the support of his +family, his three children and his aged parents. There was his +failure at literature, for his "History of the United States" +brought him neither fame nor money, the public finding it dull and +unreadable. + +Then the crowning unsuccess as President of Princeton; for when his +luck changed and a political career opened to him as Governor of +New Jersey, with trustees and alumni against him, nothing seemed to +be before him but resignation and a small professorship in a +Southern College. It was a straightened life that he had led when +he came to Washington for the first time as President, scandalizing +the servants of the White House with the scantness of his personal +effects. There had been neither the time nor the means nor probably +the energy for larger human contacts. And something inherent always +held him back from the world, something which diverted him to +academic life, which when he was writing his "Congressional +Government", his best book, held him in Baltimore, almost a suburb +of Washington, where he read what he wrote to his fellow-students +at Johns Hopkins, whose livelier curiosity took them often to the +galleries of the House and the Senate about which he was writing +from a distance. + +Those to whom life is kinder than it was during many years to Mr. +Wilson have naturally a zest for it. Robuster natures than his even +though life averts her face, often preserve a zest for it. +Conscious of his powers he seems to have fortified himself against +failure with scorn. He had a scorn for the intellects of those who +succeed by arts which he did not possess. He had scorn for +politicians. He had a scorn for wealth. He had a scorn for his +enemies. He had a scorn for Republicans. He had a scorn for the men +with whom he had to deal in Europe, the heads of the Allied +Governments. + +Above all he scorned Lloyd George, an instinct telling him that the +British Premier had a thousand arts where he himself, unschooled in +conference with equals, had none. He said of Lloyd George just +before he sailed for Paris, suspecting him of treachery to the +League of Nations, "I shall look him in the eye and say to him Damn +you, if you do not accept the League I shall go to the people of +Great Britain and say things to them that will shake your +government." + +When he made this threat he could not foresee that the compromise +of the Peace would leave him with so little character that British +Liberals, their faith destroyed, should in the end couple his name +with their own Premier's and exclaim, "Your man Wilson talks like +Jesus Christ, but he acts like Lloyd George!" + +More than all others he scorned Lodge. The Massachusetts Senator +who had put by scholarship for politics and had won the opportunity +to do menial service for a political machine hated the man who had +chosen scholarship, for whatever motive, and come out with the +Presidency. You hate the man you might perhaps have been if you had +chosen more boldly, more according to your heart--if you are like +Mr. Lodge. + +A life of demeaning himself to politicians, of waiting for dead +men's shoes in the Senate, had, however, brought some compensations +to Lodge, among others an inordinate capacity to hurt. The +Massachusetts Senator could get under the President's skin as no +other man could. Washington is a place where every whisper is heard +in the White House. + +Mr. Lodge's favorite private charge uttered in a tone of withering +scorn was that the President failed to respond as a man would to +the national insult offered by Germany in sinking the Lusitania +because there was something womanish about him and he would tell, +to prove it, how Wilson went white and almost collapsed over the +news that blood had been shed through the landing of American +marines at Vera Cruz. + +The President hardly failed to hear this. Perhaps it reminded him +of that something in him which he was always trying to forget, that +something which diverted his life toward failure at the outset, +which once betrayed him, with a strange mixture of the arrogance +and inferiority, into his famous words "too proud to fight." + +At any rate mutual comprehension and hatred between these two men +was instinctive, each having the opposite choice in the beginning +and neither in his heart perhaps ever having forgiven himself +wholly for his choice. Mr. Wilson could never get Mr. Lodge wholly +out of his mind in the last two years of his Presidency, a +disability which prevented him from looking quite calmly and sanely +at public questions. + +The story of the President's appeal for a Democratic Congress in +1918 which has never been fully told, illustrates the bearing this +Lodge obsession had upon Mr. Wilson's later fate. When the +Congressional election was approaching ex-Congressman Scott Ferris, +then acting as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, went +to the President and told him that there was danger of losing both +houses of Congress, the lower house not being important, but the +Senate as a factor in foreign relations, Mr. Ferris suggested, was +indispensable to the Democratic party. Mr. Wilson was more hopeful +but agreed to take under advisement some sort of appeal to the +country. It was not desired that this should be anything more than +a letter, perhaps to Mr. Ferris, intended for publication, and +pointing out the need of support for the President's policies in +the next Congress. + +Shortly afterward Mr. Tumulty, the President's Secretary, brought +to the Shoreham Hotel in Washington an appeal to the country for a +Democratic Congress and read it to several Democrats gathered there +for the purpose, including Homer S. Cummings, who, by that time, +had become acting Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and +was in charge of the campaign. Mr. Cummings doubted the wisdom of +an appeal, couched in such terms as the one Mr. Tumulty read. He +took it to Vance McCormick, Chairman of the Democratic National +Committee, who, because he was Chairman of the War Trade Board, was +not taking part in the election. Mr. McCormick agreed with Mr. +Cummings that the appeal as written would do more harm than good to +the Democratic party, saying that the war had not been conducted on +a partisan basis, that some of his own associates on the War Trade +Board were Republicans and that Mr. Wilson should ask for the +reelection of all who had been loyal supporters of the war, whether +Republicans or Democrats. + +The appeal to the country as it then stood contained a bitter +denunciation of Senator Lodge. What Wilson chiefly saw in a +Republican victory was himself at the mercy of the man he hated +worst, the Massachusetts Senator. Mr. McCormick thought that if the +President was going to name names he must, at least, denounce +Claude Kitchen, the Democratic leader of the House, as well as +Senator Lodge. If Mr. Wilson would ask for the reelection of those +who had been loyal, of whatever party, listing the offenders, of +both parties, including Mr. Lodge if he must, Mr. McCormick +believed that the impression on the country would be favorable and +thus a Democratic Congress might be elected. + +Being agreed, Mr. Cummings and Mr. McCormick went to the White +House and argued for a less partisan appeal. All they accomplished +was the striking of Mr. Lodge's name out of the appeal by +convincing Mr. Wilson that he could not attack the Republican +Senator while ignoring the worse offenses of Mr. Kitchen and Champ +Clark in his own party. + +For the rest, the President made the appeal more purely personal +and more partisan than before. He could not get the Lodge obsession +out of his mind. He could not bring himself to ask for the election +of members of Mr. Lodge's party. The wisdom of Mr. Cummings and Mr. +McCormick was soon vindicated. The appeal with Mr. Lodge's name out +was only a shade less impolitic than it would have been with his +name in. It gave Mr. Lodge his majority in the Senate and turned +the peace into a personal issue between the two "scholars in +politics." + +By this time Mr. Wilson had lost his sense of actuality. He could +ask the nation for a Congress to his liking as a personal due. He +could condemn Mr. Lodge as an enemy of those purposes with which we +entered the war, simply because Mr. Lodge could hurt him as no +other man could. The President had been talking for some months to +the whole world and the whole world had listened with profound +attention. His mission had taken, unconsciously perhaps, a +Messianic character. His enemies were the enemies of God. The +ordinary metes and bounds of personality had broken down. The state +of mind revealed in the appeal as originally written was the state +of mind of the Peace Conference and of the fight over the Treaty +and the League which succeeded the Peace Conference. All that +happened afterwards, including the pitiful personal tragedy, had +become inevitable. + +For a while at Paris amid the triumphs of his European reception +and the successes of the first few months up to the adoption of the +League covenant Mr. Wilson forgot Mr. Lodge, forgot him too +completely. + +It was my fortune to see him at the apex of his career. He was +about to sail for America on that visit which he made here in the +midst of the treaty making. His League covenant had just been +agreed to. The world had accepted him. Fate had led him far from +those paths of defeat and obscurity into which his sensitiveness +and shyness had turned him as a youth. He was elated and confident. +He looked marvelously fresh and young, his color warm and youthful, +his eye alive with pleasure. + +He talked long and well, answered questions freely, told stories of +his associates at the peace table, especially of one who never read +the memoranda his secretaries prepared, who was so deaf that he +could not hear a word spoken in conference and who spoke so loudly +that no one could interrupt him. "What could one do," Mr. Wilson +asked, "to penetrate a mind like that?" M. Clemenceau, who unlike +this other commissioner, had eyes and saw not, had ears and neither +would he hear, had said to him once, in response to a firm +negative, "You have a heart of steel!" "I felt like replying to +him," flashed Mr. Wilson, "I have not the heart to steal!" + +So well poised, so sure of himself he felt that he could do an +extraordinary thing. He could laugh off a mistake. Robuster natures +accept mistakes as a child accepts tumbles. Mistakes for Mr. Wilson +were ordinarily crises for his arrogancy. + +You may judge, then, how confident he was at that supreme moment. +He could brush aside a great mistake lightly. Someone asked him, +"What about the freedom of the seas?" + +"The freedom of the seas!" he answered, "I must tell you about +that. It's a great joke on me. I left America thinking the freedom +of the seas the most important issue of the Peace Conference. When +I got here I found there was no such issue. You see the freedom of +the seas concerns neutrals in time of war. But when we have the +League of Nations there will be no neutrals in time of war. So, of +course, there will be no question of the freedom of the seas. I +hadn't thought the thing out clearly." + +From that moment the decline began. Mr. Wilson had unwisely chosen +to have his victory first and his defeats afterward, always bad +generalship. + +Compromise followed compromise, each one destructive. The fourteen +points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them +by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. +The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind +cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. + +The President saw only slowly the consequences of that chaffering +to which Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau led him. He was a poor +merchant. He dealt in morals and could cast up no daily balance. He +was busy with details for which his mind had no sufficient +curiosity or energy. Mr. Keynes, in his remarkable description of +Mr. Wilson making peace, says that his mind was slow. + +Doubtless it was slow in political trading about the council table, +just as a philosopher may be slow in the small talk of a five +o'clock tea. + +Mr. Wilson was out of his element in the conference; Mr. Lloyd +George and M. Clemenceau were in theirs. Gradually the conviction +entered Mr. Wilson's soul that what was being destroyed at Paris +was Mr. Wilson. The figure of Senator Lodge began to rise across +the Atlantic, malevolent and evil, the Lodge against whom he had +wanted to appeal to the American people. + +The strain was telling upon him. He had to sit beside his +destroyers with that smiling amiability which Mr. Lansing records +in his book. He had to deal with men on a basis of equality, a +thing which he had run away from doing in his youth, which all his +life had made too great demands upon his sensitive, arrogant +nature. + +One whose duty it was to see him every night after the meetings of +the Big Three reports that he found him with the left side of his +face twitching. To collect his memory he would pass his hand +several times wearily over his brow. The arduousness of the labor +was not great enough to account for this. M. Clemenceau at nearly +eighty stood the strain and an assassin's bullet as well. Mr. Lloyd +George thrived on what he did. But the issue was not personal with +them. Neither was assisting, with difficult amiability, at his own +destruction. The time came when he might have had back some of the +ground he had given. Mr. Lloyd George offered it to him. He would +not have it. What it was proposed to amend was not so much the +peace treaty as Mr. Wilson himself, and he could not admit that he +needed amendment. + +The issue had become personal and Mr. Lodge, upon Mr. Wilson's +return, with malevolent understanding, kept it personal. The +Republicans made their fight in the one way that made yielding by +the President impossible. They made it nominally on the League but +really on Mr. Wilson. The President might have compromised on the +League, but he could not compromise on Mr. Wilson. Of such +involvement in self there could be only one end. + +Like a poet of one poem, Mr. Wilson is a statesman of one vision, +an inspiring vision, but one which his own weakness kept him from +realizing. His domestic achievements are not remarkable, his +administration being one in which movements came to a head rather +than one in which much was initiated. He might have cut the war +short by two years and saved the world much havoc, if he had begun +to fight when the Lusitania was sunk. Once in the war he saw his +country small and himself large; he did not conceive of the nation +as winning the war by sending millions of men to France; he saw +himself as winning the war by talking across the Atlantic. At the +Peace Conference he did not conceive of his country's winning the +peace by the powerful position in which victory had left it; he saw +himself as winning the peace by the hold he personally had upon the +peoples of Europe. Like Napoleon, of whom Marshal Foch wrote +recently, "Il oublia qu'un homme ne peut etre Dieu; qu'au-dessus de +l' individu, il y a la nation," he forgot that man can not be God; +that over and above the individual there is the nation. + +In politics he knew at first better than any other, again to quote +Foch, that "above men is morality." This knowledge brought him many +victories. But at critical junctures, as in his 1918 appeal to the +voters and in the treaty fight, he forgot that morality was above +one man, himself. He excelled in appeals to the heart and +conscience of the nation, a gift Mr. Harding has not; the lesser +arts of the politician, tact and skill in the handling and +selecting of men, were lacking. + +He forgot in his greatness and aloofness the national passion for +equality; which a more brilliant politician, Mr. Roosevelt, +appeased by acting as the people's court jester, and which a +shrewder politician, Mr. Harding, guards against by reminding the +country that he is "just folks"; and in the end the masses turned +upon him, like a Roman mob on a defeated gladiator. + + + + + +GEORGE HARVEY + + +There is something inscrutably ludicrous in the anxiety, bordering +upon consternation, that lurks in the elongated and grotesque +shadow that George Harvey casts upon Washington. The Republican +fathers, who now feel a sense of responsibility, after a lapse of +many years, for the future of party and country, do not yet know +how to take him. + +As a campaign asset his value could be expressed in intelligible +terms. But as a party liability, or asset,--many a good Republican +wishes he knew which,--he remains an enigma. There is not one of +the array of elders of either political persuasion who, while +laughing at his satirical sword-play, does not watch him covertly +out of the corner of the eye, trembling at the potential ruin they +consider him capable of accomplishing. + +With all his weaknesses,--principally an almost hilarious political +irregularity,--but two Republican hands were raised against him in +the Senate when he was nominated for the Court of Saint James. When +he rather unbecomingly filliped John Bull on the nose in his maiden +speech as the premier ambassador, incidentally ridiculing some of +his own countrymen's war ideals, President Harding and Secretary +Hughes, gravely and with rather obvious emphasis, tried to set the +matter aright as best they could. But there was no hint of +reprimand; only a fervent hope that the mercurial Harvey would +remain quiescent until the memory of the episode passed. + +The quondam editor, now the representative of his country on the +Supreme Council, in which capacity he is even more important than +as Ambassador, represents a new strain in American politics. His +mental habits bewilder the President, shock the proper and somewhat +conventional Secretary of State, and throw such repositories of +national divinity as Senators Lodge and Knox into utter confusion. + +Harvey plays the game of politics according to his own rules, the +underlying principle of which is audacity. He knows very well that +the weak spot in the armor of nearly all politicians of the old +school is their assumption of superiority, a sort of mask of +benignant political venerability. They dread satire. They shrink +from ridicule. A well-directed critical outburst freezes them. +Such has been the Harvey method of approach. Having reduced his +subjects to a state of terror, he flatters them, cajoles them, and +finally makes terms with them; but he always remains a more or less +unstable and uncertain quantity, potentially explosive. + +There is not much of the present Harvey to be gleaned from his +earlier experiences, except the pertinacity that has had much to do +with his irregular climb up the ladder. He was born in Peacham, +Vermont, where as a boy after school hours he mounted a stool in +his father's general store and kept books. At the end of the year +his accounts were short a penny. Because of this he received no +Christmas gift not, as he has said, because his father begrudged +the copper more than any other Vermont storekeeper, but because he +was meticulously careful himself and expected the younger +generation to be likewise. + +This experience must have been etched upon Harvey's memory; no one +can be more meticulous when his interest is aroused. To money he is +indifferent, but a misplaced word makes him shudder. Writing with +him is an exhausting process, which probably accounts for the fact +that his literary output has been small. But the same power of +analysis and attention to detail have been most effective in his +political activities. In these his divination has been prophetic +and in his manipulation of contending elements he shows a dexterity +that has baffled even the professional politicians. + +Harvey began his journalistic career upon the Peacham Patriot. +Thence, with a borrowed ten dollar bill, he went to Springfield, +serving his apprenticeship on the Republican, the best school of +journalism in the country at that time. Later, on the Chicago +Evening News, on the staff of which were Victor Lawson, Eugene +Field, and Melville Stone, he completed his training. + +When he joined the staff of the New York World at the age of +twenty-one he was a competent, if not a brilliant newspaper man. +His first important billet was the New Jersey editorship. This +assignment across the river might very easily have been the first +step toward a journalistic sepulcher, but not for Harvey. He made +use of the post to garner an experience and knowledge of New Jersey +politics that were to have an important bearing upon the career of +Woodrow Wilson later. At the same time he attracted the attention +of Joseph Pulitzer who appointed him managing editor of the World +before he was thirty. + +While directing the World's policy during the second Cleveland +campaign, Harvey met Thomas F. Ryan and William C. Whitney, the +financial backers of the Democratic party. This prepared the way +for his step from Park Row to Wall Street after his break with +Pulitzer. + +But the ways of Wall Street were not for Harvey. Nevertheless he +was cautious enough to help himself to some of the profits that +were forthcoming in those days of great amalgamations. With +commendable foresight, however much he might have despised the +methods then prevalent in the fields of high finance, he acquired +enough to make him independent, to follow his own bent, and +strangely enough, in the acquiring he came to the conclusion that +the Republic could not survive if the plundering of the people by +the "interests" continued as it was proceeding at that time. + +He withdrew from the Street and eventually purchased The North +American Review. In the meantime J. P. Morgan and Company had +underwritten the bonds of the Harper publishing house and the elder +Morgan asked Harvey to take charge of the institution. This he +agreed to do with the understanding that he should be permitted to +direct the policy of Harper's Weekly, one of the assets of the +firm, without interference from the bankers. + +With his peculiar faculty for detecting the weaknesses of +financiers and politicians, Harvey now had before him an +opportunity which was not afforded by the sedate old North American +Review and he promptly took advantage of it. He had seen enough of +the union of finance and politics to place little faith in either +of the old parties. One was corrupt and powerful; the other was +weak and parasitical. In both organizations money was a compelling +consideration. Not being accustomed to think in terms of party +allegiance Harvey decided that the only remedy for a very bad +situation was a militant Democracy. He had the organ; next he +needed the leader. + +About this time, quite accidentally, he was present at Woodrow +Wilson's inauguration as president of Princeton University. The +professor appealed to the editor,--why, one can only conjecture. +Perhaps it was a common abhorrence of machine politics, a passion +for phrase turning, for there is a similarity in the methods of the +two which separates them from the rank and file of ordinary +politicians. Harvey scrutinized Wilson more carefully, making a +political diagnosis by a careful examination of his works, and +decided that he was the man to turn the trick. + +But the gap between the presidency of Princeton and the Presidency +of the United States was too wide to be taken at one leap. Harvey +concluded that the governorship of New Jersey must be the +intermediate step. The Democratic year of 1910 provided the +opportunity. + +The New Jersey politicians did not care about the college +professor. They had already chosen a candidate, but Harvey induced +them to change their minds. How this was accomplished is an +absorbing political tale, too long to be narrated here. The New +Jersey political leaders of that period will tell you that if Mr. +Wilson's "forward-looking" men had controlled the convention he +never would have been nominated. They will also tell you how Joseph +Patrick Tumulty opposed the nomination. They will even whisper that +the contests were settled rather rapidly that memorable evening. +After the nomination was announced, Mr. Wilson's managers escorted +him to the convention hall where he addressed a group of delegates +who were none too enthusiastic. + +As they motored back to the hotel Mr. Wilson is reported to have +asked: "By the way, gentleman, what was my majority?" + +To which Mr. Nugent replied cryptically: "It was enough." + +The question, at least in the presence of these gentlemen, it is +said was never asked again. + +Much has been said about the break between Mr. Harvey and Mr. +Wilson. The published correspondence gives a fairly accurate +picture of what happened at the Manhattan Club on the morning of +the parting. I do not believe that Mr. Wilson dropped Colonel +Harvey because he feared he was under Wall Street influence. The +Harvey version sounds more plausible. According to this the +erstwhile university professor had learned the technique of +political strategy. He no longer felt that he was in need of +guidance. + +"I was not surprised at the excuse he gave a little later when the +break came," said Harvey. "I would not have been surprised at any +excuse he offered." + +Mr. Harvey retired from the campaign. Harper's Weekly had been +wrecked, whether or not by the espousal of the Wilson cause, and he +sold it to Norman Hapgood who buried it in due course. George +Harvey might or might not have had visions of an appointment to the +Court of St. James at that time. It is at least certain that his +disappointment was keen, taking a form of vindictiveness which will +survive as a distinct blot upon his career. In the preconvention +campaign he aligned himself with the Champ Clark forces, but it was +too late to undo the work he had done. + +This episode is necessary to an understanding of what happened +later. His transfer from the Democratic to the Republican party was +a characteristically bold move. How genuine his later allegiance +may be is a question which more than one Republican would like to +have answered, but there is no doubt of the success of his coup. He +is, at least where he wanted to be, occupying the post which he +considers, in point of importance, next to the presidency itself, +Mr. Hughes notwithstanding. + +When the United States entered the war Harvey found himself in the +secluded position of editor of the North American Review. This did +not suit his disposition at all and he was very unhappy. He was too +old to fight and it was not likely that he would be invited to +Washington. In the meantime stories of mismanagement in the conduct +of the war began to trickle out of the capital in devious +undercurrents. The press, in a passive spirit of patriotism, was +silent. Here was the opportunity. + +In January, 1918, the first edition of the "North American Review +War Weekly" appeared. Its editor announced that its purpose was to +help win the war by telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing +but the truth. He defied the Creels, the Daniels, and the +Burlesons, adopting the motto, "To hell with the censors and +bureaucrats." + +The journal was an instant success. Not only was it read with +avidity but the Washington politicians were flabbergasted at the +audacity of a man who dared to print what the press associations +and the dailies would not touch. I do not think there can be any +doubt of the genuineness of Harvey's motives at this time. His +journal was rigidly non-partisan. He spared no one whom he +considered as an encumbrance in the winning of the war. + +The most striking evidence of his attitude toward the Republican +party at this time is found in the edition of the "Weekly" of March +9, 1918. Will H. Hays had just been elected chairman of the +Republican National Committee. He made a speech extolling the +virtues of his party. Of this Harvey made a stinging analysis +denouncing Hays for invoking partisan spirit at so perilous an +hour, concluding with this paragraph: + +"As for Mr. Hays, with his insufferable claptrap about absolute +unity as a blanket under which to gather votes while the very +existence of the nation is threatened more ominously than anybody +west of the Alleghanies--or in Washington, for that matter,--seems +to realize, the sooner he goes home and takes his damned old party +with him, the better it will be for all creation." + +Surely no uncertain language! One might have supposed that the +Chairman of the Republican Committee would have done