Clinton W. Gilbert

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”