nothing of the +kind, but he did. Again the Harvey method was effective. Hays +instead of resenting the denunciation wrote Harvey a rather abject +letter, expressing the fear that he might have made a mistake in +discussing politics during the war and asked for an interview. + +Here another Harvey characteristic came into play. He did not +assume the lofty role of mentor or prophet; he very tactfully and +gently tucked the young Indianian under his wing. Thenceforth there +were no more oratorical blunders. + +Mr. Hays began to exhibit some capacity for leadership; his +speeches improved. From that day until the election of 1920 he +never made one without George Harvey's counsel and approval. + +This is as typical of Harvey as his audacity. He has a gentleness +and charm quite unexpected in so savage a commentator. He will +discuss and advise but he will not argue; and all of the time he +will probe with uncanny accuracy for the weaknesses of those with +whom he is dealing. It is rather by the weaknesses of others than +by his own strength that he triumphs. + +Eight months after his meeting with Hays, Harvey came to Washington +where his shadow was cast over the destinies of the Republican +party, which at that time consisted of a dozen elements with little +in common except a hatred of Woodrow Wilson. + +It was an ideal situation for the exercise of Harvey's peculiar +talents. He met various factional leaders and before many weeks his +house became their rendezvous, the G. H. Q. of the forces who were +to encompass the defeat of Wilson. Harvey flattered and cajoled and +counselled, enjoying himself immensely all of the time. This +diversion was much more to his liking than the academic dignity of +the editorship of the "North American Review". + +When President Wilson sailed away on his disastrous mission to +Paris, Harvey's "Weekly" threw aside all restraint. It cut and +slashed indiscriminately the President's policies. For the first +time Harvey took on the guise of a Republican among Republicans. He +even aided and abetted, with amused cynicism, the groping and +fumbling of Republican leaders who were dazzled at the sudden break +in the political clouds which had so long enshrouded them. He +helped raise the funds used to counteract the league propaganda and +toured the country in opposition to it. + +The next shift in scenes was as much beyond Mr. Harvey's power of +manipulation as it was beyond most of the Republicans who now +sagaciously give the impression that their hands were on the ropes. +Stories have been told of the great part Mr. Harvey played in the +nomination of Mr. Harding. Mr. Harvey did not go to Chicago with +the intention of supporting Mr. Harding any more than any other of +the candidates, except Wood and Hiram Johnson, whom he despised. + +He and the Senate oligarchy that coyly took the credit for +nominating Mr. Harding turned to him when it was manifest that the +machinery was stalled. Mr. Harding owes his nomination to a mob of +bewildered delegates. It was not due to a wisely conceived nor +brilliantly executed plan. + +I doubt very much that George Harvey and President Harding had much +in common until Harvey was invited to Marion. At that time the +"irreconcilables" were beginning to be afraid that Elihu Root and +William H. Taft were about to induce Mr. Harding to accept a +compromise on the League of Nations. Harvey served the purpose of +restoring the equilibrium. At the same time it is quite probable +that the President was impressed by a mind so much more agile than +his own. It was reasonably certain that it would not be diverted or +misled by the intricacies of European diplomacy. And there was +never any doubt of Harvey's Americanism. + +The President's selection of Mr. Harvey for the London post is, of +course, accounted for in other ways. There are some persons who +profess to believe that Mr. Harding preferred to have the militant +editor in London and his "Weekly" in the grave rather than to have +him as a censor of Washington activities under the new regime. It +can be said definitely that a sigh of relief went up from many a +Republican bosom when the sacrilegious journal was brought to a +timely end. And this did not happen, it is to be observed, until +the nomination of George Harvey to the Court of St. James was duly +ratified and approved by the Senate of the United States. + +But if the "Weekly" has passed, the Republicans are still acutely +conscious that Mr. Harvey is alive,--has he not reminded them of it +in his first ambassadorial utterances?--and the journal is not +beyond resuscitation. That is why Washington does not know whether +to be chagrined or angry, whether to disavow or to condone. The +discomfited Republicans frankly do not know what to think of it and +probably will not so long as the amazing ambassador makes his own +rules. + + + + + +CHARLES EVANS HUGHES + + +"Mais resiste-t-on a' la vertu? Les gens qui n'eurent point de +faiblesses sont terribles," observed Sylvestre Bonnard of the +redoubtable Therese. + +This fearsomeness of the good is an old story. Horace remarked it, +when, walking about near Rome, pure of heart and free from sin, he +met a wolf. The beast quailed before his virtue and ran away,--to +bark at the statue of the she wolf giving suck to Romulus, by way +of intelligent protest. + +A similar prevalence of virtue and a similar romantic quality, +where it is least to be expected, was disclosed in a recent +encounter between Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State, and one +of the irreconcilables, when Mr. Hughes, integer vitae scelerisque +purus had just commissioned Colonel George Harvey to take the seat +once occupied by Woodrow Wilson in the Supreme Council. + +When the news of this appointment reached the Capitol, Senator +Brandegee, of Connecticut, hurried down to that structure across +the street from the White House whose architectural style so +markedly resembles the literary style of President Harding, the +State War and Navy Building, official residence of Mr. Hughes. + +Harvey being, in a sort, Brandegee's ambassador to the Court of +Saint James, the Senator's object was to tell Mr. Hughes what +Harvey should do in the Supreme Council. Mr. Brandegee has the gift +of direct and forceful speech. In his earnestness, he dispenses +with the elegancies and amenities. The upper ranges of his voice +are not conciliatory. + +In this tone, he developed views regarding this country's foreign +relations with which Mr. Hughes could not agree. The Secretary of +State combatted the Senator from Connecticut precisely as he +combats counsel of the other side when a $500,000 fee is at stake. +The discussion was energetic and divergent. + +Mr. Brandegee hurried back to the Capitol and summoned other +senators to his office, all those who were especially concerned +about the exposure of Colonel Harvey to European entanglements. + +He was excited. His voice was nasal. His language, in that select +gathering, did not have to be parliamentary. He told the senators +that they could expect the Versailles treaty by the next White +House messenger; that "that whiskered,"--but nothing lies like +direct quotes,--that "that whiskered" Secretary of State would soon +get us into the League of Nations, being able for his purposes to +wind President Harding about his little finger! + +His excitement in such an emergency naturally communicated itself +to his hearers. What to do? It was unanimously decided that the +only adequate course was for Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to resign as +Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by way of +protest. + +Henry Cabot Lodge running away from his chairmanship would be Henry +Cabot Lodge behaving as romantically as Horace's wolf. The good are +terrible, as Anatole France said in the words with which this +sketch begins. It is not so much that you can not resist them, as +that they lead you to make such fools of yourselves. + +Mr. Hughes prevails, however, not merely by his virtue, but by his +intelligence. His is the best mind in Washington; to this everyone +agrees, and it is not excessive praise, for minds are not common in +the Government. + +Mr. Harding has not a remarkable one, the people having decided by +seven million majority that it was best not to have one in the +White House, choosing instead, a good heart, excellent intentions, +and reasonable common sense. Mr. Hoover has a fine business +instinct, great but diffused mental energy, but hardly an organized +mind. From this point the Cabinet grades down to the Secretary of +Labor, who, when Samuel Gompers, Jr., his Chief Clerk, addressed +him before visitors as, "Mr. Secretary,!" said, "Please don't call +me, 'Mr. Secretary,' Sam. Call me, 'Jim.' I'm more used to it." + +"Call me Jim" is the mental sea level of the Administration, by +which altitudes are measured, so let us not exalt Mr. Hughes' mind +unduly, but merely indicate what its habits are. Its operations +were described to me by a member of the Cabinet, who said that no +matter what subject was up for discussion at a Cabinet meeting, it +was always the Secretary of State who said the final convincing +word about it, summing it all up, saying what everyone else had +been trying to say but no one else had entirely succeeded in +saying, simplifying it, and all with an air of service, not of +self-assertion. + +Mr. Harding, speaking to an intimate friend, said he had "two +strong advisers,--Hughes and Hoover." + +It is a satisfaction, even though it is not a delight, to come in +contact with a mind like Mr. Hughes'; it is so definite, so hard +and firm and palpable. You feel sure that it rests somewhere on the +eternal verities. It is never agnostic. It has none of the malaise +of the twentieth century. Mr. Justice Brandeis, when Mr. Hughes was +governor of New York and a reformer and progressive, said of him, +"His is the most enlightened mind of the eighteenth century." + +I think the Justice put it a century or two too late, for by the +eighteenth century skepticism had begun to undermine those firm +foundations of belief which Mr. Hughes still possesses. For him a +straight line is the shortest distance between two points,-- +Einstein to the contrary, notwithstanding. + +Conclusions rest upon the absolute rock of principle, as morality +for his preacher father rested upon the absolute rock of the Ten +Commandments. There is no doubt, no uncertainty, no nuance, no on +the one hand, on the other, no discursiveness, no yielding to the +seductions of fancy, but a stern keeping of the faith of the +syllogism; a thing is so or it is not so. Mr. Hughes never +hesitates. He never says, "I must think about that." He has thought +about it. Or he turns instantly to his Principle and has the +answer. + +You speak of Mr. Hughes to ten men in the Capitol, and nine of them +will say to you, "Of course it is easy to understand; his is the +one real mind in Washington." + +Everyone is impressed, for, starting with no other initiation into +the mysteries of foreign relations than having had a father born in +Wales and having spent his vacations in England, probably in the +lake region studying the topography of Wordsworth's poetry,--a +certain oft detected resemblance to Wilson must make Wordsworth his +favorite poet, as he was Wilson's,--in ten days was he not a great +Secretary of State; and in three months the greatest Secretary of +State? To be sure, back of him was the strongest nation on the +earth, left so by the war, the one nation with resources, the +creditor of all the others, to which a successful foreign policy +would be naturally easy if it could only decide what that policy +should be. + +It was left to Mr. Hughes to say what it should be. His discovery +of the word "interests," amazed Washington; it was so obvious, so +simple that no one else had thought of it. Mr. Hughes' mind works +like that;--hard, cold, unemotional, not to be turned aside, it +simplifies everything, whether it be a treaty fight that has +confused everyone else in the land, or a rambling Cabinet +discussion; whether it be the mess in which the war left Europe, or +the chaos in which watchful waiting left Mexico. His is a mind that +delights in formulae. He has one for Europe. He has one for Mexico. +It is an analytical, not a synthetical mind, a lawyer's mind, not a +creator's, like Wilson's, with, perhaps it may turn out, a fatal +habit of over-simplification. Life is not a simple thing after +all. + +But effective simplification is instantly overwhelming; and he made +his brief announcement, a few days after taking office, that the +United States had won certain things as a belligerent, that it had +not got them, that he was going after them, that other countries +could expect nothing from us until they had recognized our rights +and our interests; he had completely routed the Senate, which had +been opposing Wilson's ideals with certain ideals of its own, +pitting Washington's farewell address against "breaking the heart +of the world," in a mussy statement of sentimentality. + +Mr. Hughes talked of islands and oil and dollars; and the country +came to its senses. Mr. Wilson had pictured us going into world +affairs as an international benefactor; it was sobby and suggested +a strain on our pocketbooks. The Senate had pictured us staying out +of them because our fathers had warned us to stay out and because +the international confidence men would cheat us; it was Sunday- +school-booky and unflattering. Mr. Hughes said we should go in to +the extent of obtaining what was ours, and that we should stay out +to the extent of keeping the others from obtaining what certainly +was not theirs. It sounded grown-up; as a Nation we belonged not to +the sob-sisterhood, neither were we tied to the apronstring of the +Mothers of the Constitution. + +Our national self-respect was restored. Truly, it required a mind +to discover "interests" in the cloud of words that Mr. Wilson and +the Senate had raised. Of course, it is all clear now, when +everybody scorns idealism and talks glibly of interests. "Hobbs +hints blue, straight he turtle eats; Nobbs prints blue, claret +crowns his cup." But it was Hughes who "fished the murex up," who +pulled "interests" out of the deep blue sea of verbal fuddlement. + +And thinking of our dollars, thanks to Mr. Hughes, we are made sane +and whole, clearsighted and unafraid, standing erect among the +nations of the earth asking lustily for Yap. + +Our foreign relations had been the subject of passion. Mr. Hughes +made them the subject of reason. Mr. Wilson could think of nothing +but his hatred of Lodge, which rendered an agreement with the +Senate impossible, and his hatred of Lloyd George and Marshal Foch, +which rendered cooperation with the Allies and through it +achievements in the foreign field that would have reconciled the +public to his policies, equally impossible. + +Mr. Hughes looked at his task objectively. He saw the power of the +United States. He saw how easy it was to exert that power +diplomatically. He saw the simple and immediate concerns of the +United States. Foch says that he won the war, "by smoking his +pipe," meaning by keeping cool and regarding his means and ends +with the same detachment with which he would study an old campaign +of Napoleon. I do not know on what sedative Mr. Hughes wins his +diplomatic victories, as he does not smoke a pipe;--perhaps by +reading the Sunday School Times. But like the French Marshal, he +knows the secret of keeping his head. It is a great quality of mind +not to lose it when you most need it. Mr. Hughes has it. Perhaps +this is why Washington remarks his mind; he always has it with him. + +"I am not thinking of myself in my work here," he said once. "I +don't care about immediate acclaim. I am counsel for the people of +this country. If a generation from now they think their interests +have been well represented, that will be enough." + +He is coldly objective. + +Mr. Hughes comes by his coolness naturally. He was born to it, +which is the surest way to come by anything. Men have hated him for +it, coolness being a disconcerting quality, ever since he emerged +from obscurity in New York during the insurance investigation, +calling it his "coldness" and adding by way of good measure the +further specification, his "selfishness." + +If the last characterization is to stand, it should be amended to +read, his "enlightened selfishness." He has a good eye for his own +interests. Roosevelt disliked him for it, because when governor and +again when candidate for president, he refused to gravitate into +the Roosevelt solar system, taking up his orbit like the rest of +them about the Colonel. But think what happened to that system when +the great sun of it went out! + +His political associates in New York hated him, accused him of +being "for nothing but Hughes," when he quit them in the fight "to +hand the government back to the people" and went, on the invitation +of President Taft, upon the Supreme Bench. But it was his only way +out. If he had gone on working with them, he would still be +"handing the government back to the people" along with,--but who +were the great figures of 1910? He knows an expiring issue and its +embarrassments by an unerring instinct. He finds a new one, such as +"our national interests," with as sure a sense. + +It is worth while casting a glance at him "smoking his pipe," when +other real and false opportunities presented themselves to him; one +finds discrimination. He refuses a Republican nomination for Mayor +of New York City when there is not a chance of electing a +Republican Mayor of New York City. He accepts a Republican +nomination for Governor of New York State, when the putting up of +Hearst as the Democratic candidate makes the election of a +Republican as Governor of New York State morally certain. He +refuses the Republican nomination for President, in 1912, when +another, viewing himself and his party less objectively, through +vanity perhaps, might have believed that his own nomination was the +one thing needed to prevent that year's Republican cataclysm. Four +years later he accepts the Republican nomination for President, +when as the result showed, there is at least a reasonable chance to +win. He takes the post of Secretary of State when neglected +opportunities lie ready to his hand and when the force of world +events requires little more than his intelligent acquiescence to +bring him diplomatic success. + +His discovery of "interests" was no accident. It sprang from that +hard unemotional simplifying habit of his mind. + +When one writes of Mr. Hughes, men ask, pardonably, "Which Mr. +Hughes? The old Mr. Hughes, or the new Mr. Hughes?" for he has had, +as the literary critics would say, his earlier and his later +manner. + +But it is chiefly manner, a smile recently achieved, a different +way of wearing the beard, a little less of the stern moralist, a +little more of the man of the world. A connoisseur of Hughes, who +has studied him for nearly twenty years, after a recent +observation, pronounced judgment: "It's the same Hughes, a trifle +less cold, but just as dry." And the Secretary of State himself, +when one of the weeklies contained an article on "The New Mr. +Hughes," remarked, "People did not understand me then, that is +all." + +These two eminent authorities being substantially agreed for the +first time during many divergent years, there must be something in +it. Mr. Hughes must be a gradually emerging personality. You take +that new warmth, recently detected; Mr. Hughes himself knows it was +always there. It is like the light ray of a star which has needed a +million years to reach the earth; it was always there but it +required a long time to get across. + +Then the beard:--when Mr. Hughes was "handing the government back +to the people" in New York, it was a preacher's beard; you might +have encountered its like anywhere among the circuit riders. Now it +is a foreign secretary's beard; you might encounter it in any +European capital,--a world statesman's beard. The change of beard +reveals the smile, which was probably always there, and the +splendid large teeth. The nose, standing out in bolder relief, is +handsomer and more distinguished. You see more of Mr. Hughes than +you used to and you gain by the improved vision. + +Something has dropped from him, however, beside the ends of the +whiskers. I met him first when he was about to run for President in +1916. An icy veil, like frozen mist, seemed to hang between us. We +talked through it ineffectively. When I saw him again as Secretary +of State, that chill barrier had fallen away; to recur to my +figure, he gradually emerges. + +Mr. Hughes of the later manner is, however, I am persuaded after +long familiarity with his career, more truly Hughesian than the +Hughes of the earlier manner; just as the Henry James of the later +manner is more explicitly Jamesian than the James of the earlier +manner, and the Cabot Lodge of the present is much more +irretrievably Cabotian than the Cabot Lodge who years ago stood +with reluctant feet where the twin paths of scholarship and +politics meet,--and part. + +I should say that Mr. Hughes was Bryan plus the advantages, which +Mr. Bryan never enjoyed, of a correct Republican upbringing and a +mind. The Republican upbringing and the mind have come of late +years to preponderate. Looking at Mr. Hughes to-day, you could not +tell him from a Republican, except perhaps by his mind, though such +esoteric Republicans as Brandegee, Cabot Lodge, and Knox profess an +ability to distinguish. + +But when he was "handing the government back to the people" in New +York, there was too much Bryan about him. The Republicans would +have none of him, except as a choice of evils,--the greater evil +being defeat. They called him ribald names. They referred to him +scornfully as "Wilson with whiskers," when they ran him, +reluctantly, for the Presidency in 1916. His opponent being also of +the Bryan school, and a minister's son at that, Hughes striving for +an issue, failed to make it clear which was which, a doubt that +remained until the last vote from California was finally counted +after the election. This was the Mr. Hughes of the earlier manner. + +Latterly, Mr. Hughes has succeeded in establishing the distinction +which he did not succeed in making during that campaign. When he +confronted the task of Secretary of State, he carefully studied the +international career of Woodrow Wilson, as a sort of inverse +Napoleon, a sort of diplomatic bad example. + +"This," he said to himself, "was a mistake of Wilson," and he noted +it. "And this," he observed thoughtfully, "was another mistake of +Wilson. I shall avoid it." "This," he again impressed on his +memory, "was where Lloyd George and Clemenceau trapped him. I shall +keep out of that pit." + +His head, like a book of etiquette, is full of "Don'ts," diplomatic +"Don'ts," all deduced from the experience of Wilson. + +The former President met Europe face to face. Mr. Hughes thanks his +stars for the breadth of the Atlantic. The former President put his +League of Nations first on his program. Mr. Hughes puts his League +of Nations last, to be set up after every other question is +settled. + +The former President tried to sell the Country pure idealism. Now +as a people we have the habit of wars in which we seek nothing, but +after which, in spite of ourselves, a little territory, a few +islands, or a region out of which we subsequently carve half a +dozen States, is found adhering to us. Mr. Wilson offered us a war +in which, of course, we sought nothing and found, at the end of it, +not the customary few trifles of territory, but the whole +embarrassing, beggarly world adhering to us. The thumbscrew and the +rack could not wring from Mr. Hughes the admission that we are +after anything more lofty than our interests. + +One of the present Secretary's "Don'ts" of similar derivation is +"Don't have a fight with the Senate unless you make sure first that +you have the public with you." + +Mr. Hughes does not run away from fights; he likes them. But +believing God to be on the side with the most battalions, and +intending scrupulously to observe this last "Don't," in order to +secure the necessary popular support, he is as Secretary of State, +"handing the government back to the people," just as he did when +governor,--a little less self-consciously, perhaps, a little less +noisily, but still none the less truly. + +He is the most democratic Secretary of State this Country has ever +had, and this includes Bryan to whose school, as has just been +remarked, he originally belonged. If we are ever to have democratic +control of foreign relations, it will be by the methods of Mr. +Hughes, because of the training and beliefs of Mr. Hughes, and as a +consequence of the most undemocratic control of foreign relations +which our Constitution attempted to fasten upon us. + +A successful foreign policy requires public understanding and +support. The makers of the Constitution established in our +government a nice balance of powers between the various +departments, beautifully adjusted until someone thought of putting +a stone into one side of the balance. That stone is the people. The +Fathers of the Constitution had not noticed it. The executive put +it into its end of the balance some years ago, and the legislative +has been kicking the beam ever since. One nice bit of balancing was +that between the Senate and the Executive on treaty making. In +foreign relations, the President can do everything, and he can do +nothing without the approval of two thirds of the Senate. It is a +nice balance, which broke the heart of John Hay, frittered away the +sentimentalities of Mr. Bryan, and destroyed Mr. Wilson. + +No one ever thought of putting the stone into it until the Senate +did so two years ago, by discussing the Versailles treaty in the +open, right before the public. The people got into the scale, and +Mr. Wilson hit the sky. + +Mr. Hughes observed what happened. He is determined that the stone +this time shall go in on his end of the balance. He talks to the +country daily. He takes the people into his confidence, telling all +that can be told and as soon as it can be told. He makes foreign +relations hold front pages with the Stillman divorce case. He makes +no step without carrying the country with him. He comes as near +conducting a daily referendum on what we shall do for our +"interests" as in a country so big as ours can be done; and that is +democratic control of foreign relations, initiated by the Senate, +for its own undoing. + +Into that balance where he is placing the stone, he will put more +of mankind's destinies than any other man on earth holds in his +hands to-day. His has been a long way up from the shy, sensitive +youth that one who knew him when he was beginning the law describes +to me. He was then unimaginably awkward, incapable of unbending, a +wet blanket socially. An immense effort of will has gone into +fashioning the agreeable and habitual diner-out of to-day, into +profiting by the mistakes of the New York governorship, of the +campaign of 1916. + +One sees still the traces of the early stiffness; the face is +sensitive; the eyes drop, seldom meeting yours squarely; when they +do, they are the mild eyes of the Church! I suppose the early +experiences of the Church help him. + +His attitude toward Colonel Harvey's and other of the President's +diplomatic appointments takes its color from his good father's +attitude toward the problem of evil. God put evil in the world, and +it is not for man to question. The President sends the Harveys +abroad; they are not Mr. Hughes', but his own personal +representatives. It is not for Mr. Hughes to question. + +He grows a better Republican every day. And the Republicans of the +Senate are not reconciled. They feel like the man who saw the +hippopotamus: + + If he should stay to tea, I thought, + There won't be much for us. + +There won't be much for them. Enthusiasm grows among them over his +admirable fitness for reinterment on the Supreme Bench. + + + + + +EDWARD M. HOUSE + + +The nature of Colonel Edward M. House was fully revealed by a story +of his youth, which he told me at Paris in the concluding moments +of the Peace Conference. He was elated and confident. The +compromises in which he delighted had been made. The gifts had all +been bestowed--of territory which men will have to fight for to +keep, of reparations which will never be paid, of alliances which +will never be carried out, of a League of Nations which the +Colonel's own Nation will never enter. + +Looking the work over with that blindness with which men are struck +who are under the dominion of another and stronger man's mind, his +gentle soul was flooded with happiness. He was as near boasting as +one of his modest habits could be, as his mind turned to the wisdom +of his youth which had brought forth this excellent fruit. + +"I got my first real sight of politics," he said, "when I was a boy +in Cornell University. My great chum there was young Morton, a son +of the Republican war governor of Indiana. The Hayes-Tilden +contest over the Presidency was being decided. Morton and I used to +run away from Ithaca to Washington during that absorbing fight. By +reason of his father's position in the Democratic party, he could +get in behind the scenes as few young men could; and he took me +with him. I saw the whole amazing thing. I made up my mind then and +there that only three or four men in this country counted, and that +there was little chance of rising to be one of those three or four +by the ordinary methods." + +He was, when he said this, at the apex of his career, behind the +scenes of the greatest World Congress ever held, following the +greatest War the world had ever known. And he had been behind the +scenes as had no other man, in Europe as a privileged onlooker with +both belligerents, and in America as the confidant of tremendous +events. + +He was there, as in his college days, at the Hayes-Tilden contest, +by grace of a friend whose influence had been sufficient to secure +him his opportunities. The parallel was in his mind, and he +regarded it with self-approval. He had chosen his course and chosen +it wisely. It had led him to the greatest peace-making in history. + +There was a little more self-revelation. He and Morton had prepared +for college with Yale in view. But Morton had flunked his entrance +examinations at Yale and afterward succeeded in passing the Cornell +tests. House had gone to Cornell to be with his friend, an early +indication of a capacity for self-effacement, for attachment to the +nearest great man at hand who could take him behind the scenes. + +The mystery of Colonel House is that he has been possessed all his +life, almost passionately, with that instinct which makes boys run +to fires. His fastening upon the favorably placed, whether it was +Morton in his youth, or Wilson in his maturity, was not ordinary +self-seeking, not having for its object riches or power or +influence. It was merely desire to see for the pure love of seeing. + +His is a boundless curiosity about both men and events. His eyes +are the clue to his character. Boardman Robinson, with the +caricaturist's gift for catching that feature which exhibits +character, said to me one day during the War, "I just passed +Colonel House on the street. The most wonderful seeing eyes I ever +saw!" + +Nature had made Colonel House all eyes--trivial in figure, +undistinguished, slightly ludicrous, almost shambling, shrinking +under observation so that he gained a reputation for mystery, with +only one feature to catch your attention, a most amazingly fine +pair of eyes. It was as if nature had concentrated on those eyes, +treating all the puny rest of him with careless indifference. They +are eyes that delight in seeing, eyes to seek a place in the first +row of the grand stand of world events, eyes that turn steadily +outward upon objective reality. Not the eyes of a visionary--House +got his visions of the brotherhood of man and the rest of it at +second-hand from Wilson--eyes that glow not with the internal fires +of a great soul, but with the intoxication of the spectacle. + +And with the eyes nature had given House an unerring instinct for +getting where, with his small figure, he could see. The ego of the +passionate spectator is as peculiar as that of the book collector +or the curiosity hunter. Given a shoulder tall enough the +diminutive House perches upon it, like a small boy watching a +circus parade from his father's broad back, whether the shoulder be +Morton's in his youth, or Wilson's in his maturity. + +Some have tried to explain House by saying that he had the vanity +of loving familiarity with the great; but I doubt if House cared +for kings, as kings, any more than a bibliomaniac cares for jade. +He wanted to see; and kings were merely tall objects on which to +perch and regard the spectacle. + +He remained simple and unaffected by his contacts with Europe, did +none of the vulgar aping of the toady, coming away from the Peace +Conference an unconscious provincial, who said "Eye-talian" in the +comic-paper way, and Fiume pronouncing the first syllable as if he +were exclaiming "Fie! for shame!"--an unspoiled Texan who must have +cared as little what kings and potentates thought of him as a +newsboy watching a baseball game cares for the accidental company +of a bank president. + +The world has been good to Colonel House, according to his +standards. He has realized his ambition to the fullest. Life has +given him all he wanted, the privilege of seeing, more abundantly +than to any other in his generation, perhaps in all time; for he is +history's greatest spectator. + +He is glad. His heart is full. He wishes to give in return. He is +the kindest-hearted man who has ever had empires at his disposal. +He wants to give, give, give. He wants to make happy. He was the +fairy godmother of Europe, the diplomatic Carnegie, who thought it +a disgrace to die diplomatically rich. + +For many months I saw him almost daily at Paris. His was a heart of +gold, whether in personal or international relations; but a heart +of gold does not make a great negotiator. Perverse and +nationalistic races of men, incredulous of the millenium, keep +their hearts of gold at home when they go out to deal with their +neighbors. + +It was difficult for Colonel House to say no. He might go so far as +to utter the first letter of that indispensable monosyllable; but +before he accomplished the vowel, his mind would turn to some happy +"formula" passing midway between no and yes. He was fertile in +these expedients. Daily he would talk of some new "formula," for +Fiume, for Dantzig, for the Saar Valley, for the occupation of the +Rhine, for Shantung, always happily, always hopefully. The amiable +William Allen White hit off his disposition perfectly when he said +House's daily prayer was, "Give us this day our daily compromise." + +When he split a hair between the south and southwest side, it was +not for logistic pleasure; it was to divide it with splendid +justice and send each of two rival claimants away happy in the +possession of exactly half of the slender filament, so that neither +would be empty handed. I never saw a man so overjoyed as he was one +day late in April or early in May when M. Clemenceau had left his +rooms in the Hotel Crillon with the promise of Franco-American +defensive alliance. + +"The old man," he said, "is very happy. He has got what he has been +after. I can't tell you just now what it is. But he has got it at +last." + +He had been the donor, for Mr. Wilson, of the exact southwest side +of a hair, the promise to submit, without recommendations, an +alliance to the United States Senate, which had little prospect of +ever being accepted by this country. The sight of the French +Premier's happiness made him radiant. + +It was not merely because representatives of foreign governments +found Colonel House easy to see when they could not gain access to +President Wilson that kept a throng running to his quarters in the +Crillon; it was because there they found the line of least +resistance. There was the readiest sympathy. There was the greatest +desire to accommodate. He sought always for a formula that would +satisfy the claims of all. + +A man so ready to compromise is actuated by no guiding principle. +Mr. Scott, the editor of the "Manchester Guardian", said when +President Wilson was in England; "Yes, Lloyd George is honestly for +the League of Nations. But that won't prevent him from doing things +at Paris which will be utterly inconsistent with the principle of +such a league. It isn't intellectual dishonesty; but Lloyd George +hasn't a logical mind. He doesn't understand the implications of +his own position." + +Neither did Colonel House at Paris. The League of Nations was an +emotion with him, not a principle. It was a tremendous emotion. He +spoke of it in a voice that almost broke. I remember his glowing +eyes and the little catch in his throat as he said, at Paris, "The +politicians don't like the League of Nations. And if they really +knew what it would do to them, they would like it still less." + +But, for all that naive faith in the wonders it would do, Colonel +House had not thought out the League of Nations, and was quite +incapable of thinking it out, for he is not a man of analytical +mind; and what mental power he had was inhibited by the glow of his +feelings. His temperature was above the thinking point. Thus, like +Mr. Lloyd George, he could make compromises that played ducks and +drakes with his general position, since he had no real +understanding of the League, which was not an intellectual +conviction with him, arduously arrived at, but which possessed his +soul as by an act of grace, like an old-fashioned religious +conversion. + +He was loyal at heart to Mr. Wilson and to everything that was Mr. +Wilson's, his mind being absorbed into Mr. Wilson's, and having no +independent existence. There are natures which demand an utter and +unquestioning loyalty in those to whom they yield their confidence, +and Mr. Wilson's was of that sort, as a remark of his about +Secretary Colby will indicate. + +When Mr. Lansing was removed from office, the country was astounded +to learn that he was to be succeeded by Bainbridge Colby. The +President communicated his decision first to one of the few who +then had access to his sick room. This adviser ventured to +expostulate. + +"Mr. Colby," he said, "is brilliant, but he is uncertain. His whole +career has lacked stability. He is not known to have the qualities +which the Nation has been taught to expect in a Secretary of +State." + +"At any rate," replied the President sharply, "he is loyal." + +At any rate, Colonel House was loyal. + +The ego of Mr. Wilson demanded and received utter loyalty from him, +a loyalty that forbade thinking, forbade criticism, forbade +independence of any sort. Moreover, Colonel House was in contact +with a mind much stronger than his, with a personality much more +powerful than his. He was caught into the Wilson orbit. He revolved +about Mr. Wilson. He got his light from Mr. Wilson, who had that +power, which Colonel Roosevelt had, of irradiating minor +personalities. Colonel House was nothing until he gravitated to Mr. +Wilson. He is going back to be nothing to-day, nothing but a kind, +lovable man, a gentle soul rather unfitted for the world, with an +extraordinary capacity for friendship and sympathy, and that fine +pair of eyes. + +I remember at Paris the affecting evidences of the little man's +loyalty to his great friend, of whom he could not speak without +emotion. He was never tired of dilating upon the wonder of +President Wilson's mind: + +"I never saw," he would say, "so quick a mind, with such a capacity +for instant understanding. The President can go to the bottom of +the most difficult question as no one else in the world can." + +House's endless "formulae" always bore the self-effacing condition, +"if Mr. Wilson approves." "If Mr. Wilson approves" was the D. V. of +Colonel House's religion. Too much awe of another mind is not good +for your own, or carries with it certain implications about your +own. + +Colonel House's loyalty to Mr. Wilson did not, however, make him +hate the men at Paris who stood across the President's path. The +personal representative's heart was too catholic for that. He-- + + Liked what e're he looked on + And his looks went everywhere. + +He had a kindly feeling for the "old man," Clemenceau. He was a +warm friend of Orlando, with whom Mr. Wilson had his quarrel over +Fiume. He though well of Lloyd George, whom Mr. Wilson went abroad +hating. + +The Peace Conference was to him a personal problem. Peace was peace +between Wilson and Clemenceau and Lloyd George and Orlando. +Compromises were an accommodation among friends. + +I never saw a man so utterly distressed as he was when President +Wilson threatened to break up the Peace Conference and sent for the +George Washington to take him home from Brest. It was as if his own +dearest friends had become involved in a violent quarrel. He did +not see the incident in terms of the principles involved, but only +as the painful interruption of kindly personal relations. Men speak +of him sometimes as the one of our commissioners who knew Europe; +and Europeans, appreciating his sympathy, have fostered this idea +by referring to his understanding of European problems. + +But the Europe Colonel House knew was a personal Europe. The +countries on his map were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando. +The problems of his Europe were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and +Orlando. He knew what Lloyd George wanted. He knew what Clemenceau +wanted. He knew what Orlando wanted. That was enough. + +His kindness of heart, his desire for pleasant personal relations, +his incapacity to think in terms of principles, whether of the +League of Nations or not, betrayed him in the matter of Shantung. +Whether the Peace Conference should return Shantung to China, or +leave it to Japan to return to China was to him, he often said, +"only a question of method. There is no principle involved." The +Japanese were a sensitive people, why should a kind heart question +the excellence of their intentions with respect to China? Shantung +would of course be returned. It was only a question of how. + +The simple heart of Colonel House did not save him, either as a +diplomat or as a friend. The failures at Paris plunged Mr. Wilson +into depression in which he went as far down into the valley as he +had been up on the heights during his vision--of a world made +better by his hand. In his darker moments he saw nothing but enmity +and disloyalty about him--even, a little later, "usurpation" in the +case of the timorous and circumspect Mr. Lansing. + +Colonel House says that he does not yet know what caused the breach +between the President and himself. Relations stopped; that was all. + +This is what occurred: Shortly after Colonel House had convinced +the President that the disposal of Shantung was only a question of +method he disappeared from Paris "to take a rest"; and it became +known that after all he was not to sit in the Council of the League +of Nations representing America, as Mr. Wilson had originally +intended. + +At this time, a close friend of President Wilson and one of his +most intimate advisers, said to me, "The most insidious influence +here is the social influence." + +British entertainment of members of the House family had been +marked and assiduous, and the flattery had had its effect, though +not probably upon the Colonel, who remained unspoiled by social +contacts to the last. Nevertheless, a member of Mr. Wilson's family +had called the President's attention to the social forces that the +British were bringing to bear. The President by this time was in a +mood to be made angry and suspicious. Doubt was lodged in his mind. +And when he found this country critical of the Shantung settlement, +that doubt became a conviction; the British through social +attentions, had wheedled House into a position favorable to their +allies, the Japanese. The loyal House was convicted of the one +unforgivable offense, disloyalty. + +When the casting off of House became, later, in this country +unmistakable, I inquired regarding it of the friend and adviser of +the President whom I have just mentioned, and he repeated to me, +forgetting that he used them before, the exact words he had said at +Paris, "The most insidious influence at the Peace Conference was +the social influence." + +The most insidious influence with Colonel House was the kindness of +his own heart. He had too many friends. His view of international +relations was too personal. Principles will make a man hard, cold, +and unyielding, and Colonel House had no principles, or had them +only parrot-like from Mr. Wilson. He was the human side of the +President, who for those contacts which his office demanded had +found a human side necessary and accordingly annexed the amiable +Texan. + +Wilson's human side had offended him, and he cut it off, +accordingly to the scriptural injunction against the offending +right hand. The act was cruel, but it was just, as just as the +dismissal of Mr. Lansing; for House failed Wilson at Paris, being +one of Wilson's greatest sources of weakness there. His excessive +optimism, his kindheartedness, his credulity, his lack of +independence of mind, his surrender of his imagination to a +stronger imagination, his conception of politics not as morals but +as the adjustment of personal differences, left Wilson without a +capable critical adviser at the Conference. + +When House talked to Wilson, it was a weaker Wilson talking to the +real Wilson. Colonel House in retirement and since the breach, is +still Colonel House, kindhearted and unobtrusive. He has seen, and +he is satisfied. He has a fine and perhaps half-unconscious loyalty +to the great man from whose shoulders he surveyed the world. His is +an ego that brushes itself off readily after a fall and asks for no +alms of sympathy. + +He does not, like Mr. Lansing, fill five hundred octavo pages with +"I told you so," and you can not conceive of his using that form of +self-justification. + +I hope to see him some day playing Santa Claus in a children's +Christmas celebration at a village church! + + + + + +HERBERT HOOVER + + +One reads in the press daily of Hughes and Hoover, or Mellen and +Hoover, or Davis and Hoover, or Wallace and Hoover. If it is a +question of foreign relations, it is the Secretary of State and +Hoover. If it has to do with using our power as a creditor nation +to compel the needy foreigners to buy here, in spite of the tariff +wall we are going to erect against their selling here, it is the +Secretary of the Treasury and Hoover. If strikes threaten, it is +the Secretary of Labor and Hoover. If the farmers seek more direct +access to the markets, it is the Secretary of Agriculture and +Hoover. + +It is always "and Hoover." What Mr. Hughes does not know about +international affairs--and that is considerable--Mr. Hoover does. +What Mr. Mellen does not know about foreign finance--and that is +less--Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Davis does not know about labor-- +and that is everything--Mr. Hoover does. What Mr. Wallace does not +know about farm marketing--and that is nothing--Mr. Hoover does. + +Herbert Hoover is the most useful supplement of the administration. +He possesses a variety of experiences, gained in making money +abroad, in administering the Belgian relief, in husbanding the +world's food supply after our entrance into the War, in helping +write the peace treaty, which no one else equals. He is as handy as +a dictionary of dates or a cyclopedia of useful information, +invaluable books, which never obtain their just due; for no one +ever signs his masterpiece with the name of its coauthor, thus, by +"John Smith and the Cyclopedia of Useful Information." + +A bad particle to ride into fame behind, that word "and," begetter +of much oblivion! Who can say what goes after the "and" which +follows the name McKinley, or Hayes, or Cleveland, or even +Roosevelt? Who has sufficient "faith in Massachusetts" to remember +long the decorous dissyllable connected by "and" with the name +Harding? The link, "and," is not strong enough to hold. You recall +the "and"; that is all; as in the case of that article of food, +origin of many "calories," to use Mr. Hoover's favorite word, in +the quick-serve resorts of the humble, where it supplements ably +and usefully, but without honorable mention, slender portions of +beef, pork, and ham. + +To describe briefly, in a phrase, what has happened to Hoover; two +years ago, it was "Hoover"; to-day, it is "and Hoover." + +Why the connective? Because, to put it bluntly, however great his +other gifts are--and they are remarkable--he lacks political +intelligence. He reminds one now of a great insect caught in the +meshes of a silken web. He struggles this way and that. He flutters +his wings, and the web of politics fastens itself to him with a +hundred new contacts. + +Facing possible elimination from public life, he accepted a dull +and unromantic department under President Harding. He was told that +he could "make something of it." Modern Greeks bearing gifts always +bring you an opportunity which "you, and you alone, can make +something of." He is trying to make something of it, something more +than Mr. Harding and the party advisers intended when they gave him +the Secretaryship of Commerce. He is trying to dramatize some turn +of fate and be once more a "big figure." He is tireless. He arrives +at his office fabulously early. Clerks drop in their tracks before +he leaves at night. He has time to see everyone who would see him; +for he can never tell when "the man with the idea" will knock at +his door. Unlike the British naval officer charged with the duty of +examining inventions to win the War, who is described by Guedalla as +sitting like an inverted Micawber "waiting for something to turn +down," he is waiting for something to turn up. He does more than +wait; he works twenty hours a day trying to turn something up. + +And he will turn something up. The chances are that he will do as +much for the infant foreign trade of this country as Alexander +Hamilton did for the infant finances of this country. He promises +to be the most useful cabinet officer in a generation. But this is +less than his ambition. If he were an unknown man, it would be +enough; but you measure him by the stature of Hoover of the Belgian +Relief. Like the issue of great fathers, he is eclipsed by a +preceding fame. As well be the son of William Shakespeare as the +political progeny of Hoover, The Food Administrator! + +The War spoiled life for many men; for Wilson, for Baruch, for +Hoover. After its magnificent amplifications of personality, it is +hard to descend to every day, and be not a tremendous figure, but a +successful secretary of an unromantic department. + +He might concentrate with advantage to his future fame. A brief +absence from front pages, under the connective "and," would cause +the public heart to grow fonder when he did "make something" of his +own department. + +But two disqualifications stand in his way;--his lack of political +intelligence, and his consequent inability to make quick decisions +in a political atmosphere. His present diffusion of his energies +springs, I think, from indecision; for in politics he can not make +up his mind, as he can in business, where the greatest profit lies. + +I first heard of this weakness of his when he was Food +Administrator in Washington, and when other members of the Wilson +War Administration, equal in rank with him and having to cooperate +with him, complained frequently of his slowness. He had able +subordinates, they said, the leading men in the various food +industries, and they had to make up his mind for him. I set this +charge down, at the time, to jealousy and prejudice, Mr. Hoover +being always an outsider in the Wilson administration; but the long +delay and immense difficulty he made over deciding, although all +his life a Republican, whether he was or was not a Republican in +the campaign of 1920, seemed all the proof of indecision that was +needed. + +It sounds like heresy about one who has been advertised as he has; +but remember that we know little about him except what the best +press agents in history have said of him. He achieved his +professional success in the Orient, far from observation, and his +financial success far from American eyes. His public career in the +relief of Belgium and in the administration of food was the object +of world-wide good will. And, moreover, indecision in politics is +common enough among men who are strong and able in other +activities. Mr. Taft was a great judge but wrecked his +administration as President by inability to make up his mind. +Senator Kellogg was a brilliantly successful lawyer; but in public +life he is so hesitant that Minnesota politicians speak of him as +"Nervous Nelly," and even Mr. Taft, during the Treaty fight, +rebuked him to his face for lack of courage. + +Mr. Hoover's face is not that of a decisive character. The brow is +ample and dominant; there is vision and keen intelligence; but the +rest of the face is not strong, and it wears habitually a wavering +self-conscious smile. This smile, as if everybody were looking at +him, makes him remind one as he comes out of a Cabinet meeting of a +small boy in a classroom carrying a bouquet of flowers up to his +teacher. He has, moreover, a strain of pessimism in his nature, +which may account for his indecision. You catch him in moods of +profound depression. He was in one just before his appointment to +the Cabinet, when his European relief work was not going to his +liking, and when the politicians, he felt, were forcing him into a +position of little scope and opportunity. + +In politics, he has enough vanity and self-consciousness to be +aware constantly of forces opposed to him, covert, hostile, +unscrupulous, personal forces--forces that he does not understand. +Give him a mining problem, he can reckon with the forces of nature +that have to be overcome. Give him a problem of finance, he knows +the enmities of finance. He is in his element. In politics he is +not. He is baffled. + +An illustrative incident occurred in the spring of 1920, when both +parties were talking of him as their candidate for President and he +was uncertain whether he was a Republican or not. Mr. Hearst, in +his newspapers, published an attack upon him, saying that he was +more Briton than American, and to prove it printed a list of +British corporations of which he was a director. + +All his suspicions were aroused over this everyday occurrence of +politics. Where had Mr. Hearst obtained the unfortunate +information? He saw plots and treachery. Someone in his confidence +must have betrayed him for money. A careful investigation was made, +and it was discovered that the editor had drawn upon "Who's Who," +to which Mr. Hoover himself had furnished the information before he +began thinking of the Presidency. + +The politicians tricked him so completely in the preconvention +campaign of 1920 that he has the best reasons for distrusting +himself. He was always, during that campaign, a candidate for the +Republican nomination to the Presidency. At the very time when his +spokesman, Julius Barnes, was saying for him that he could not +choose between the two parties until he had seen their candidates +and read their platforms, and when the Democrats were most +seriously impressed with his availability, the manager of his paper +in Washington said to me, "This talk of Hoover for the Democratic +nomination is moonshine. He won't take it." + +"Why not," I asked him. + +"Because," he replied, "he does not think it is worth having," a +quite practical reason which differed wholly from the official +explanation that Mr. Hoover was waiting to see which party was +progressive so that he might oppose reaction. + +His subsequent support of the more conservative candidate and the +more conservative party bore out the truth of what his newspaper +manager had said. And in reality, Mr. Hoover is as conservative as +Mr. Harding himself, being a large capitalist with all the +conservatism of the capitalist class. + +A little while ago, Mr. Roosevelt had made it unfashionable to +admit that you were conservative. You wished it to be understood +that you were open-minded--"forward looking," as Mr. Wilson, who +turned reactionary at the test, called it; that you were broad, +sympathetic, free from mean prejudices, progressive, in short. Our +very best reactionaries of to-day all used to call themselves +progressive. Some still do. + +The young editor of a metropolitan newspaper, born to great wealth, +and imbibing all the narrowness of the second generation, once +asked me in those bright days when everybody was thrilling over his +"liberality," "Would you call me a radical, or just a progressive?" +He was "just a progressive." In a somewhat similar sense, Mr. +Hoover was quite unconsciously "just a progressive"--a belated +follower of a pleasant fashion, having lived abroad too long when +he made his announcement to note the subtle changes that had taken +place in our thinking--the rude shock that Russia had given to our +"liberality." + +But living abroad, it is only fair to add, has created a difference +between his conservatism and that, let us say, of Judge Gary. He +has grown used to labor unions and even to labor parties, so that +they do not frighten him. His is conservatism, none the less, +definite conservatism, if more enlightened than the obscurant +American variety. + +His hesitation and indecision in the spring of 1920 thus did not +spring from doubt of the Republican party's progressiveness. He +always desired the Republican nomination; but his vanity would +suffer by the open seeking of it and the defeat which seemed +likely; and his sensitiveness would suffer from the attacks, like +that of Mr. Hearst, which an open candidacy would entail; for he is +at once vain and thin-skinned. + +Springing thus from reluctance to make up his mind, the +announcement was received as the evidence of a very large mind. +Among the public, Mr. Hoover was taken for a man who cared more for +principle than for party or for politics. Among the politicians, he +assumed the proportions of a portent, with a genius for politics +second only to that of Roosevelt himself, who in a difficult +situation could take the one position and say the one thing that +might force his nomination. + +The Democrats pricked up their ears. Mr. Wilson, sick and +discouraged, began to entertain hopes of a candidate who would save +the Democracy from ruin. Homer Cummings, National Chairman of Mr. +Wilson's party, began to regard Mr. Hoover's possible nomination +favorably. The Republican managers became alarmed. They knew from +Mr. Hoover's friends that he, as his Washington newspaper manager +had said, thought the Democratic nomination not worth having; but +they feared lest by the course he was pursuing he might make it +worth having, might take it, and might rob them of the election +which they felt safely theirs. If they could induce him to declare +his Republicanism, the Democrats would drop him, the public would +cease to be interested in him as a dramatic personality too big for +party trammels, and they themselves could ignore him. + +It was decided to have him read out of the Republican party as a +warning to him of how he was imperiling his hopes of the only +nomination he valued, and at the same time have Republican leaders +go to him or his friends and advise him and them that if he would +only declare his Republicanism, a popular demand would force his +nomination at Chicago. + +Senator Penrose was chosen as the Republican whose pontifical +damnation would most impress Mr. Hoover. The late W. Murray Crane, +whom I have heard described at Mr. Roosevelt's dinner table as "the +Uriah Heap of the Republican party," was the emissary who would +advise Mr. Hoover to confess the error of his ways and seek the +absolution of Penrose. A diary kept at Republican National +Headquarters in New York reveals the visits there at the time the +plan was made of Mr. Crane and others who took part in the +enterprise. Mr. Penrose got up from a sick bed and thundered: under +no circumstances would he permit the nomination of Mr. Hoover. + +The plot succeeded. In a few days, Mr. Hoover declared that he +would not take the Democratic nomination. The Democrats dropped +him. The public was bewildered by his finding out that he was a +Republican after saying that he could not tell whether he was one +or not until he had seen the Republican candidate and the platform. + +At the Chicago Convention he received the support of Mr. Crane, +Governor Miller, of New York, and, on the last ballot, of William +Allen White, who having voted for Harding on the just previous +ballot, said he wanted to "leave the bandwagon and ride with the +undertaker." + +This guilelessness of Mr. Hoover in politics will prevent him from +realizing his larger ambitions; but is a source of strength to him +in his present position, with American business men who have +learned to distrust politicians. At any rate, he is no politician; +he thinks as business men think; his interests are their interests; +and when he comes to them bearing gifts,--the aid and cooperation +of the United States Government in their efforts to win foreign +trade,--they do not take him for a Greek. + +He possesses great special knowledge which they desire: he knows +much about economics and enjoys the advantage of believing that he +knows all; he has immense prestige, as a result of all the +advertising he received during the War; they come to Washington and +sit at his feet like children; he gives them fatherly lectures, +even upon the morals of their business, which must be clean, to +enter this foreign trade of his, with the Government behind it. +They make mental resolutions of reform. To no politician, to no +one, even with an instinct for politics, would they listen as they +listen to him. He speaks to American business with immense +authority. His selection is an example of that unusual instinct for +putting the right man in the right place which President Harding +has, when he chooses to exercise it. + +The post was disappointing to Mr. Hoover; but it was the one in +which he will be most useful. Not a lawyer, he would hardly have +done for Secretary of State, in spite of his exceptional knowledge +of foreign conditions. Not a banker, he lacked the technical +equipment for Secretary of the Treasury. Not a politician, he +should have, and he has a place in which there are the least +possible politics. Mr. Harding denatured him politically by giving +him the one business department in the Cabinet. Even Hiram Johnson +may come no longer to hate him. + +For his present task, besides his special knowledge, his remarkable +industry, his tireless application to details, he has one great +gift, his extraordinary talent for publicity. There is no one in +Washington, not even Mr. Hughes, who knows so well as he does how +to advertise what he is doing. + +As business recovers and foreign trade develops, the magazine pages +will blossom with articles about what American enterprise is +achieving in foreign lands, about the cooperation between American +business and the American government, and, once more, about Mr. +Hoover. Finding markets for American wares all over the earth will +be made a romance only second in interest to the feeding of +Belgium. + +It was not an accident that he was better advertised than any +general, admiral, or statesman of the War. It was not all due to +the good will of the public, to the work which he did in Belgium +and in this country, nor to the extraordinary press agents whose +services he was able to command because of that good will. Back of +it all was his own instinct for publicity, his sense of what +interests the people, his assiduous cultivation of editors and +reporters. He has magazine and newspaper contacts only exceeded by +those of Roosevelt in his time, and a sense of the power of +publicity only exceeded by Roosevelt's. + +When he was threatening to win the Democratic nomination for the +Presidency in spite of the fact that he was not a Democrat, a +supporter of McAdoo complained bitterly to me, "Confound him! He +has a genius for self-advertising. He is not half the man McAdoo +is. He hasn't McAdoo's courage, optimism, force, or general +statesmanship; but he has this infernal talent for getting himself +in the papers. There is not much to him but press agenting; but how +can you beat that?" + +But though his own name has come to count for more than the causes +he represents, so that the best way to obtain aid is to ask for it +with "Hoover" in big letters and with the suffering children of +Central Europe in small letters, still he remains only a name to +the American people. They know that he always wears a blue suit of +clothes cut on an invariable model, which he adopted years ago. +They know that he worked his way through college as a waiter. They +know that he grew rich as a mining engineer in the East. That is +all. They think of him as a symbol of efficiency, as one who may +save their money, as one who may find markets for them and develop +their trade, as one who may help the world upon its feet again +after the War, as a superman, if you will; but not as a man, not as +a human being. + +All his advertising has made him appeal to the American +imagination, but not to the American heart. He is a sort of +efficiency engineer, installing his charts and his systems into +public life,--and who loves an efficiency engineer? There are no +stories about him which give him a place in the popular breast. It +is impossible to interest yourself in Hoover as Hoover; in Hoover +as the man who did this, or the man who did that, or the man who +will do this or that, yes,--but not in Hoover, the person. + +The reason is that he has little personality. On close contact, he +is disappointing, without charm, given to silence, as if he had +nothing for ordinary human relations which had no profitable +bearing on the task in hand. His conversation is applied efficiency +engineering; there is no lost motion, though it is lost motion +which is the delight of life. At dinner, he inclines to bury his +face in his plate until the talk reaches some subject important to +him, when he explodes a few facts, and is once more silent. + +Had he a personality with his instinct for publicity, he would be +another Roosevelt. But he is a bare expert. + +I doubt if he really thinks of human beings as human beings; on the +contrary, some engineering graph represents humanity in his mind. +It is characteristic of him that he always speaks of the relief of +starving populations not in terms of human suffering, but in terms +of chemistry. The people, of whatever country he may be feeding, +have so many calories now, last month they had so many calories; if +they had ten calories more, they could maintain existence. Many +times have I heard this formula. It is a weakness in a democracy to +think of people in terms of graphs, and their welfare in terms of +calories; that is, if you hope to be President of that democracy-- +not if you are content to be its excellent Secretary of Commerce. + +When he came to Washington as a Food Administrator, he brought with +him an old associate, a professor from California. A few days later +the professor's wife arrived and went to live at the same house +where Mr. Hoover and her husband resided. Mr. Hoover knew her well. +She and her husband had long been his friends. He met her in the +hall, shook hands with her, welcomed her and then lapsed into +silence. After some moments, he said, "Well,--" and hesitated. + +"Mr. Hoover," she said, "I know you are a busy man. You don't have +to stand here trying to think of something to say to me. I know you +well enough not to be offended if you don't talk to me at all while +I am here." + +He laughed and took her at her word. He had the habit of too great +relevancy to be human. If he could have said more than "Well" to +that woman, he might have been President. + + + + + +HENRY CABOT LODGE + + +When Henry Cabot Lodge was elected to Congress thirty-four years +ago there were no portents in the heavens, but there was rejoicing +in his native city of Boston and in many other places. It was +hailed as the dawn of a new era. Young, he was only thirty-seven, +well educated, a teacher of history, and with six serious books to +his credit, he was a new figure in politics; Providence, moving in +its mysterious way, had designed him to redeem politics from its +baseness and set a shining example. + +Everything was in his favor; he was not only learned, so learned, +in fact, that he was promptly dubbed the "scholar in politics," but +he was rich, and therefore immune from all sordid temptation; he +was a gentleman. Mr. Lodge's forbears had been respectable +tradesmen who knew how to make money and to keep it--and the latter +trait is strongly developed in their senatorial descendant. From +them he inherited a fortune; he had been educated in a select +private school and then gone through Harvard, whence he emerged +with an LL.B. and a Ph.D. attached to his name. By all the +established canons he was a "gentleman" as well as a scholar. In +the intervals between teaching and writing he had found time to be +admitted to the Boston bar. + +With that equipment it could be safely predicted Mr. Lodge would go +far. He has. To-day he is the leader of the Republican party in the +Senate of the United States. + +He early justified the promise. While still a Congressional +freshman he drafted and introduced into the House the "Force Bill," +which came to a violent death in the Senate. That Bill was not only +a prophecy but it is a resume of Mr. Lodge's career. It is +partisanship gone mad. + +On the pretense that it was intended to secure fair elections in +the South, but actually, as described by a member of the House at +the time, to prevent elections being held in several districts, it +placed the election machinery in the control of the Federal +Government, which, through the Chief Supervisor of Elections, to be +appointed by the President, and his Praetorian Guard of Deputy +Marshals, would have controlled every election and returned an +overwhelming Republican majority from the Southern States. + +The Bill was typical of Mr. Lodge and the way he plays politics. +The Force Bill would probably have ended ingloriously the political +career of any other man, but Mr. Lodge had the luck of being a +gentleman born in Boston. Boston is slow to forget. A quarter of a +century after the Civil War, Boston still remembered that conflict, +its heart still bled for the negro deprived of his vote; and a +Boston gentleman could do no wrong--to the Democratic Party. + +The House amused Mr. Lodge, but it was too promiscuous for a person +of his delicate sensibilities who shrank from intimate contact with +the uneducated and the socially unwashed. Henry Cabot Lodge always +creates the impression that it is a condescension on his part to +God to have allowed Him to create a world which is not exclusively +possessed by the Cabots and the Lodges and their connections. + +All that is only an unfortunate manner. He is really the friend of +the people, abominating snobbishness and aristocratic pretensions; +in his younger days, when he was campaigning for Congress, he was +known to have slapped a constituent on the back and called him +familiarly by his first name; even now, although he has long ceased +to be a politician and has been canonized as a statesman, the old +impulses are strong in him. When the time draws near for his +reelection to the Senate, he goes back to Massachusetts, there to +take part with the common people in their simple pleasures, and +affably to extend a cold and clammy hand to voters, who still +venerate him as a scholar in politics and a gentleman. So it will +be easily understood why one of Mr. Lodge's temperament should +early have cast his covetous eye on the Senate, and at the first +opportunity moved over to that more select atmosphere, which he did +in 1893. + +When Senator Lodge entered public life the flagrant spoils system +was rampant. A little band of earnest men was fighting to reform +the civil service so as to make it a permanent establishment with +merit and fitness the tests for appointment instead of political +influence. It was a cause naturally to appeal to the "best people" +of Boston, and Mr. Lodge, being one of them, having inflexible +principles and a high code of honor, threw himself eagerly into the +reform movement and became its apostle. His principles were so +stern and unyielding, he demanded such an exalted standard of +private and public morality, that, although he worshipped the +Republican Party with a devotion almost as great as the memory of +that grandfather who laid the foundation of the family fortunes, +with a sorely stricken heart he was compelled to differ with Mr. +Blaine and to flirt with those Ruperts of American politics, the +Mugwumps. + +"The man who sets up as being much better than his age is always to +be suspected," says a historian, "and Cato is perhaps the best +specimen of the rugged hypocrite that history can produce." + +As a summary of the character of Cato, this is admirable, but no +one would call Mr. Lodge "rugged." + +Mr. Lodge's principles, it has been observed, are inflexible and +rest on solid foundation, but like good steel they can bend without +breaking. An ardent civil service reformer, a champion of public +morality, so long as offices were being awarded to the faithful, he +saw no reason why he should be the victim of his own self denying +ordinance. Early in his career he became a very successful purveyor +of patronage, developing a keen scent for vacant places or a post +filled by a Democrat. As a theoretical civil service reformer Mr. +Lodge left nothing to be desired; as a practical spoilsman he had +few equals. A Senator's usefulness to his friends is much greater +than that of a member of the House, and if a Senator works his pull +for all that it is worth he can accomplish much. Mr. Lodge was not +idle. + +With his grandfathers and his fortune Mr. Lodge inherited a violent +and bitter dislike of England. Probably no man--not even the most +extreme Irish agitator--is more responsible for the feeling +existing against England than Mr. Lodge; because the outspoken +Irish agitator is known for what he is and treated accordingly; +carrying out Mr. Roosevelt's thought, he will be execrated by +decent people; but Mr. Lodge, posing as the impartial historian and +the patriotic statesman, is applauded. + +Just as Mr. Lodge gained a certain fame when he was a member of the +House from the Force Bill, which his own party repudiated, so he +signalized his admission into the Senate by proposing to force +England to adopt free silver. It was an opportunity to strike at +England in a vital spot; it was as statesmanlike and patriotic as +his attempt to deprive the South of their representatives. + +Mr. Cleveland was fighting with splendid courage to save the +country from free silver, caring nothing for politics and animated +solely by the highest and most disinterested motives, and Mr. Lodge +was thinking only of his spite. President Cleveland, said a Boston +paper, deserved and had the right to expect Mr. Lodge's support, +instead of which "we find our junior Senator introducing a +legislative proposition intended to appeal at once to the anti- +British prejudices of a good many Americans, and to the desire of +the then preponderating sentiment of the country to force a silver +currency upon the American people. It was an effort to strike at +England." + +Mr. Lodge proposed that all imports from Great Britain or her +colonies should pay duties double those of the regular rates, and +any article on the free list should be made dutiable at thirty-five +per cent; these additional and discriminating duties were to remain +in force until Great Britain assented to and took part in an +international agreement "for the coinage and use of silver." + +Mr. Lodge's free silver amendment shared the same tomb with his +Force Bill; in the Senate fortunately there were men with broader +vision and less passion. + +In his biography in the Congressional Directory (written by +himself) and in the numerous biographies and sketches which have +been published with such frequency (Mr. Lodge has a weakness for +seeing himself in print) curiously enough no mention can be found +either of the Force Bill or the attempt to coerce England with a +silver club. One can only explain this reticence by excessive +modesty. + +Two years later Mr. Lodge deserted his silver allies and was as +enthusiastic in support of the gold standard as he had previously +been zealous for the purification of the civil service. A Boston +paper said that he "was made to realize, by the influences brought +to bear upon him, that he must advocate the gold standard or else +provoke the active hostility of the prominent business men of this +State." That perhaps is as infamous as anything ever written. That +any influences, even those "of the prominent business men of +Massachusetts," could cause Mr. Lodge to swerve from his +convictions no one will believe. He must have had convictions when +he sought to drive England to a silver standard, he must have been +convinced that it was for the good of the United States as well as +the whole world, he must have satisfied himself, for Mr. Lodge +never permits his emotions to control his intelligence, that his +action was wise and patriotic. But although Mr. Lodge will not +surrender his convictions he has no scruples about consistency. + +Mr. Lodge's principles are so stern that he refused to consent to +Colombia being paid for the territory seized by President +Roosevelt. Mr. Lodge made a report (this was when Mr. Wilson was +President, and I mention it merely as an historical fact) in which +he denounced Colombia's claim as blackmail, resented it as an +insult to the memory of Mr. Roosevelt, and declared in approved +copybook fashion (being fond of platitudes), that friendship +between nations cannot be bought. Later (this was when Mr. Harding +was President, and I mention it merely as an historical fact) as +Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he brought in a +report urging the ratification of the treaty, and discovered that +Mr. Roosevelt had really been in favor of the treaty, expunged the +unpleasant word blackmail from his lexicon, and sapiently observed, +so impossible is it for him not to indulge in platitudes, that +sometimes a nation has to pay more for a thing than it is really +worth; a reflection that would have done credit to the oracular +wisdom of Captain Jack Bunsby. + +Mr. Lodge attacked the treaty of peace with Germany while it was +still in process of negotiation and severely criticised Mr. Wilson +for not having consulted the Senate. That the Senate has no right +to ask about the details of a treaty before the President sends it +in for ratification is a constitutional axiom which Mr. Lodge, with +his customary mental infidelity, caressed at one time and spurned +at another. + +When the treaty with Spain was before the Senate (that was when Mr. +McKinley was President, and I mention it merely as an historical +fact) it was attacked by some of the Democrats. To silence these +criticisms Mr. Lodge said, "We have no possible right to break +suddenly into the middle of a negotiation and demand from the +President what instructions he has given to his representatives. +That part of treaty making is no concern of ours." + +The Democrats attempted to defeat the ratification of the treaty, +and if that was done, said Mr. Lodge, "we repudiate the President +and his action before the whole world, and the repudiation of the +President in such a matter as this is, to my mind, the humiliation +of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world." The +President could not be sent back to say to Spain "with bated +breath" (even in his most solemn moments Mr. Lodge cannot resist +the commonplace) "we believe we have been too victorious and that +you have yielded us too much and that I am very sorry that I took +the Philippines from you." + +But that was precisely what Mr. Lodge demanded should and must be +done when Mr. Wilson brought back the peace treaty. Inconsistency, +as I have before remarked, Mr. Lodge cares nothing about, but his +patriotism and partisanship are so inextricably intertwined that it +is always difficult to discover whether in his loftiest flights it +is the patriot who pleads or the partisan who intrigues. + +Thus, in the debate on the Spanish treaty, Mr. Lodge delivered +himself of these noble sentiments: "I have ideals and beliefs which +pertain to the living present, and a faith in the future of my +country. I believe in the American people as they are to-day and in +the civilization they have created," and many more beautiful words +to the same effect. It was the language of a statesman with +aspirations and convictions. It sounded splendidly. Mr. Lodge is a +classical scholar, and one wonders whether he remembers his +Epictetus: "But you utter your elegant words only from your lips; +for this reason they are without strength and dead, and it is +nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your miserable virtue; +which is talked of everywhere." + +It was the late Senator Wolcott, one of the most brilliant orators +of his day, who explained why Mr. Lodge's oratory left men cold. +Wolcott was commenting on a speech delivered by Lodge a few days +earlier and someone said to him that men listened to Lodge with +eyes undimmed. + +"To bring tears from an audience," said Wolcott, "the speaker must +feel tears here (and he pointed to his throat), but Lodge can speak +for an hour with nothing but saliva in his throat." + +Mr. Lodge's dislike of Mr. Wilson was almost malignant. Rumor +ascribes it to professional jealousy. Before Mr. Wilson came into +prominence Mr. Lodge was the only scholar in politics, but Mr. +Wilson was so far his superior in erudition, especially in Mr. +Lodge's chosen profession of history, that he resented being +deprived of his monopoly. Perhaps there is another reason. Mr. +Lodge has cherished two ambitions, neither of which has been +gratified. The Presidency has been the ignis fatuus he has pursued; +he was the residuary legatee of Mr. Roosevelt's bankrupt political +estate in 1916, it will be recalled; last year, after his fight on +the treaty, he considered himself the logical candidate and +believed he had the nomination in his grasp. He has longed to be +Secretary of State, and it was a bitter disappointment when Mr. +Harding did not invite him to enter the Cabinet. + +Mr. Lodge is a curious and not uninteresting study in psychology. +He has no great talent, but he is not without some ability; in his +youth he was an industrious plodder and fond of study. He has read +much but absorbed little; he is well educated in the narrow sense +of the schoolmaster, but he has no philosophic background; his is +the parasitic mind that sucks sustenance from the brains of others +and gives nothing in return. He is without the slightest +imagination and is devoid of all sense of humor; and without these +two, imagination, which is the gift of the poet, and humor, which +is the dower of the philosopher, no man can see life whole. + +He has genius almost for misunderstanding public sentiment. To him +may be applied Junius' characterization of the Duke of Grafton: "It +is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do +right by mistake." + +With all these defects, the defects of heritage and environment and +temperament, so much was expected from Mr. Lodge, and so much he +might have done, that it is a disappointment he has accomplished so +little. He has been thirty-four years in Congress, and his career +can be summed up in three achievements--the Force Bill, the attempt +to wreck England by driving her to silver coinage, and the part he +took in defeating the treaty of peace with Germany. The Force Bill +and the silver amendment his biographers have charitably forgotten; +will the future biographer deal as gently with the closing years of +his life? And if so, what material will the biographer have? + +Macaulay, reviewing Barere's Memoirs--and allowing for the +difference in time and manners and morals there is a strange +similarity between the leader of the French Revolution and the +leader of the Senate--said, "We now propose to do him, by the +blessing of God, full and signal justice." + +We think we may say, with proper humility, that, by the blessing of +God, we have done Senator Henry Cabot Lodge full and signal +justice. + + + + + +BERNARD M. BARUCH + + +A clever woman magazine writer once asked Bernard M. Baruch for +some information about the peace treaty. The question was not in +his special field, the economic sections of the treaty, and he told +her so. + +"It took him one sentence to say that he could not tell me what I +wanted to know," she described the interview afterward. "And then +he talked to me for two hours about himself. He told me of his +start in life as a three-dollar-a-week clerk, how rich he was, his +philosophy of life; how you should recognize defeat when it was +coming, accept it before it was complete and overwhelming and start +out afresh, how liberal and advanced were his social views, how +with all his wealth he was ready to accept a capital tax as perhaps +the best way out of the bog in which the war had left the world, +how democratic he was in his relations with his employees and his +servants. It all seemed as amazing to him as if he were describing +someone else, or as if it had just happened the day before." + +Perhaps it is only to women and to journalists that men talk so +frankly about themselves, to the most romantic and best trained +listening sex and profession, who perforce survey the heights from +below. But this young woman's experience was, I have reason to +believe, a common one. + +Is it vanity? You say that a man who talks so much about himself +must be vain. To conclude that he is vain is not to understand Mr. +Baruch. Is a child vain when it brings some little childish +accomplishment, some infantile drawing on paper, and delightedly +and frankly marvels at what he has done? It is given to children +and to the naive openly to wonder at themselves without vanity, +with a deep underlying sense of humility, and in Mr. Baruch's case +the unaffected delight in himself proceeds from real humility. + +After twenty-five years in the jungle of Wall Street, there is-- +contradictions multiply in his case--much of the child about Mr. +Baruch, simple, trustful--outside of Wall Street,--incapable of +concealment,--outside of Wall Street--of that which art has taught +the rest of us to conceal. His humility makes him wonder; his +naivete makes him talk quite frankly, unrestrained by the +conventions that balk others. After all, is not wondering at +yourself a sign of humility? A vain man, become great by luck, by +force of circumstances, by the possession of gifts which he does +not himself fully understand, would still take himself for granted. +He would not be a romance to himself, but a solid, unassailable +fact. + +For Baruch the great romance is Baruch, the astonishing plaything +of fate, who started life as a three-dollar-a-week broker's clerk; +made millions, lost millions, made millions again, lost millions +again; finally, still young, quit Wall Street with a fortune that +left the game of the market dull and commonplace, seeking a new +occupation for his energies; became during the war next to the +President, the most powerful man in Washington; emerged from the +war, which wrecked most reputations, with a large measure of +credit, prepared by the amazing past for an equally amazing future. +A career like that makes it impossible for the man who knows it +best not to expect anything. Why not the "Disraeli of America?"--a +phrase he once, rather confidentially, employed concerning his +anticipated future. + +Did you ever see a portrait bust smiling, not softly with the eyes +or with a slight relaxation of the mouth, but firmly, definitely, +lastingly smiling, with some inward source of satisfaction? Look at +Jo Davidson's bust of Baruch, among the famous men at the Peace +Conference. + +I once saw the various sketches in clay that went to the making of +that portrait--the subject was proving elusive to the sculptor. +There were two obvious traits to be represented; the unusual knot +in the brow between the eyes and the smile, without which it was +evident that you had not Baruch. The extraordinary concentration in +the forehead was easy enough to transfer to clay; but the smile +kept defying the artist. When a smile was traced in the clay it +softened the face out of character, destroyed that intensity which +the central massing of the brow denoted; and when the smile was +deleted the face lost all its brilliance, became merely intense, +concentrated, racial, acquisitive perhaps, clearly not Mr. Baruch's +face. Ultimately the sculptor succeeded in wedding a smile to that +brow, and the bust went on exhibition with those of Wilson, Foch, +House, Clemenceau, and the others; but the union was never more +than a compromise, a marriage of convenience for the artist. + +That smile is as inevitable a part of Baruch as his engaging +naivete in talking about himself. It is always there, brilliant, +unrelated to circumstances. It does not spring from a sense of +humor,--Mr. Baruch, like the rest of the successful, has not a +marked sense of humor; a sense of the irony of fate he has, +perhaps, but not more. It does not denote gaiety, nor sympathy, nor +satire; it is not kind nor yet unkind; it does not relax the +features, which remain tense as ever even when smiling; it suggests +satisfaction, self-confidence, and a secret inner source of +contentment. It is with Mr. Baruch when he is tired, or ought to be +tired; the romance of Baruch is an internal spring of refreshment. +It does not leave him when he is angry, if he is ever angry; the +romance of Baruch diverts him. Though always there, it is not a +fixed smile, a mask, something worn for the undoing of Wall Street; +it is a real smile. Somewhere subconsciously there abides the +picture of the poor clerk become amazingly rich, of power in +Washington, of a beckoning future with possibilities as +extraordinary as the wonders of the past. Life is not logical, +dull, commonplace, a tissue of cause and effect; it proceeds +delightfully by daily miracles. The American Disraeli is no further +away to-day than was the Baruch of to-day from the Baruch of +yesterday. Enough to account for a smile in marble, bronze, or in +whatever metal the human face is made of. + +Take the miracle of the War Administration. It was not vanity but +humility, the kind of humility that would have saved Wilson, that +served Mr. Baruch there. He came to Washington out of Wall Street +and Wall Street is always anathema. More than that he came out of +that part of Wall Street which is beyond the pale; he did not +belong to the right monied set there; which is to be anathema with +that part of the community to which Wall Street itself is not +anathema; moreover he had been unjustly accused in connection with +the famous Wall Street "leak." And he entered an administration +which was the center of much prejudice and hatred. Yet he was +modest enough, however, to assume that his personality did not +count, that it was the work to be done which mattered, and that he +could depend upon the friendliness both of the Republicans and of +the great industrial interests of the country to that work if it +should be properly done. + +The belief Mr. Wilson has and a much lesser man, Hiram Johnson, +has, that men are thinking exclusively about them personally and +not about the causes they advocate or the measures they propose is +a more dangerous form of vanity than the habit of admiring oneself +audibly. It requires collossal egotism to imagine the existence of +many enemies and Mr. Baruch is genuinely humble in the matter of +enmity. After watching him during the war, in an administration +which was enemy mad, I fancy he counts his genuine foes on the +fingers of one hand. Moreover he was quite impersonal about his +task. He did not do everything himself on the theory that no one +else was quite big enough to do it. There is no practical snobbism +about him. His knowledge of the industries of the country was that +of the speculator; it was not that of the practical industrialist, +and he knew it. + +He surrounded himself with the best men he could find. He trusted +them implicitly, his habit being not to distrust men until he finds +that they can be trusted but to trust them unless he finds that +they cannot be trusted--also a modest and naive trait. He was never +tired of praising Legg, Replogle, Summers, and the other business +men whom he brought to Washington, praising himself, of course, for +his skill in choosing them--he never achieves self-forgetfulness-- +but giving them full credit for the work of the War Industries +Board. And he inspired an extraordinary loyalty among his +associates, big and little. He treated the Republicans as he +treated big business as if all had only one interest, above +politics and personalities, and that was to win the war. And when +President Wilson, in response to Republican criticism of the war +organization, gave him real power to mobilize American industry, +the Republicans applauded the bestowal of authority as constructive +and took credit to themselves for accomplishing it. + +Baruch and Hoover, alone of the business men who came to Washington +during the war achieved real successes in the higher positions, and +he showed vastly the greater capacity of the two to operate in a +political atmosphere. A man who was nothing but a Wall Street +speculator, not an industrial organizer, organized successfully the +biggest industrial combination the world has ever seen; a man who +was suspect of American business got on admirably with American +business, and a man who had not been in politics accomplished the +impossible task of adjusting himself to work under political +conditions. It is another chapter in the romance of Baruch. + +He cannot explain it, so why should not he wonder about it quite +openly and quite delightedly, with all his engaging naivete? That +inability to explain anything is one of the characteristics of Mr. +Baruch. When you begin to apprehend it you begin to see why he is a +romance to himself. He cannot explain himself to himself, nor to +anyone else, no matter how much he tries. And even more, he cannot +explain his opinions, his conclusions, his decisions to anyone in +the world with all the words at his command. He can never give +reasons. Mentally nature has left him, after a manner, +incommunicado. His mind does not proceed as other men's minds do. + +The author of the "Mirrors of Downing Street" describes Lord +Northcliffe's mind as "discontinuous." If I had never talked to +Lord Northcliffe I should be led to suppose that his mind resembled +Mr. Baruch's. But the British journalist's mental operations are a +model of order and continuity compared to those of the former +American War Industries Chairman. Like the heroes of the ancient +poems Mr. Baruch's mind has the faculty of invisibility. You see it +here; a moment later you see it there, and for the life of you +cannot tell how it got from here to there, a gift of +incalculability which must have been of great service in Wall +Street, but which does not promote understanding nor communication. +And the more Mr. Baruch tries to give you the connecting links +between here and there the worse off you are, both of you. + +The ordinary mind is logical and is confined within the three +dimensions of the syllogism. You watch it readily enough shut in +its little cage whose walls are the major premise, the minor +premise, and the conclusion. There is no escape as we say, from the +conclusion. There is no escape anywhere. + +But Mr. Baruch's mind escapes easily. It possesses the secret of +some fourth mental dimension, known only to the naive and the +illogical, or perhaps supralogical. He has brilliant intuitions, +hunches, premonitions, the acute perceptions of some two or three +extra senses that have been bred or schooled out of other men. + +Perhaps he is like Lloyd George, who is not logical but achieves +his successes through two or three senses which ordinary men have +not; however, unlike Lloyd George, he cannot simulate logic and, +after jumping to his conclusions, reduce them to the understanding +of the three-dimensional mind. It is a grief to him that he cannot; +for if he could make a speech, that is to say, translate himself, +that figure of Disraeli would, he thinks, be less remote. But when +your mental operations are a succession of miracles, you may have +brilliant intuitions and extraordinary prevision about the mineral +supplies necessary to win the war,--which he had--you may have +wonder, like the naive and the poets, about that extraordinary +thing yourself, or about that still more extraordinary thing which +is life or destiny, but you cannot move the masses. + +Still there are compensations. A perfectly logical mind would have +explained all the wonder away, reduced the miracle of personality +to a stolid operation of cause and effect, quite self-approbatively +no doubt, and made Mr. Baruch talk of himself as the rest of the +great do, modestly, after this fashion: "Behold me! I am what I am +because when I was nine years old I saved nine cents and resolved +then and there always to save as many cents each year as I was +years old. Young man, SAVE!" + +There is no fun in being not a wonder but a copy book. And a +perfectly logical mind would flirt with Disraeli warily. It would +say, "One does not at fifty change from business to politics with +success. Disraeli didn't start out in Wall Street. As the Germans +say, 'what will become vinegar sours early.'" + +Mr. Baruch slips easily through the three sides of this reasoning. +Life is not logical. Fate is not logical. He is not logical. + +He has had his taste of public life under Wilson and he wants more. +I venture to say that he would give every one of his many millions +and be as poor, well, poorer than any member of the present +cabinet, to be in the place Mr. Hughes occupies to-day. + +Everyone who knows him has heard him say that when he entered +office he resolved to quit business because he learned so much as +head of the War Industries Board that it would be improper for him +ever to go into the market again. There is more to it than that; +public life has given him a profound distaste for mere money- +making. He wrote to Senator Kenyon the other day that he had not +made a dollar since he went to work for the government. I believe +that to be true for I have found him an extraordinarily truthful +and honest man. He has that desire for public distinction which is +so often characteristic of his race. He has the idealism, a +characteristic also of the race which gave to the world two great +religions. He has the same passion for public service now that he +once had for the market. And he belongs to a race, which, in spite +of all our national catholicity on the subject of races, has never +yet produced its Disraeli in America, and to a party out of power, +perhaps for a long time, and he spent his youth learning a trade +which is not the trade he would follow now. + +All of this accounts for his restlessness. He is still youthful and +has enormous energies and no occupation for them. He loves personal +publicity and has an instinct for it, not so keen as Hoover's or +Will H. Hays', but still keen. + +Whither shall he turn? To the organization of his party? There he +may buy the right to be lampooned and in the end, if his party +succeeds, to be introduced into the Cabinet apologetically, as Hays +and Daugherty were, on the plea that the President must appoint a +number of party workers. To the Senate? It is a body which affords +escape from the boredom of small town life for men who have grown +rich on the frontier or in the dull Middle West. It carries with it +an excuse to live in Washington, some social position there, and a +title envied in Marion, Reno, Butte, or Salt Lake City. Senators +who start young serve long and obediently, suppressing all their +natural instincts for self-expression, and attain if they are +lucky the scant distinction of a committee chairmanship in a +legislature that has steadily tended toward submergence. To the +House? Individuals are lost in the House. And the Presidency comes +to few, and by chance. + +Knowing his ambition for public distinction and his wealth, men go +to him every day to sell him the road to power and influence, and, +if you will, public service. Let him have the Democratic +organization on condition of paying its debts and financing its +activities. One faction of the Democratic party recently sought +control, spreading the understanding that Mr. Baruch would, in the +event of its success, open wide his pocket book. After the meeting +of the National Committee at which this faction met its defeat I +said to a prominent member of the victorious group: "Now that you +have won you will probably get Baruch's money. He is restless, +eager to find an outlet for his energies, less interested in any +personality than in his party. Hang on and wait and he must come to +you." + +"Do you know," he replied, lowering his voice confidentially, "That +is just the way I diagnose it." + +And at this very time the Republicans, hearing much of Mr. Baruch's +money and its use to build up such an intensive organization for +the Democrats, as Chairman Hays with a million or two at his +disposal had erected for them, considered seriously whether or not +it would not be wise themselves to occupy Mr. Baruch's energies and +divert his ambitions away from party organization. They debated +putting Mr. Baruch on the commission to reorganize the executive +departments of the government. All had their eyes on the same +ambition and the same wealth! + +Several daily newspapers in New York, and I know not how many +magazines and weeklies, have been offered at one time or another to +Mr. Baruch, for it is known that one of his ideas of public service +is to own and edit a great liberal journal, a "Manchester Guardian" +of America. But an opportunity to buy a newspaper in New York is an +opportunity to invest $3,000,000 or $4,000,000, to lose $500,000 or +more for several years thereafter and to become the national figure +that Mr. Ochs is, or Mr. Reid is, or Mr. Munsey is, certainly +something far short of the American Disraeli or even the Baruch of +the War Industries Board. + +Mr. Baruch, you will observe, has no vulgar illusions about what +money will buy. He likes money. It brings with it a certain +personal enlargement. It adds to the romance of himself in his own +eyes, as well as in the eyes of others. It procures the flattering +ears of journalists, and a place on front pages, and, if one +inclines toward ostentation, even the ownership of a newspaper +itself. + +But money will not buy a commanding place in public life. And even +if it would buy such a place he would not be content to do other +than earn one. He wants to repeat the thrills of his youth in the +market, in the thrills of a second youth in Washington. He is +incurably romantic. + +To sum him all up in a sentence--he has an extraordinary sense of +wonder and an unequalled sense of reality, the sense of wonder +directed toward himself, the sense of reality directed largely but +not exclusively elsewhere. + + + + + +ELIHU ROOT + + +Elihu Root might have been so much publicly and has been so little +that a moral must hang somewhere upon his public career. + +He might have been many things. He might have been President of the +United States if his party ever could have been persuaded to +nominate him. He might have been one of the great Chief Justices of +the Supreme Court if a President could have been persuaded to +appoint him. He might have given to the United States Senate that +weight and influence which have disappeared from it, if he had had +a passion for public service. He might have been Secretary of State +in the most momentous period of American foreign relations if a +certain homely instinct in Mr. Harding had not led him to prefer +the less brilliant Mr. Hughes. He might have made history. But he +has not. Out of his eight years in the Cabinet and six years in the +Senate nothing constructive came that will give his name a larger +place in history than that of Rufus Choate, another remarkable +advocate who was once Attorney General. + +Distrust has always barred his way, distrust of a mind and +character to which problems appear as exercises in ingenuity rather +than questions of right and justice. His greatest opportunity for +constructive statesmanship was offered in the making of the New +York State constitution. But when it became known that Mr. Root had +dominated the Constitutional Convention, that the proposed +constitution was Mr. Root's constitution, that was enough; the +voters rejected it in the referendum. + +Distrust spoiled the mission to Russia during the war. The Russians +distrusted him while he was with them. President Wilson distrusted +his report when he returned. And Mr. Wilson's successor equally +distrusted him when he chose a man to finish the work which Mr. +Wilson had badly done or to correct the work that Mr. Wilson had +left undone at Paris. + +Light on President Harding's attitude toward Mr. Root is thrown by +an incident at Marion during the campaign. The Republican candidate +had made his speech of August 28th in which he indicated his views +upon the League of Nations. Two days later a newspaper arrived in +Marion containing a dispatch from abroad where Mr. Root then was, +at work upon the international court. + +The correspondent represented Mr. Root as "amazed" at the position +Mr. Harding had taken. + +The candidate came to the headquarters early that morning. One of +the headquarters attaches handed him a copy of the paper. Mr. +Harding read the dispatch and was angry. + +"That man Root," he exclaimed, "has done more harm to the +Republican party than any other man in it! He is always pursuing +some end of his own or of some outside interest." He started away; +then turned back, still angry, and added: "You remember the Panama +Canal tolls incident. That was an example of the kind of trouble he +has always been making for the party." + +Many reasons have been given why the President passed over the +obvious man for Secretary of State. Mr. Root himself, who would +have taken the place gladly as an opportunity for his extremely +keen intelligence, but who did not seek it, thinks that the Senate, +flushed with its recent victory over Mr. Wilson and desiring itself +to dominate foreign relations, conspired to prevent his choice. The +Senators did oppose Mr. Root, but their lack of influence with the +President has been sufficiently exposed by events. + +The real obstacle to Mr. Root's appointment was Mr. Harding's +distrust of him, the instinctive feeling of a simple direct nature +against a mind too quick, too clever, too adroit, too invisible in +many of its operations. Mr. Harding, being commonplace himself, +likes a more commonplace kind of greatness than Mr. Root's. Those +who were close to him said the President feared that Mr. Root would +"put something over on him." A certain moral quality in Mr. Hughes +outweighed Mr. Root's special experience and wider reputation. + +Mr. Roosevelt used to tell a story boastfully of his own +practicality which throws much light on Mr. Root and upon the +reason for Mr. Root's comparative failure as a public man. + +"When I took Panama," he would say, "I found all the members of my +Cabinet helpful except one. Mr. Root readily found numerous +precedents. Mr. Taft was sympathetic and gave every assistance +possible. Mr. Knox alone was silent. At last I turned to him in the +Cabinet meeting and I said, 'I should like to hear from the +Attorney General on the legality of what we are doing.' Mr. Knox +looked up and said, 'Mr. President, if I were you I should not have +the slightest taint of legality about the whole affair.'" + +Such was Mr. Root. Public questions always were likely to occur to +him first as exercises in mental adroitness rather than as moral +problems. His extremely agile mind finds its chief pleasure in its +own agility. Then he was always the advocate, always instinctively +devoting himself to bolstering up another man's cause for him. + +"He is a first class second," said Senator Penrose, objecting to +him as a candidate for President at the Republican Convention of +1916, "but he is not his own man." + +He is always someone else's mouthpiece and publicly he is chiefly +remembered as Mr. Roosevelt's mouthpiece. When he came to New York +and made the speech that elected Hughes Governor and made possible +Hughes as Secretary of State he said, "I speak for the President." +He equally spoke for the President when he delivered that other +remembered address, warning the States that unless they mended +their ways the Federal Government would absorb their vitality. + +The law is a parasitic profession and Mr. Root's public career is +parasitic. He lacks originality, he lacks passion--there is no +place for passion in that clear mind--he lacks force. He elucidates +other men's ideas, works out or puts into effect their policies, +presents their case, is, by temperament, by reason of gifts +amounting almost to genius, of defects that go with those gifts +always and everywhere, the lawyer. His public career has been +controlled by this circumstance. + +I doubt if he ever had a real love of public life. He turned to it +late, after he had made his success in the profession of his +choice, and he carried over into it the habits of the law. He +always seemed to be taking cases for the public. He took a case for +Mr. McKinley as Secretary of War because the War Department needed +reorganization and the case promised to be interesting. He took a +case for Mr. Roosevelt as Secretary of State because Mr. Roosevelt +was the most interesting client in the world. He took a case for +New York State, to remodel its constitution, a case that ended +disastrously. He took a case for Mr. Wilson in Russia and another, +the League of Nations, to form its international court for it. He +was willing to take a case for Mr. Harding to make a going concern +of the world for him following the smash-up of the war, something +like the task of counsel of a receivership, the most interesting +receivership of all time. + +For a few years Mr. Roosevelt made public life interesting to Mr. +Root who, it looked then, might devote the rest of his career to +national affairs. + +It was a sparkling period for America. We have never had an "age" +in the history of this country like the age of Elizabeth or the age +of Louis XIV, or the age of Lorenzo, the Magnificent; time is too +short and democracy too rigid for such splendors; but the nearest +equivalent to one was the "age," let us call it that, of Theodore +Roosevelt. There was the central figure--an age must have a central +figure--a buoyant personality with a Renaissance zest for life, and +a Renaissance curiosity about all things known, and unknown, and a +boundless capacity for vitalizing everyone and everything with +which he came in contact. + +Dull moments were unknown. Knighthood was once more in flower, +wearing frock coats and high hats and reading all about itself in +the daily press. Lances were tilted at malefactors of great wealth, +in jousts where few were unhorsed and no blood spilled. Fair +maidens of popular rights were rescued; great deeds of valor done. +Legends were created, the legend of Leonard Wood, somewhat damaged +in the last campaign, the legend of the Tennis Cabinet, with its +Garfields and its Pinchots, now to be read about only in the black +letter books of the early twentieth century, and the legend of +Elihu Root, still supported in a measure by the evidences of his +highly acute intelligence, but still like everything else of those +bright days, largely a legend. + +Roosevelt, the Magnificent, made men great with a word, and his +words were many. His great were many likewise, great statesmen, +great public servants, great writers, great magazine editors, great +cowboys from the West, great saints and great sinners, great +combinations of wealth and great laws to curb them; everything in +scale and that a great scale. Mr. Root acquired his taste for +public life in that "age" just as Mr. Hoover, Mr. Baruch and a +dozen others did theirs in the moving period of the Great War. It +is easy to understand how. + +Like all remarkable ages this age was preceded by discoveries. The +United States had just fought a war which had ended in a great +victory, over Spain. The American people were elated by their +achievement, aware of their greatness, talked much and surely of +"destiny," the period in Washington being but a reflection of their +own mood. Their mental horizon had been immensely widened by the +possession, gained in the war, of some islands in the Pacific whose +existence we had never heard of before. + +Until that time there had been for us only two nations in the +world, the United States and England, the country with which we had +fought two wars, and innumerable national campaigns. Historically +there had of course been another country as friendly as England had +sometimes been inimical, France, but France had ceased to be a +nation and became a succession of revolutions. + +Manila Bay had been a series of revelations, besides teaching us +that Philippines is spelled with two "ps" and only one "l." We had +there discovered Germany, a country whose admirals had bad sea +manners. We knew at once that our next war would be with Germany, +although the day before Dewey said, "You may fire when you are +ready, Gridley," we would as soon have thought that our next war +would be with Patagonia. + +There too we had an interesting and surprising experience with +England, hitherto known chiefly for her constant designs on the +national dinner pail. She behaved in striking and pleasing contrast +with Germany. Blood, on that bright day, May 1, 1898, began to be +thicker than water. Learning once more had come out of the East. +From Manila Bay flowed such a tide of new ideas, such a +reassessment of old conceptions as had not visited the world since +the discovery of Greek and Latin letters put an end to the Middle +Ages. + +Perceiving our widened interest, John Hay, as Secretary of State, +took our foreign relations on a grand Cook's tour of the world. He +showed us Europe and the Orient. In honor of Manila Bay he invented +that brilliant fiction, the "open door" in the East. Turning our +attention to the world we discovered the General Staff. Hitherto +our army had fought mostly with the scattered Indian tribes of the +West and you cannot use a General Staff in conducting six separate +wars at once, each no bigger than a good-sized riot. But as Admiral +Perry had opened the eyes of the Hermit Kingdom of Japan, so +Admiral whatever-his-name-was who consented to be sunk by Dewey, +the unremembered hero of this great enlightenment, had opened the +eyes of this Hermit Republic of the West to the world across the +seas. + +We had to have a General Staff. Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, gave +us one, faithfully copied from the best European models. Roosevelt, +the Magnificent, stood by and said "Bully." Everything was of this +order; so it was to a tremendously interesting job that Mr. Root +succeeded when he took the place of John Hay as Secretary of State. +The mood of the hour was expansive and a luminous personality +pervaded the national life. + +But public service cannot always be so interesting as it is at its +fullest moments. The luminous personality went out. And Mr. Root's +next experience, in the United States Senate, was disillusioning. + +The Senate is a body in which you grow old, ungracefully waiting +for dead men's shoes. The infinite capacity for taking pains which +Senators have is not genius. If the gods have been good to you, as +they were to Henry Cabot Lodge, you enter the upper house young, a +scholar and idealist, with the hope of the Presidency as the reward +of generous service. Where the race is to the slow you lay aside +your winged gifts one by one and your ambition centers finally not +on the Presidency but on some committee chairmanship clung to by a +pertinacious octogenarian. + +Hope deferred makes you avaricious of little favors, until when a +British journalist writes of you as one did of Henry Cabot Lodge, +making his speech before the last Republican national convention at +Chicago, that you "looked like an elderly peer addressing a labor +gathering," your cup of happiness, is full to the brim, as Henry +Cabot Lodge's was,--whether because you are compared to a lord or +because other people, lesser than Senators, are put into their +proper inferior place. Mr. Lodge is the perfect flower of the +Senate. It is a flower that does not bloom in a night. It is almost +a century plant. + +Into this Senate came Mr. Root, full stature, as he might walk into +the Supreme Court of the United States, preceded by his reputation. +On Olympus one may spring full grown like Minerva from the head of +Jove. But not in the Senate, where strong prejudice exists against +any kind of cerebral generation. A young Senator from Ohio, Mr. +Harding, arrived in the upper House early enough to see the portent +of Mr. Root there. He keeps to this day a sense of its +unbecomingness. + +From his desk on the floor Mr. Root talked to the country, but the +Senate did not listen. One does not speak in the Senate by the +authority of intellect or of personality. One speaks by the +authority of dead men's shoes. + +Not being a big committee chairman, Mr. Root was not of counsel in +the big cases. He tried to associate himself with counsel but the +traditions of the Senate and the jealousy of Senators were against +him. He had not the passion for public service that makes Reed +Smoot and Wesley Jones miraculously patient with the endless +details of legislation. After six years he quit. + +"I am tired of it," he said to Senator Fall, "the Senate is doing +such little things in such a little way." It was different from +public life under Roosevelt where one did not notice size of what +they did--one has not yet noticed the size of what they did--for +the grandeur of the way they did it. + +I have said that Mr. Root's mind with its advocate's bent always +occupied itself with the justification of other men's views, his +chief's or his party's. There was one notable exception, his break +with the Republicans while he was in the Senate on the question of +discriminating in favor of American shipping through the Panama +Canal. A clever lawyer's argument can be made that when the United +States said "all nations" in its treaty with Great Britain +regarding the Canal it meant all nations except itself. But Mr. +Root declined to make it, holding that plain morality and a greater +respect for the obligations of a treaty than Bethman Hollweg +expressed when he called them scraps of paper required this country +to charge just the same tolls for American ships using the canal as +for British ships or any other ships using it. + +The general Republican argument is that thus interpreted, the Hay- +Pauncefote treaty is so foolish and so inconvenient a treaty that +Mr. Hay must not have meant what he said when he wrote it, and +really did mean something that he wholly failed to say. The reasons +for contending that Mr. Hay meant no tolls for the United States +and tolls for England, when he wrote the same tolls for everybody +are highly ingenious and as it was a Democratic President who was +asserting that Mr. Hay used language in its ordinary sense, Mr. +Root as a Republican might have been expected to declare that Mr. +Hay used it in quite the reverse of its ordinary sense. But he did +not. He supported the Democratic President and treated the +Republican position as if it had not the slightest taint of +legality in it, to the lasting shock of Mr. Harding, on whose side +the precedents are, for nations do say "all nations," and are later +found to mean all nations but themselves when their virtuous +promises to make no exceptions in their own favor turn out to be +inconvenient. + +When Mr. Root took a high moral stand on the treaty it was said +among Republican Senators that he was thinking more of the +transcontinental railroads which were fighting competition by water +than he was of the sanctity of international engagements. The +probability is that he was probably thinking more of John Hay and +Elihu Root than he was of either. He was in the Cabinet when John +Hay as Secretary of State made the treaty. Senator Lodge, the only +other Senator to agree with Mr. Root and disagree with his party +about the meaning of all nations, was John Hay's closest friend. +Probably both of them, intimately associated with Mr. Hay, had +their part in the making of the treaty. They had perhaps the +sensitiveness of authors about their capacity to say exactly what +they meant. They wanted to recognize their own international piece +when it was put on the stage by the commercially minded producers +of the Senate. + +The history of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty is interesting and +unfamiliar. Attaching Pauncefote's name to the treaty was a +delicate act of international courtesy since there is Pauncefote's +word for it, privately spoken, that he had nothing to do with the +writing of it. + +Hay draughted the treaty by himself probably with the cognizance of +Root and Lodge, the great lawyer who was his associate in the +Cabinet and his closest personal friend in the Capitol. Hay then +handed it to Pauncefote, the British minister here. Pauncefote +transmitted it to the foreign office in London which received it +with surprise and probably with satisfaction, for the Clayton- +Bulwer treaty which it in a sense revived, had been forgotten for +nearly half a century. Delay is the rule of foreign offices. + +Perhaps Mr. Hay's treaty was not so generous as it seemed on first +reading, a suspicion which seems to have been justified by the +interpretation put upon it by the final authority upon +international engagements, the Republican National Convention at +Chicago. And if it was as generous as it seemed let not America +think Great Britain too eager in accepting it, let America pay a +little to overcome the reluctance of Great Britain in setting her +approval upon the new contract. + +At last, after much apparent hesitation, the foreign office agreed +to the new treaty in consideration of America's throwing in, with +it an arbitration of the Bering Sea dispute. President Roosevelt +interpreted Mr. Hay's arbitration contract much as the Republican +National Convention interpreted Mr. Hay's treaty, by appointing +American arbitrators who promised beforehand, in giving a fair and +impartial hearing to the Canadian claims, always to vote for the +American position and to resign and be succeeded by others if they +found that they could not do so. + +Why, then, the prevailing distrust of Mr. Root? His public morals +regarding the Hay-Pauncefote treaty were better than those of his +party, even if we accept the view that they were dictated by +nothing more than a certain mental integrity, a certain consistency +with himself. He was as virtuous in the taking of the Panama Canal +as the virtuous Mr. Roosevelt. He had the advocate's honesty of +being true to his client, whether his client was the public or the +great corporations. Mentality was uppermost in him, so that he took +primarily a logical rather than a moral view of all questions; but +also so much that he could not pretend, could not act, and thus he +was more honest than the politicians. + +His statesmanship was discontinuous, being an interesting avocation +rather than a career. Of it little has been permanent. His General +Staff soon lapsed into incompetence; if it had not, it might have +been the danger to American national life that the German General +Staff was to German national life. Recently it was merged with the +high command. As Secretary of State he was not creative, Mr. +Harding turning back to the solid ground of American international +policy, rested upon John Hay's open door and Knox's dollar +diplomacy. Root in foreign relations merely succeeded with the +Senate where Hay had failed. Always the advocate, he takes other +men's ideas, Hay's or Wilson's and justifies them or makes them +practical. His New York constitution failed, being unjustly +suspected. His world court has little better hope of acceptance, +for Mr. Hughes is not a voluntary sharer of glory. + +In spite of it all, some greatness remains, the impression of a +powerful though limited intelligence. His career was to give us a +moral. It is: if you have an adroit and energetic mind you will +find public affairs uninteresting; except in their occasional +phases. If you have such a mind and must enter politics, hide it; +otherwise democracy will distrust you. Whatever you do, be dull. + + + + + +HIRAM JOHNSON + + +Hiram Johnson would have enjoyed the French Revolution, if accident +had made him radical at that time. He would have been stirred by +the rising of the people; he would have given tongue to their +grievances in a voice keyed to lash them to greater fury. He would +have been excited by it as he never has been by the little risings +of the masses which he has made vocal. In all the noisy early +phases of it, he would have made the loudest noise. And he would +have gone to the block when the real business of the revolution +began with the fanatics at its helm. + +In the Russian Revolution, he would have been a Kerensky; and he +would have fled when the true believers in change arrived. He is +the orator of emeutes, who is fascinated by a multitude in a +passion. + +Johnson is not a revolutionary. Not in the least, not any more than +Henry Cabot Lodge is. But revolution has a fierce attraction for +him. He once said to me, speaking bitterly during the campaign, of +Mr. Harding's prospective election, "The war has set back the +people for a generation. They have bowed to a hundred repressed +acts. They have become slaves to the government. They are +frightened at the excesses in Russia. They are docile; and they +will not recover from being so for many years. The interests which +control the Republican party will make the most of their docility. +In the end, of course, there will be a revolution, but it will not +come in my time." + +That "it will not come in my time" was said in a tone of regret. It +was not so much that the Senator wanted revolution. I do not +believe he did. But he wanted his chance, that outburst of popular +resentment which would bring him to the front, with the excitement, +the sense of power that would come from the response of the nation +when his angry voice translated into words its elemental passion. + +Turbulent popular feeling is breath in Johnson's nostrils. Twice he +has thoroughly enjoyed its intoxication. + +His political life was blank paper when the tumult of popular +indignation swept California at the time Francis J. Heney, who was +prosecuting the San Francisco grafters, was shot in the court room. +He had thought nothing politically, he had felt nothing +politically. He had neither convictions, nor passions, nor morals, +politically speaking. He grew up in soil which does not produce +lofty standards. Something of the mining-camp spirit still hung +over California, which had been settled by adventurers, forty- +niners, gold seekers, men who had left the East to "make a new +start" where there was pay dirt. The State had a wild zest for life +which was untrammeled by Puritanism. San Francisco had its Barbary +Coast and in every restaurant its private dining rooms for women. +Johnson himself was sprung from a father who was a "railroad +lawyer," the agent of privileges in procuring special favors, by +methods once well known, from the state legislature. The atmosphere +of his youth was not one to develop a sensitive conscience or a +high conception of public morals. + +Johnson at this time was a practicing attorney, not noted for the +quality of his community service. The administration of San +Francisco had been a scandal for years. Few cared. It was a +"corrupt and contented" city. The corruption grew worse. Lower and +meaner grafters rose to take the place of the earlier and more +robust good fellows who trafficked in the city o' shame. Graft lost +class, and lost caste. It was ultimately exposed in all its +shocking indecency. The light and licentious town developed a +conscience. Public indignation arose and reached its height, when +the grafters ventured too far in the shooting of the attorney +charged with their prosecution. + +Johnson then felt for the first time something he had never felt +before--the stirring of the storm of angry popular feeling. It woke +something in him, something that he did not know existed before-- +his instinct for the expression of public passion; his love of the +platform with yelling multitudes in front of him. + +He threw himself into the fray on the side of civic virtue. The +disturbance to the complacency of San Francisco disturbed the +complacency of the State, which had calmly endured misgovernment +for many years. Misgovernment procured by the railroad, the public +utility corporations, the other combinations of wealth, through +their agents, and through the corrupt politicians. Johnson became +the spokesman of public protest and the reform governor of the +State. + +After that came battling for the Lord at Armageddon--the most +intoxicating experience in American political history, for a man of +Johnson's temperament. It was a revolution, not in a government, +but in a party. Bonds were loosed. Immense personal enlargement +came to those who had known the ties of regularity. It was an hour +of freedom, unbridled political passion, unrestrained political +utterance. Docility did not exist. Vast crowds thrilled with new +hopes yelled themselves hoarse over angry words. + +Association with Roosevelt on the Progressive ticket lifted Johnson +from a local to a national importance. The whole country was the +audience which leaped at his words. It was a revolution in tittle, +a taste, a sample of what the real thing would be, with its +breaking of restraints, its making of the mob a perfect instrument +to play upon, its unleashing of passion to which to give tongue. +Johnson has felt its wild stimulation and like a man who has used +drugs the habit is upon him. + +Moreover, his one chance lies that way. I have said that he is, by +accident, radical. Let us imagine a great outburst of popular +passion for reaction. And suppose that Johnson was, when it +arrived, a political blank, as he was when Heney was shot. Johnson +would have raised his angry voice against radicalism, just as +readily as for it. + +The essential thing with him is popular passion, not a political +philosophy. He has no political philosophy. He has no real +convictions. He does not reason or think deeply. His mentality is +slight. He is the voice of many; instinctively he gives tongue to +what the many feel; that is all. + +Suppose the strong-lunged Californian were a political blank, just +reaching the national consciousness, when the reaction against +Wilson began and when the public swung to conservatism. + +You know those vast tin amplifiers employed in big convention +halls, or in out-door meetings, to carry the voice of the speaker +to the remotest depths of the audience; Johnson is a vast tin +amplifier of the voice of the mass. When the people had become +"docile" he would have thundered "docility" to the uttermost bounds +of the universe, if he had not by earlier utterances been +definitely placed on the side opposed to docility. + +But he had been definitely placed in the battle of Armageddon. A +thousand ennuies located him for all political time. No convictions +hold him where he is in case there be profit in changing sides; +other men habitually conservative would have the preference over +him on the other side. In this sense he is accidently radical, +accidently because he happened to emerge in politics at a radical +moment. That takes into account only the mental background of his +political position. There is an element that was not chance. Public +passion is almost invariably radical, springing as it does from the +resentment of inequality, and Johnson is the tongue of public +passion. + +Is he dangerous? He is, only if public passion becomes dangerous +and only up to the point where the speakers of revolution pass from +the stage and the doers of it rig up their chopping blocks. At +present he furnishes the words, the ugly words, which men throw +instead of stones at the objects of their hate. He is the safety +valve of gathering passion. Men listen to him and feel that they +have done something to vindicate their rights. They applaud him to +shake the roof, and vote for Mr. Harding. + +It is customary to speak of his magnetism over crowds. He has no +magnetism in personal contact. He walks toward you as if he were +about to deliver a blow, an impression that is strengthened by his +square menacing figure. His voice is unpleasant. His smile is wry. +He not unusually has a complaint to make against the public, +against the press, against fate, against you personally. He is not +interested in people, as Roosevelt was to so an amazing degree, and +as magnetic persons usually are. He is cold, hard, and selfish. His +quarrels are numerous, with the campaign managers of the Armageddon +fight, with his own campaign manager of 1920, with the newspaper +correspondents. He is habitually pessimistic, and pessimism and +magnetism do not go together. + +His complaint that the people were docile and would not recover +their confidence and self-assertion in his time, was a bit of his +inevitable gloom. His dark habit of thought hung over his campaign +for the presidential nomination of 1920, preventing his making a +real effort in many states, and lay in the way of his success. He +has few friends, love having been left out of his make-up. I do not +speak of family affection--but love in its larger implications. +Those who surround him--clerks and secretaries--have the air of +repressed, starving personalities. + +That which gathers the crowds and sets them shouting is not his +magnetism but the perfect expression of their passion. For them and +for it he is a sounding board. His voice with its hard angry tone, +its mechanical rise and fall, has the ring of a hundred guillotines +in operation. Having little culture, unintellectual, he is +primitive as the mass before him. He talks their language and an +instinct all his own gives him an exact sense of their emotions. + +And what he says leaves the impression of tremendous sincerity. His +sincerity does not arise from reasoned convictions but from hatred; +deep and abiding hatred. + +Senator Borah once said, "The difference between Johnson and me is +that I regard questions from the point of view of principles while +he regards them from the point of view of personalities. When a man +opposes me I do not become angry at him. On the next issue he may +agree with me. When a man opposes Johnson he hates him. He feels +that the opposition is directed personally against him, not against +the policy that separates them." + +Johnson's opponents are the elements of reaction, the malefactors +of great wealth, the supporters of that social inequality which the +crowd resents. They stood in his path in California. They made +impossible his nomination at Chicago. When the bitter enders, +during the treaty fight, planned to send him on a tour of the +country, these monied men closed their pocketbooks, exclaiming to +Senator Knox, "What do you mean to do? Advertise this man Johnson +and make him the Republican candidate for President? Not with our +money." + +Only the raising of a fund by Senator McCormick and some of the old +Progressives, gave him his chance to speak. He hates them and when +he attacks them it is with all the force and sincerity of his soul. +It is no mere question of hatred, such as Roosevelt would employ to +dramatize and make personal the issues he was representing to the +people; it is bitter, revengeful detestation. It makes Johnson the +most sincere man before the country to-day. And that pessimistic +strain in his nature causes the darkness of his diatribe to seem +all the more true. + +But he swallows for expediency as other men swallow their +convictions for it, and wrath is the bitterer dose. During the 1920 +campaign he trafficked with Senator Penrose, the representative of +hated wealth, for support at Chicago, offering, it has not been +disclosed what considerations, for his aid. + +He was ready at that time to take back his speech advocating the +government ownership of railroads, a gesture against "the +interests," made at the bidding of Hearst, at the beck of whose +agents he is prone to bestir himself. + +It must be an irksome livery, that of Hearst, for he hates all +service and overshadowing. Equally irksome is his service to +regularity under the rod of the Republican party. But he bows to +it, and supports Harding whom he hates. He bobs up like a Jack-in- +the-box and makes his laudatory speech whenever the name of +Roosevelt comes up, though in his heart he must reverence none too +deeply that overshadowing personality. + +He has no roots except in the mob and no hope except in its aroused +resentment against inequality. Not being interested in individuals +he has not that personal organization possessed by Roosevelt, with +his army of correspondents, friends and idolators, in every hamlet. + +And of course he has little hope of ever controlling his party +organization. He is curiously alone. + +"There are only three men in the world whom I trust," he once said +to a friend. There is no reason to regard this as an exaggeration. +His attitude toward his associates in the Senate is this: "If I +were crossing a desert with any one of them and there was only one +water bottle, I should insist upon carrying that bottle." + +On such pessimism and distrust it is impossible to build political +success. It can come only when his pessimism and distrust coincide +with like pessimism and distrust in the masses. He waits the day, +but gloomily, without confidence. + + + + + +PHILANDER CHASE KNOX + + +"I like Knox and I admire him tremendously, but I will not ask him +to be my Secretary of State. He is too indifferent." + +This characterization of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, +attributed to his late colleague President Harding, summarizes very +aptly his strength and his weakness. One can very easily admire him +and, when he drops the mask of dignity, which seems almost pompous +in so diminutive a figure, one cannot help liking him. But in spite +of his successes,--which his enemies attribute to luck, and he +probably attributes to intellectual superiority,--he has never +quite achieved greatness and will probably go down in history as +one of the lesser luminaries in the political heavens. + +Knox IS indifferent, especially to those who do not know him +intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the +contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings +of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a +feeble and futile fluttering. + +I doubt if any man in public life has had so many honors thrust +upon him. He has held three great offices of the Republic without +so much as raising a hand for any of them. Unlike most men he did +not travel the mucky road of politics to reach Washington nor +compromise with circumstance to gain distinction. Three Presidents +invited him to sit at their cabinet tables. Three times the +Republican machine in Pennsylvania invited him to sit in the +Senate. With graceful dignity he accepted all of these invitations +not, indeed, unconscious of the fact that the selection in each +case was a very happy one. + +I do not mean by this that he is conceited. He is merely conscious +of the fact that intellectually he is somewhat superior to his +colleagues, most of whom, strangely enough, quite agree with him. +They consult him and accept his counsel with almost childlike +faith. To the mediocre politicians and provincial lawyers who +constitute the bulk of the Senate and House of Representatives, he +is a figure apart, who looks upon their antics with a kindly, but +never amused, tolerance. + +"I know nothing of politics," he said to me a short time ago. "I +have never been interested in politics as such." + +This remark is rather enigmatical to the average member, who would, +ordinarily, look upon the author as a dolt or pretender. They do +not dare to do either in the case of Mr. Knox; therefore, the +conclusion that he is indifferent. Never have the men associated +with Mr. Knox questioned his capacity. + +Robert Lansing, when he was Secretary of State, said of him; +"Senator Lodge will not understand the treaty but he will fight for +it for political reasons. Senator Knox will understand it +thoroughly." + +The observation seems almost prophetic in the light of what has +since been disclosed. Mr. Lansing's faith in Mr. Knox's judgment +seems to have been fully justified. I know of no one who has held +more steadfastly the respect of colleagues in the Senate or at the +Cabinet table, nor who has been more easily successful up to a +certain point or so singularly unsuccessful beyond it. He has done +valiant service for his country but he has failed lamentably to +reach the heights from which he could look upon broader horizons. + +In the early days of his career no one strove more whole heartedly. +Destiny smiled upon him and the White House seemed to beckon. He +was not unaware of the opportunity nor was there anyone more eager +to grasp it. But he discovered that he could not stir the +enthusiasm that begets political power. The secret, which enabled +many other men, many of whom he despised, to succeed, was not his. + +A temperamental dislike of the methods of politicians was followed +by a strong animosity towards those who crossed his political path +and some of those who went along beside it. He became hypercritical +of those with whom he associated and allowed a natural germ of +cynicism to develop and flourish within him. Little by little he +has withdrawn from the active combat, a philosopher in politics +enamored of public life but unwilling to suffer the inconveniences +it involves. + +It is no wonder then that his colleagues in the Senate, especially +the younger members, are somewhat in fear of the incisive tongue, +for he wields it frequently and contemptuously. When after his +election, Mr. Harding went South with Senator Frelinghuysen, +Senator Davis Elkins, and Senator Hale, the older Senators, not, +perhaps, without a tinge of disappointment at having been left out, +marveled at the entourage the President had selected for himself, +but Knox was cynically undisturbed. + +"It is quite simple," he said, "I see nothing mysterious about it +at all. The President wants relaxation--complete mental +relaxation." + +No less biting was his comment on Robert Lansing when that +gentleman started on the high road of public service as Counselor +of the State Department. The bandy-legged messenger who guards the +door of the Secretary of State is the negro, Eddie Savoy. Eddie, in +his way, is a personage. For forty years he has ushered +diplomatists in and out of the Secretary's office; his short bent +figure gives the only air of permanence to an institution which +seems to be in a constant state of flux. When the Lansing +appointment was announced Mr. Knox observed: "I would as soon ask +Eddie Savoy an opinion on foreign affairs as Robert Lansing." + +The roots of Mr. Knox's superciliousness dip down deep into the +relationships begun a score of years ago. To understand him as he +is it is necessary to understand him as he was when his career was +before him. William McKinley asked him to become Attorney General +in his Cabinet. He was then forty-two years old, a political +nobody. What reputation he had was confined to Pittsburg and a +selected few of the steel millionaires in Wall Street, but among +the selected few were names to be conjured with, such as Andrew +Carnegie and Henry C. Frick. Whether President McKinley's interest +in Knox was spontaneous or prompted by Mr. Frick I do not know. Mr. +Knox likes to believe that Mr. Frick did not enter into the +equation. Mr. Knox declined, saying that he could not sacrifice his +lucrative practice but that in four years he would accept the +invitation if the President cared to renew it. + +It was renewed. At the age of forty-six, Mr. Knox quit the bar for +politics, or, as he would say, statecraft. His appointment evoked a +storm of protest from such immaculate journals as the New York +World. They dubbed him, "Frick's man," and predicted that the +Department of Justice would be turned into a Wall Street anteroom +for the convenience of the capitalistic combinations then flouting +the Sherman anti-trust law. The charges, of course, were as wide of +the mark as most of the ebullitions of the yellow journals. + +Mr. Knox began his public career by attacking the Northern +Securities merger, against the judgment of some of the highest-paid +lawyers of the country. The Supreme Court sustained him. It was the +greatest victory the government ever won under the Sherman law. +Thereafter Mr. Knox, who had been labeled a corporation lawyer, was +proclaimed a trust buster. By the time he was fifty he had become +the greatest Attorney General in a half century. Certainly the mark +he set has never been reached by any of his successors. + +When Mr. Roosevelt came into the White House Mr. Knox was at the +pinnacle of his career and was as much admired by his new chief as +by his martyred predecessor. In ability Mr. Roosevelt considered +him next to Elihu Root, for which Mr. Root was never quite +forgiven. It is generally known that President Roosevelt believed +that Mr. Root was the best qualified man in the country to succeed +him, but at the same time, being an astute politician, he knew that +he could not be elected. His attitude to his Secretary of State was +the same as Senator Lodge's toward himself, when he said in 1920: +"I know that I would make an excellent President, but I realize +that I would make a poor candidate." + +Root being out of it because of this obvious defect, President +Roosevelt proceeded to groom Mr. Knox for the nomination. Mr. Knox +at the President's suggestion, prepared and delivered several +speeches in the hope that he would awaken popular enthusiasm. The +attempt failed dismally. + +There was not a responsive throb, not even a vague echo. Mr. Knox +knew that he possessed not the merest shred of the leadership +necessary to a presidential candidate. + +He went back to the Senate, where he had succeeded Matthew Quay +upon his resignation from the Cabinet, sadder if wiser, while +William H. Taft draped upon his broad shoulders the mantle of +Roosevelt. + +Mr. Knox has never quite recovered from that disappointment, but he +did not altogether abandon hope. He accepted a place in the Taft +Cabinet as Secretary of State, more for the opportunities it +offered than for the pleasure of the associations, for Mr. Knox's +attitude toward President Taft was never more than passive +tolerance tinged with contempt. This new venture was no more +successful than the old. He made it quite evident that a new regime +was to be established in the State Department. The policies +originated by John Hay and developed with singular brilliancy by +Mr. Root were shunted into the background and a new era was +proclaimed. It is unnecessary to comment on the dismal essay at +"dollar diplomacy" and the Mexican policy of that period. The +simple fact is that Mr. Knox's name is not associated with a single +successful foreign policy. Some might have succeeded but +unfortunately the energy displayed at the outset of his career in +this new field was soon dissipated. Mr. Knox disliked the methods +of diplomacy. He lacked both the patience and the finesse. He went +to the Department, over which he was supposed to preside, but +rarely. For weeks at a time Washington saw nothing of him. The +administration of the Department was left largely to Huntington +Wilson, whose ineptitude was colossal. + +Fortunately for Mr. Knox the extent of his failure was somewhat +screened from public view by the dust and clatter of the collapse +of the Taft Administration, but it left its mark on him. He had +failed dismally to eclipse his predecessor, Elihu Root. He had +eliminated himself from all consideration as one of the very great +statesmen of his period. He was a bitterly disappointed man. Not +only his associates but the members of the diplomatic corps were +made to feel the sting of his resentment against overwhelming +circumstances. Such references as that directed at the French +Ambassador, M. Jules Jusserand, now dean of the diplomatic corps, +whom he called "the magpie," cost him many friends. + +Upon the inauguration of President Wilson Mr. Knox slipped quietly +away to Valley Forge. Public life, however, still had for him its +attractions, and when Senator Oliver retired, he returned to the +Senate. During the war his great talents were dormant. He merely +came and went, a curious little detached figure apparently quite +unresponsive to the emotions which swept the country during that +eventful period. + +With the signing of the armistice he aroused himself from his +apparent torpor. Although he was quite without feeling during the +stress and storm, the situation created by the presentation of the +Treaty of Versailles with its interwoven League of Nations stirred +his intellectual interest. He became the leader of the little band +of "irreconcilables" who girded their armor to prevent what they +regarded as a catastrophic sacrifice of American interests. At the +same time Mr. Knox narrowly missed another opportunity to lift +himself conspicuously above the heads of stump speakers who, for +the most part, to-day comprise the Senate. + +During that memorable fight Senator Lodge incurred the enmity at +one time or another of every faction in the Senate. He could not be +trusted to maintain the same position over night, shifting as +expediency demanded until most of his colleagues, particularly the +irreconcilables, were exasperated beyond endurance. At one of the +most critical periods Senator Borah appealed to Senator Knox to +wrest the leadership from the Massachusetts Senator, with +intimations that he would have the support of the "bitter enders" +at the forthcoming convention at Chicago. Mr. Knox does not love +Mr. Lodge but he refused to consider the proposal. He was +indifferent. His last great political opportunity went glimmering. + +As I have said Mr. Knox can be very charming but I doubt that he +sincerely admires any of the public men with whom he has been +associated, or can call any of them, from the purely personal +viewpoint, his friends, with the possible exception of Andrew +Mellon, whom he caused to be appointed Secretary of the Treasury. +Of course, he likes many of his colleagues, after a fashion, +especially those who admire him, but that is another matter. The +intimacy usually implied in the term friendship does not enter into +such relations. + +For some of the more important men he has known, he has shown a +very distinct dislike. It is said of him that he thought President +Harding overlooked a real opportunity when he failed to invite him +to become Secretary of State, but his disappointment was somewhat +mollified by the fact that Mr. Root was not asked to take the post. + +Mr. Knox prefers to look upon Mr. Root as a lucky lawyer who has +taken to himself much of the credit of John Hay's great work. He +shows an even less regard for Mr. Lodge's talents. And he is +doubtful of Mr. Hughes. + +His attitude towards the Secretary of State dates back to the +insurance scandals. At that time Mr. Frick asked Mr. Knox to make +an investigation and suggest a course of action to avert a national +disaster. This Mr. Knox did in his thorough and painstaking way. A +little later, when Mr. Hughes was appointed to make a public +inquiry, the Knox report was laid before him, and according to the +author of it, he followed precisely the lines therein indicated +creating for himself a national reputation and laying the +foundation of a public career. Credit was not given Mr. Knox. It +has been suggested that the incident might have been an +illustration of two great minds seeking the same channel. Mr. Knox +does not think so. + +In spite of his disappointments and failures, the dignified little +Senator from Pennsylvania who has been so many times on the verge +of greatness, seems to think that he could have done just a little +better than any of those who have achieved it, had circumstance +given him the opportunity. Perhaps he might. It is a compliment +that few men merit to be called merely indifferent. + + + + + +ROBERT LANSING + + +He who believes in luck should study the career of Robert Lansing. +Mr. Lansing probably thinks that the goddess of chance played him a +scurvy trick, after having admitted him to the Olympian heights, to +break him as suddenly as she made him. + +Robert Lansing's real misfortune was not knowing how to play his +luck. It is curious the fear men have of death. The former +Secretary of State's only hope of immortality was to commit +political suicide, and he lacked the courage or the vision to fall +upon his sword. + +When Woodrow Wilson was elected President for the first time he +appointed Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. The opinion Mr. Wilson +entertained of Mr. Bryan we all know. Mr. Wilson was not given to +letting his thoughts run wild, but on one occasion, with pen in +hand, he permitted himself the luxury of saying what he thought and +expressed the pious hope that somebody would knock the +distinguished Nebraskan into a cocked hat and thus dispose of the +perpetual candidate who was the Old Man of the Sea to the +Democratic Party. + +Circumstances alter cases; Mr. Wilson as a private citizen could +say and think what he pleased; as President he was compelled to +make Mr. Bryan Secretary of State. As Mr. Bryan knew nothing of +history and less of European politics and had a superb disdain of +diplomacy--diplomacy according to the tenets of Bryanism being an +unholy and immoral game in which the foreign players were always +trying to outmaneuver the virtuous and innocent American--he was +provided with a political nurse, mentor, and guardian in the person +of John Bassett Moore, who had a long and brilliant career as an +international lawyer and diplomatist. Mr. Bryan busied himself with +finding soft jobs for deserving Democrats, preaching and +inculcating the virtues of grape juice to the diplomatic corps, and +concocting plans whereby the sword was to be beaten into a +typewriter and war become a lost art. Meanwhile Mr. Moore was doing +the serious work of the Department. + +No two men were more unlike than Mr. Bryan and Mr. Moore; Mr. Bryan +a bundle of loosely tied emotions to whom a catchy phrase or an un- +sound theory is more precious than a natural law or the wisdom of +the philosopher; Mr. Moore an intellect who has subordinated his +emotions, and to whom facts are as important as mathematics to an +engineer. It was an incompatible union; it could not last. Mr. +Moore became impatient of his chief's vagaries and, about a year +later, returned to the dignified quiet of Columbia University. + +This was early in 1914. Now for the random way in which chance +weaves her skein. Mr. Moore went out of the Department and left the +office of Counselor vacant, an office, up to that time, so little +known that the public, if it gave the matter any thought, believed +its occupant was the legal adviser of the Department, while, as a +matter of fact, he is the Under Secretary, which is now the +official designation. + +At this stage of his career Mr. Lansing was connected with the +Department as an adviser on international affairs and had +represented the United States in many international arbitrations. +He was known to a small and select circle of lawyers specializing +in international law, but to the public his name meant nothing. He +had always been a good Democrat, although he was married to the +daughter of the late John W. Foster, who wound up a long and +brilliant diplomatic life as Secretary of State in President +Harrison's Cabinet after Mr. Blaine's resignation. + +Mr. Lansing had made Washington his home for many years, and when +the new Democratic Administration came into power he believed his +services to the party entitled him to recognition, and he sought +the appointment of Third Assistant Secretary of State. The Third +Assistant Secretary is the official Social Secretary of the +Government. When royalty or other distinguished persons come to +this country as the guests of the nation the Third Assistant +Secretary is the Master of Ceremonies. He has to see that all the +forms are properly complied with and nothing happens to mar the +visitors' enjoyment; he sends out invitations, in the name of the +State Department, to the funerals of Ambassadors or the +inauguration of the President. But for some reason Mr. Lansing's +praiseworthy ambition was defeated. + +Mr. Moore had knowledge, learning, and experience, but he was +denied the gift of divination. Had he known that a few months later +a half crazed youth in an unheard of place was to be the +unconscious agent to set the whole world aflame, undoubtedly he +would have put up with Mr. Bryan's curious ideas and peculiar +methods and stuck to his desk at the State Department, and Mr. +Lansing would never have been heard of. But at the turning point in +Mr. Moore's career his luck deserted him and Mr. Lansing became the +beneficiary. Mr. Lansing, who would have been satisfied with the +appointment of Third Assistant Secretary of State, a minor place in +the hierarchy, was appointed by Mr. Wilson Counselor of the +Department of State. + +The appointment created no excitement. In March, 1914, foreign +affairs had little interest for the American people. There was +Mexico, of course, and Japan; there were the usual routine +questions to form the customary work of the department; but the +skies were serene; murder, rape, and sudden death no one thought +of; Lloyd's, which will gamble on anything from the weather to an +ocean tragedy, would have written a policy at a ridiculously low +premium on the maintenance of the peace of Europe; any statesman +rash enough to have predicted war for the United States within +three years would have aroused the concern of his friends and the +professional solicitude of his physician. Apparently Mr. Lansing +had tumbled into an easy and dignified post which would not unduly +tax his physical or mental strength. He could congratulate himself +upon his good fortune. + +A few months later the situation changed. The State Department +became not only the center about which the whole machinery of the +Government revolved but on it was focused the attention of the +country and the thoughts of Europe. The Counselor of the Department +was lifted out of his obscurity; despatches to the belligerents +signed "Lansing" were published in the newspapers, statements were +issued by him, he was interviewed; he received Ambassadors, and +when an Ambassador visited the State Department the nerve centers +of the whole world were affected. Again, a few months later, in +June, 1915, Mr. Bryan kindly accommodated Mr. Wilson by knocking +himself into a cocked hat, and Mr. Lansing was appointed Secretary +of State. Few men had risen so rapidly. He had no reason to +complain of his luck. + +Mr. Wilson made some extraordinary appointments--a close observer +has said he could read motives but not men--and his appointment of +Mr. Lansing at a time of crisis would have been inexplicable were +it not logical as Mr. Wilson reasoned. Mr. Wilson did not invite as +his associates his intellectual equals or those who dared to oppose +him; it was necessary that the State Department should have a +titular head, but Mr. Wilson was resolved to be his own Secretary +of State and take into his own hands the control of foreign policy. +No great man, no man great enough to be Secretary of State when the +world was in upheaval, would have consented to that indignity; no +man jealous of his own self-respect could have remained Mr. +Wilson's Secretary of State for long. A Secretary of State or any +other member of the Cabinet must of course subordinate his judgment +to that of the President, for the President is the final court of +appeal. But Mr. Wilson went further than that; he heaped almost +unparalleled affront upon Mr. Lansing; he made the great office of +Secretary of State ridiculous, and he invested its incumbent with +no greater authority than that of a copyist. + +Perhaps Mr. Wilson reads men better than his critics believed; +perhaps Mr. Wilson had fully taken the measure of Mr. Lansing and +knew how far he could go. + +Nature never intended Mr. Lansing to be a leader of men,, to fight +for a great cause, or to engage in physical or intellectual combat. +His life has been too soft for that, and he is naturally indolent. +He is fond of, and has more than the amateur's appreciation for, +music, painting, poetry, and the classics of literature. He has +dabbled in verse, he sketches and he has written, but without +brilliancy. Accident made him a lawyer, but he was really intended +to be an artist; he would have produced no masterpiece, for genius +is not in him, but he would have been happy in his work and perhaps +have given inspiration to men of greater talent. Without being a +fanatic or dogmatic, he is strongly religious; religion to him has +a meaning and is not merely a convention; he has a code which he +has always observed and ideals which he has preserved; he is +charitable in his judgments and has never allowed his prejudices to +influence his actions; he is, to use a word so often misapplied, a +gentleman, and his motto is Noblesse oblige. Typical of the +standard he sets for himself was the admirable restraint he showed +after his abrupt dismissal from the Cabinet. He neither sought +vindication through the newspapers, nor posed as a victim, nor +soothed his feelings by denunciations of the President; he did not +make a nuisance of himself by inflicting the recital of his +grievances upon his friends or hinting darkly at revelations. He +kept quiet and went about his affairs as a gentleman should. + +Why, it may be asked, should a man with so many fine qualities have +cut such a sorry figure? The answer perhaps is that he suffers from +the defects of his qualities, fine as we must admit them to be; too +fine, perhaps, for a coarser world. + +When a weak and somewhat easy-going man, immensely pleased with his +own exalted position, has to deal with a man of iron will, ruthless +in his methods, he is necessarily at a disadvantage. Considering +Mr. Lansing's temperamental defects and the effect of his training, +his failure is no mystery. + +Until Mr. Lansing became Secretary of State he had never known +responsibility. Practically his entire life had been spent as a +subordinate, carrying out with zeal and intelligence the tasks +assigned to him, but always in obedience to a stronger mind. +Nothing more weakens character or intellect than for a man +habitually to turn to another for direction or inspiration; always +to play the part of an inferior to a mental superior. For years Mr. +Lansing had been connected with many international arbitrations +which, theoretically, was a magnificent training for a future +Secretary of State, and actually would have destroyed the creative +and administrative usefulness of a much stronger man than Robert +Lansing. + +In the whole mummery of international relations there is nothing +more farcical than an international arbitration. It is always +preceded by great popular excitement. A ship is seized, a boundary +is run a few degrees north or south of the conventional line, +something else equally trivial fires the patriotic heart. The flag +has been insulted, the offending nation is a land grabber, national +honor must be vindicated. Secretaries of State write notes, +ambassadors are instructed, the press becomes rabid, speeches are +made; the public is advised to remain calm, but it is also assured +there will be no surrender. After a few weeks the public forgets +about the insult or the way in which it has been robbed; but the +responsible officials who have never allowed themselves to become +excited, continue the pleasing pastime of writing notes. + +Months, sometimes years, drag on, then a new Secretary of State or +a Foreign Minister, to clean the slate, proposes that the childish +business be ended by an international arbitration. More weeks, more +often months, are spent in agreeing upon the terms of reference, +and finally the dispute goes before an "impartial arbitral +tribunal." Both sides appoint agents and secretaries, an imposing +array of counsel, technical experts; and as the counsel are always +well paid they have a conscientious obligation to earn their fees. + +More months are required to prepare the case, which frequently runs +into many printed volumes; and the more volumes the better pleased +everybody is, as size denotes importance. The arbitrators, although +they are governed by principles of law, know what is expected of +them, and they rarely disappoint. Almost invariably their decision +is a compromise, so nicely shaded that while neither side can claim +victory neither side suffers the humiliation of defeat. As by that +time both nations have long forgotten the original cause of the +quarrel their people are quite content when they are told the +decision is in their favor. As junior counsel Mr. Lansing's name +appears in many international arbitrations, and it was precisely +the work for which he was fitted. + +If Mr. Lansing had been a man of more robust fiber, he would have +returned his portfolio to Mr. Wilson as early as 1916, for the +President was writing notes to the belligerents and did not, even +as a perfunctory courtesy, consult his Secretary of State; he made +it only too patent he did not consider his advice worth asking. Mr. +Lansing was too fond of his official prominence to surrender it +easily, and that is another curious thing about the man. Somewhat +vain, holding himself in much higher estimation than the world did, +few men have so thoroughly enjoyed office as he. But he remained +the quiet and unassuming gentleman he had always been; and he +certainly could not have deluded himself into believing that there +was a still higher office for him to occupy. + +Mr. Lansing could not screw up his courage to resign in 1916. The +following year the United States was at war and he naturally could +not desert his post; but in 1919 Mr. Lansing was given another +opportunity, and still he was obdurate. He has told us in his +public confession that he tried to persuade the President not to go +to Paris. Mr. Wilson, as usual, remained unpersuaded, and Mr. +Lansing humbly followed in his train. + +Then, of course, Mr. Lansing could not resign, but in Paris he was +even more grossly humiliated; he was completely shut out from the +President's confidence; he wrote letters to Mr. Wilson which the +President did not deign to answer; so little did Mr. Lansing know +what was being done that he sought information from the Chinese +Delegates! It sounds incredible, it seems even more incredible that +a Secretary of State should put himself in such an undignified +position, and having done so should invite the world to share his +ignominy. But he has set it down in his book as if he believed it +was ample defense, instead of realizing that it is condemnation. + +Curious contradictions! One might expect a sensitive man, a man who +has never courted publicity, who has none of the genius of the +self-advertiser, to crave forgetfulness for the Paris episode, to +shrink from publicly exposing himself and his humiliations, but Mr. +Lansing seemingly revels in his self-dissection. The President +slaps his face; in his pride he summons all the world to look upon +the marks left by the Executive palm. He feels the sting, and he +enters upon an elaborate defense to show it is the stigmata of +martyrdom. A treaty was framed of which he disapproved, yet he +could sign it without wrench of conscience. Unreconciled to +resignation in Paris, he returned to Washington as if nothing had +happened, again to resume his subservient relations to the +President. + +Opportunity, we are told, knocks only once at a man's door, but +while opportunity thundered at Mr. Lansing's portal "his ear was +closed with the cotton of negligence." + +Early in 1920 Mr. Wilson dismissed him, brutally, abruptly, with +the petulance of an invalid too tired to be fair; for a reason so +obviously disingenuous that Mr. Lansing had the sympathy of the +country. He should either have told the truth then and there or +forever have held his peace; and had he remained mute out of the +mystery would have grown a myth. The fictitious Lansing would have +become an historical character. But he must needs write a book. It +does not make pleasant reading. It does not make its author a hero. + +It does, however, answer the question the curious asked at the time +of his appointment: "Why did the President make Mr. Lansing +Secretary of State?" + + + + + +BOIES PENROSE + + +The most striking victim of the American propensity for +exaggeration is the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, Boies +Penrose. He has a personality and contour that lend themselves to +caricature. Only a few deft strokes are needed to make his +ponderous figure and heavy jowl the counterpart of a typical boss, +an institution for which the American people have a pardonable +affection in these days of political quackery. For, when the worst +is said of the imposing array of bosses from Tweed down to the +present time, they could be forgiven much because they were what +they were. That is why, perhaps, the altogether fanciful picture of +Penrose, propped on his pillows with his telephone at his bedside +directing the embattled delegates at Chicago, who in sheer +desperation turned to Warren G. Harding, is dwelt upon fondly by a +deluded public. + +Penrose does not despise the appurtenances of bossism. If the truth +were told he probably likes the idea of being represented as the +hard-fisted master of party destinies. He knows that such a +reputation inspires awe if not respect, on the part of the rank and +file, from the humble precinct worker to the gentleman of large +affairs who provides the necessary campaign funds. It has its +value, sentimental as well as practical, for the American people +likes to set up its own political idols. The politicians who for +the moment guide the destinies of the nation are so misdrawn, so +illuminated with virtues and endowed with vices quite foreign to +them, that they frequently achieve a personality quite fictitious, +but which, none the less, passes current in the popular mind as +genuine. + +Nothing could be more grotesque, for example, than the picture of +Senator Smoot, who is merely a sublimated messenger boy, as one of +the arbiters of the Republican policies; or of Senator Lodge, by +sheer strength of leadership, restraining the discordant Republican +elements in the Senate from kicking over the traces. This is +journalist "copy" written for a popular imagination which finds the +truth too tepid. + +Boies Penrose serves the purpose of appeasing national appetite for +what the magazine editors call "dynamic stuff." + +But the real Boies Penrose is not all as he is pictured. At a +cursory glance he might appear to be a physiological, +psychological, and political anachronism. At least he is +sufficiently different from his colleagues to be, if not actually +mysterious, not easily understandable. There is something +fundamental about him. He inspires a certain awe which may not be +magnetic but has the same effect upon those who surround him; where +he sits is the head of the table. + +I doubt if Lodge or Knox or Hughes could ever fathom the secret of +his power; they are not cast in the same mould. His colleagues +smile at his idiosyncracies--behind his back--but they approach him +with the respect due to a master. Many of them admire him, not a +few hate him, but all of them fear him. It is rather a singular +thing that Senator La Follette, himself at the pinnacle of his +championship of the Wisconsin progressive idea, was probably on +friendlier terms with the senior Senator from Pennsylvania than any +of the other leaders of those reactionary forces with whom he was +tilting. He knew where Penrose stood and it is not at all +improbable that behind the Penrose reticence there was a modicum of +admiration for the methods of the redoubtable little colleague, who +in his way, was a more inexorable boss than Penrose himself ever +dreamed of being. The mutual understanding was there, even if it +never became articulate. + +Penrose has peculiarities which put him in a niche quite his own. +He eschews conversation as an idle affectation. He dislikes to +shake hands, preferring the Chinese fashion of holding his on his +own expansive paunch. When he finds it necessary to talk at all he +speaks the precise truth as he sees it without consideration for +the feelings of those he happens to be addressing. The results are +frequently so ludicrous, particularly when he enters a colloquy on +the Senate floor, that he is given credit for a much more +pronounced sense of humor than he actually possesses. I doubt that +he is always conscious of the element of humor and I suspect that +if he realized that his observations were to evoke laughter he +would deliberately choose a less satirical or flippant method of +expression. + +This temperamental characteristic was illustrated by an episode in +the Senate chamber not long ago. Penrose, entering, found his chair +occupied by a Democratic colleague who had overestimated his +capacity for the doubtful stuff that is purveyed in these days of +Volsteadism and whose condition was apparent to everyone on the +floor and in the galleries. Penrose is, perhaps, the most widely +known personage in the Senate. His towering figure makes him +conspicuous. But the most of the myriads of trippers who visit the +Capitol do not know one senator from another. They rely for +identification upon little charts showing the arrangements of the +seats on the floor each one of which is labeled with a senator's +name. + +Now Penrose, might or might not have suspected that these trippers +following their charts, would pick out the snoring recumbent figure +as his own. He decided to remove all possibility of error and +addressing the chair with usual solemnity said, "Mr. President, I +desire the chair to record the fact that the seat of the senior +Senator from Pennsylvania has not been occupied by himself at the +present session. It is occupied by another." The galleries roared; +the somnolent Senator shambled over to his own side of the aisle +and Senator Penrose was given credit, by the unwise, for humor +quite unintended. + +Life with Mr. Penrose is a much more serious business than most +people imagine. And it became even more serious a little while ago +when illness laid hold of him and his brother, a physician, +prescribed dietary rules restricting the freedom that he had once +exercised without restraint. There was something lion-like in the +gaunt figure in the rolling chair which he occupied when he +returned to the Senate from his sick bed. It was amazing that he +recovered; it was even more amazing that he should have submitted +to the rigorous rules laid down by his doctor, even if that doctor +was his own brother. The bated breath with which Pennsylvania +politicians awaited bulletins from his bedside was a striking +acknowledgment of the power he wields. + +The evolution of Boies Penrose is an amusing commentary upon +American politics in more ways than one. Three years after he was +graduated from Harvard College he was elected to the Pennsylvania +State Legislature on a reform ticket. His election was made the +occasion for great rejoicing on the part of the good people of +Philadelphia. And well might they rejoice. They had at last driven +a wedge into the sinister political machine that had brought the +city of brotherly love into disrepute as a boss-ridden +municipality. + +Their young leader had wealth, which has its advantages, and social +position, which to a Philadelphian is as dear as life itself. +Moreover he had ability and all that makes for success. His fame as +a reform leader spread throughout the land and across the seas. +James Bryce, in his first edition of his American Commonwealth +cited him as an example of the sterling type of young Americans who +were arousing themselves at that time to rescue the municipal and +state governments from the grip of the vicious boss system. + +In the subsequent editions of the American Commonwealth you will +find no reference to Mr. Penrose. Something had happened to him and +to the reform movement. Whether he was struck by a bolt from the +heavens or a bolt from Matthew Stanley Quay is immaterial. The fact +is that after a few years' residence in Harrisburg, the seat of the +government of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he counseled with +himself and solemnly decided that Providence had never selected him +to be the apostle of the political millenium. + +Most men are born radicals and die conservatives. The development +is gradual and represents the result of years of experience. But +Penrose repented while there was time to make amends for his error. +He sought a very short cut. He went directly from the legislature +to the Republican organization of Philadelphia and stood as its +candidate for mayor. But his late friends, the reformers, happened +to be in the ascendency that year and he was defeated. + +The story told of him at that time, whether true or not, that he +announced his willingness to take as his bride any estimable young +lady the organization might select, since the fact that he was a +bachelor was given by his henchmen as the reason of his defeat, is +typical of him. The "organization," the Republican Party, +constitutes his political creed and philosophy. He has devoted his +life to it. The "party" is his life, his religion, his family, his +hobby. Down in his soul he believes that the destiny of the +American people is so inextricably interwoven with its fortunes +that its destruction would be nothing less than national hari kari. + +He does not believe that the Republican Party is perfect, but he +believes that it is as perfect as any political organization is +ever likely to be. He has no illusions concerning the men it +chooses for high places. He is never disturbed by stories of +political corruption or graft unless they are serious enough to +jeopardize forthcoming elections. Otherwise they are merely +unpleasant incidents that arise in the life of every business +organization. + +If he were supreme he would not tolerate political corruption, any +more than he would tolerate murder; but since he is not supreme and +cannot dictate to all men, he accepts their efforts in the interest +of the organization even though their hands may be slightly soiled. +Like the wise general who raises a volunteer army he is not +meticulous in the choice of his privates, providing they are +capable of performing the tasks assigned to them. No seeker after +souls ever believed the end justifies the means more sincerely than +Boies Penrose believes his vote-seekers are justified in stretching +the code a bit for the benefit of the organization--particularly if +it is actually endangered. + +Just as he believes in the Republican Party he believes in a high +tariff--the higher the better. Prosperity without protection is +inconceivable. During a Washington career of more than twenty years +he has been constantly caricatured as the tool of the interests-- +the man upon whom they could rely to raise the tariff wall an inch +or two for their personal benefit. + +He has raised it whenever he has had the opportunity to do so, but +not for the reason assigned. He is no man's tool. The suggestion +that Boies Penrose personally has ever profited financially through +politics is too absurd to be entertained for a moment. Of course, +he expects the interests, whom the party serves with tariff +protection, to save the party at the polls and they usually do so. +But that in the opinion of the senior Senator from Pennsylvania is +the essence of sound politics. + +Unbelievable as it may sound in these days, Senator Penrose +actually thinks that most men are dependent for their daily bread +upon the success of a very small group of financiers, magnates, or +whatever you care to call the great leaders of the world of +business. + +Years of experience has convinced him that the human race is +composed, for the most part, of hopelessly improvident people and +that a great part of the globe would be depopulated through +starvation and disease if it were not for the foresight, ability, +and thrift of the handful of leaders whom Divine Providence has +provided. He looks upon himself as one of the instruments of +Providence and he sincerely believes that the policies which he has +supported since his early experience with the reformers are +responsible for the happiness and prosperity of many a family. He +would consider it the height of absurdity for any of these poor, +worthy, but ignorant people to expect the comforts which they have +enjoyed without the protection afforded their employers by the +Republican Party. + +By this somewhat unpopular method of reasoning, he believes that he +of all the men in public life has made the most persistent and +consistent fight for the masses. It is undoubtedly this calm faith +and sincere belief in his own rectitude which has enabled him to +hold the tremendous power he has exerted since Nelson Aldrich +retired from the Senate. + +I have presented his political philosophy in some detail because he +is probably the most misjudged man in Washington. People are +inclined to look upon him as a glorified boss who deals in politics +as other men deal in commodities;--it is hardly a fair estimate of +the man. He considers himself the chosen leader of the most +intelligent people of a great commonwealth who is rendering +tremendous service to the country. I do not agree with that +estimate either. But taken all and all it seems to me that the +country owes him a debt of gratitude for having been sincere when +another course would have been more profitable. It is a relief to +find one at least who has never been called a hypocrite. + +Senator Penrose does not hate Democrats; he does not consider them +important enough for that; he merely despises them. They are to his +mind an inferior class of human beings who should not be intrusted +with the affairs of the nation. Reformers irritate him. They are +either self-seeking hypocrites or deluded. In neither case has he +the time nor inclination to listen to their suggestions or heed +their maledictions. + +He had an abiding hatred for Theodore Roosevelt when he was in the +White House, but he supported him loyally so long as he was the +leader of the Party. When Colonel Roosevelt bolted the hatred ran +the last gamut. He was classed as an arch criminal for having +smashed the organization. + +Penrose is an enigma to those who know him only casually, +especially those who view life through the rose glasses of culture. +They marvel at the extent to which he has been able to dictate to +men who appear to be his superiors. I have heard him called a cave +man by some, by others a boor; but he is neither. He observes the +amenities of life so far as they are necessary, but only so far. He +is impatient of mediocrity; he will not tolerate stupidity and he +loathes hypocrisy. I would not say that he has bad manners; he has +none at all. + +Throughout the recent eclipse of the Republican Party, which began +with the Roosevelt default, no member remained more steadfast than +the Pennsylvania leader. He accepted the inevitable and bided his +time like the politicians of the old school of which he is one of +the few conspicuous surviving examples. Expediency does not enter +into his make-up; he made no effort to keep himself in the +limelight, for he is by the Party, of the Party, and for the Party. + +Now that the Party is back again, in power, more than one of his +colleagues suspect that Penrose, if his health permits, will emerge +from the background as the real leader of the Senate majority. His +political past is against him. But he knows men and his tutelage +under Aldrich has not been forgotten. + + + + + +WILLIAM E. BORAH + + +Taken at its best, life, to William E. Borah, is little more than a +troublesome pilgrimage to the grave. + +This does not mean that he is a misanthrope or a seer of distorted +vision. On the contrary his sympathies are broad and he has an +elusive charm, more apparent in the early years of his political +career than now. But, for some reason, probably temperamental, he +is in the habit of dwelling upon the dangers that beset the +republic--dangers which are sometimes very real. Nevertheless an +hour in his presence is more often than not depressing; it leaves +one with a sense of impending calamity. There are few bright spots +on his horizon. + +It is not altogether to his discredit that his more venerable +colleagues look upon him as a young man--he is fifty-six; nor does +it imply merely arrested political development. For all of his +pessimism he maintains a certain freshness, if belligerency, of +spirit which is puzzling not only to those who have long since +accustomed themselves to the party yoke but to those whom +experience has taught the art of compromise. For Borah hates the +discipline that organization entails, in spite of his respect for +organization, and he dislikes compromise however often he is driven +to it. + +This may be accounted for by the fact that he was not obliged to +fight his way laboriously upward on the lower rungs of politics--he +landed in the Senate from an Idaho law office in one pyrotechnical +leap when he was only forty two--and by the fact that in his make- +up he is singularly unpolitical. Disassociating him from his +senatorial environment it is much easier to imagine him as a +devotee of academic culture, a university professor, a moral +crusader, even a poet, than as a politician. + +There is in his make-up an underlying Celtic strain which may +account for his moodiness, his emotionalism, and his impulsiveness. +These characteristics are constantly cropping up. For many years he +has buried himself in a somber suite of rooms in the Senate office +building as far away from his colleagues as he could get. There he +lives in an atmosphere of academic quiet. There he reads and +studies incessantly, far from the maddening crowd of politics. This +detachment has probably bred a suspicion that marks his actions. He +has no intimates, no associates who call him "Bill." He is not a +social being. He is rarely seen where men and women congregate. He +is virtually unknown in that strange bedlam composed largely of +social climbers and official poseurs called Washington society. He +neither smokes, drinks, nor plays. What relaxation he gets is on +the back of a western nag in Rock Creek Park where he may be seen +any morning cantering along--alone. He does not ride for pleasure; +his physician ordered it and it is a very businesslike matter. If +he experiences any of the exhilaration that comes to men in the +saddle he contrives to conceal it. + +On the floor of the Senate he is quite a different person. There +his unmistakable genius for oratory is given full sweep and when he +speaks his colleagues usually listen, not because they agree with +what he says but because they are charmed by the easy and melodious +flow of his words. There is a hint of Ingersoll in his speeches +which are full of alliteration and rhythmic phrases. He has a sense +of form sadly lacking in his stammering and inarticulate +colleagues, for oratory in the Senate is probably at its lowest +ebb. But, strangely enough, it is only occasionally that he makes a +lasting impression. His eloquence ripples like water and leaves +scarcely more trace. + +Mr. Borah's entire political career has been characterized by an +impulsiveness which has given him a halo of popularity but has +never enabled him to garner the fruits of plodding labor. At one +time or another this has led him to break with nearly every faction +with which he has been identified. The "regular" Republicans have +felt that they never could rely upon him; the "progressive" element +has found him inconstant and at intervals he has threatened to pull +down the party house of the Republicans and to bring destruction to +one or other of the leaders whom he dislikes. + +This was illustrated by an observation he made to me one spring +morning in 1919 when the Republican attitude toward the League of +Nations was still in the formative process. Borah was "convinced" +that Elihu Root and Will H. Hays were conspiring to induce the +Republicans to accept the League and he said, quite seriously, that +he had about come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to +wreck the Republican Party to save the country. Root, he told me, +was pro-British to the last degree and Hays, he said, was cajoled +by the great international bankers who trembled at the delay of +peace. + +"If such men are to lead the Republican Party," he declared, "the +sooner it is destroyed the better." Of course, he did not take the +stump. He has failed so often to carry out his threats of rebellion +that they no longer inspire the fear they once did. Although he has +repeatedly turned against the organization he has managed to escape +being an outlaw. This singular trait of political conservatism came +conspicuously into play in 1912 when Roosevelt turned upon the +machine. All through the stormy days of that stormy Chicago +convention Senator Borah could be found at the side of that one +leader for whom he had a consistent regard. He was with him up to +the very last moment before the die was cast. He was almost +successful at the eleventh hour in inducing Mr. Roosevelt to +abandon his mad project. They were closeted together on the evening +of the clamorous meeting of the progressives in a hotel across the +street. + +"We have come to the parting of the ways, Colonel," Borah said to +his chief. "This far I have gone with you. I can go no further." He +urged Roosevelt not to take the step which would mean the +disruption of the party and defeat. Roosevelt wavered. But before +he could reach the decision Borah sought a committee from the +outlaw meeting, burst into the room, and enthusiastically announced +that the stage was set for the demonstration that was to mark a new +political era. + +Roosevelt, hat in hand, turned to Borah and said, "You see, I can't +desert my friends now." The ex-President went his way and Borah +came back to the old Republican fold. + +From that time to this he has followed his own way which, +fortunately for the Republican Party, has been within organization +limits, but his relations with his fellows are neither intimate nor +serene. Some of the Republicans, who can be forgiven for not +understanding a man who respects neither party decrees nor +traditions, feel that Borah is so American that he possesses one of +the characteristics of the aboriginal Indian--in other words, that +he is cunning, that he will not play the game according to +organization rules. He has a habit of making too many mental +reservations. I am not quite sure that these allegations could be +supported before an impartial tribunal. I am rather inclined to the +belief that to maintain his position in the Senate Borah has had to +become a shrewd trader. + +Fortunately for himself he is too much of a personage to be ignored +or suppressed, and manages to be a power in a party which has no +love for him. + +He is virtually a party to himself. He cannot be controlled by the +ordinary political methods. His constituency is small and evidently +devoted to him and his state is remote; he is not compelled to do +the irksome political chores that cost Senators their political +independence. However doubtful he might be as a positive asset his +dexterity and power of expression are such that he would be very +dangerous as a liability. A report that Borah is on the rampage +affects Republican leaders very much as a run on a bank affects +financial leaders. They are not quite sure when either is going to +stop. Borah knows that most of the men with whom he is dealing are +clay and estimates with uncanny accuracy the degree to which he can +compel them to meet his demands. + +This method has not always been successful. It was singularly +unsuccessful in the case of Senator Penrose. Borah is the +antithesis of Penrose, whom he dislikes intensely. Several years +ago he interpreted a remark made by the Senator from Pennsylvania +to another Senator as a thrust at his own political ethics, or lack +of them. It was a petty affair at most and Penrose never admitted +the accuracy of Borah's construction, but Borah has had nothing to +do with him since. When the present Congress was in process of +organization Borah announced that he would bolt the party caucus if +Penrose were slated for the chairmanship of the Finance Committee +to which he was entitled according to the rule of seniority. It was +a ticklish situation. The Republicans had a bare majority in the +Senate and if any of them deserted the organization it might mean +Democratic control. The leaders were disturbed and tried to mollify +the defiant Senator from Idaho with every means at hand even giving +assurance that the Senator from Pennsylvania would vote against the +Peace Treaty and the League of Nations which was supposed to +represent his vital interest at that time. He refused to compromise +and announced that Penrose must go. He was offered every committee +assignment that he or his friends wanted, and accepted them, but as +a matter of right. + +Penrose was determined not to be displaced to satisfy what he +regarded as a colleague's whim. He sat silent in his office +receiving reports from hour to hour on Borah's state of mind. On +the day before the caucus Borah whispered that he intended to make +charges against the Pennsylvania leader that would provide a +sensation regardless of any effect they might have upon the party +or the country. The report was brought to Penrose. Instead of +trembling he sent word to Borah that he might say what he pleased +concerning his political career but that if he made any personal +charges he would regret them to his dying day. Borah appeared to +understand. He did not even attend the caucus and Penrose was duly +elected. Whether he was trading for committee assignments or +initiated the fight on political grounds is a question he alone can +answer, if anyone should have the temerity to ask it. + +The same violence of his likes and dislikes is shown in his +attitude toward the British and his espousal of the Irish cause. At +the time of the visit of the British mission to Washington, Vice- +President Marshall designated Senator Borah a member of the +committee appointed to escort the British visitors into the +chamber. This Borah resented as a personal affront. + +"Marshall has a distorted sense of humor," he said. "He knows I +dislike the British and that I despise the hypocrite Balfour." This +feeling was probably due in large measure to the Irish lineage +which Borah can trace in his ancestry as well as a temperamental +dislike of the British methods of maintaining control over subject +peoples. + +It is difficult to label Senator Borah from a political standpoint. +His most striking characteristic is his inconsistency. For a long +time in the early days of the progressive movement he displayed a +marked inclination to be "irregular" and he is to be found voting +for most measures for which the "progressives" claimed sponsorship, +but when the more radical leaders began to advocate the recall of +the judiciary, Borah rose up and delivered an invective the memory +of which lingers in the Capitol. It was one of the few speeches he +has made that had a permanent effect and, strangely enough, it was +the kind of speech that might have well been delivered by Root or +Knox. + +There has always been reason to believe that Borah was never more +enamored of La Follette in his prime, or of Hiram Johnson, than he +has been of the "reactionary" leaders with whom he has been +oftentimes in open conflict. When the latter deluded himself with +the hope of securing the Republican nomination, Borah was supposed +to be his chief supporter. When Johnson had eliminated Lowden and +Wood, and seemed to have eliminated Harding, Borah showed more +interest in the Knox candidacy. He wanted Knox at the head of the +ticket mainly because he knew that Knox was an implacable foe of +the League of Nations. On that fateful Friday night in Chicago when +the signs of the trend toward Harding had begun to appear, the +Senator from Idaho was anxious and prepared to place Knox's name in +nomination and begged Johnson to swing his delegates in that +direction. + +Borah has succeeded very well in concealing his own ambitions, +possibly because he is more cautious than some of his impetuous +colleagues, or because the opportunity has never come for an +avowal. But among those who have followed his career there is a +very strong suspicion that his one great desire was to be the +successor of Roosevelt. This might be one reason for his antagonism +toward the politicians of the old regime, such as Penrose, who have +barred his way in that direction, and his fitful devotion to +progressivism championed by others. The failure to realize this +ambition might account in some measure for his later reticence and +his suspicion of politicians in general. He has shown a pronounced +distrust of them. The only exception has been the audacious +Ambassador to the Court of Saint James who in his REVIEW and in his +WEEKLY flattered the Senator from Idaho with an absence of +restraint that might have made a more trusting person skeptical. + +The Senator from Idaho has too many years before him to justify +predictions concerning his career. Whatever faults he might have +they do not entirely obscure his virtues. It is possible that the +occasion might arise for him to serve as the spokesman of a popular +cause, which he would do with undoubted earnestness and eloquence, +in which event he might still become a dominating figure in +American politics. + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Mirrors Of Washington, by Anonymous + diff --git a/old/tmrow10.zip b/old/tmrow10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..394f7ca --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmrow10.zip |