nate Colonel Roosevelt. His death left no candidate clearly capable of winning general support and carrying the convention by storm. General Wood's only chance lay in coming somewhere near victory on the opening ballots. He was gallantly supported by many of Colonel Roosevelt's friends and was excellently presented to the convention by Governor Allen, of Kansas, and by Mrs. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, of New York.

Harding's Party Vouchers

as

We are glad to present in this number of the REVIEW a character sketch of Senator Harding, the Republican nominee, written for us since the convention by the Hon. Simeon D. Fess, himself one of the most useful and able public men that Ohio has sent to Washington in recent times. After a notable career as an educator and writer of text books, Mr. Fess is about to make his own campaign for a fourth consecutive term in Congress. In their support of a fellowOhioan for the Presidency, such men Mr. Fess were well reinforced at Chicago by former Progressive leaders in their State like the Hon. Walter F. Brown. It was plain enough at Chicago that the old cleavage between the two wings of the party had disappeared, insofar as principles and convictions were at stake. In the split of 1912 Mr. Harding stood with Mr. Taft, of his own State, and not with Mr. Roosevelt. There was bitterness on both sides, and disagreeable personalities. But sensible politicians are not nursing old grievances. The issues of 1912 are in no sense those of 1920. The Hon. William H. Taft stands to-day in the foremost rank of men who look forward, in a progressive spirit, towards the tasks and duties of to-morrow. Mr. Taft regards Senator Harding as a very representative and suitable Republican candidate in view of the issues now at stake. There is common testimony as to Senator Harding's fitness in point of personal qualities. He is of suitable age, of vigorous health, typical in spirit and temper of those normal and wellpoised American men in professional or business life who are esteemed in their home communities and who succeed in life by a consistent and industrious course and upon their own recognized merits. As the campaign goes on it will be a commonly accepted view among Republicans that Mr. Harding is an excellent candidate. His rivals are cordially supporting him, just as he in turn would have supported them.

Conceptions of the Presidency

Much of the confusion of mind produced by the writers of newspaper editorials about the merits of candidates results from the fact that these writers have no common standards. The Presidency is a peculiar office, and no one can be quite sure in advance about the way in which any particular man would meet the exigencies of the position. One man thinks of the President as a public servant, while another man thinks of him. as a ruler, a public master. There are those who have formed the habit of speaking in the harshest terms about Congress, and who would prefer as our form of government a quadrennial dictatorship by the President. Some men desire to have a President surrounded by a Cabinet made up of men of great weight and authority, so that fiscal policies, for instance, shall be dominated by a great Secretary of the Treasury like Alexander Hamilton or John Sherman, and foreign policies directed by a great Secretary of State like Daniel Webster or Elihu Root. Other people think of the Presidency as an office that ought to be filled by some sort of universal genius, capable of directing domestic and foreign policies and requiring a Cabinet merely for the routine conduct of departmental work. It is quite possible that the country needs harmony and definiteness in its public policies more than anything else, with partisanship reduced to a minimum, and happy relations among President, Cabinet, and both houses of Congress. Senator Harding receives the nomination without commitments or obligations of any kind, and if elected is likely to make good appointments and to take sane and normal views on most questions. President Lincoln found strong Cabinet material among men who had been regarded as presidential timber. Senator Harding is a student of American political history.

Harding on the

Mr. Harding will probably remain most of the summer at Treaty Issue his home in Marion, Ohio, a thriving little city about fifty miles north of Columbus. He is an excellent speaker and stumper; but the newspapers will distribute his utterances to the public without his making arduous campaign journeys. He has expressed himself clearly upon all pending questions, and there is no excuse whatever for the mis-statements about him in which certain writers on metropolitan newspapers have indulged. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, he has been in close touch with the long discussion of the treaty and the League of Nations. Mr. Harding has the gift of lucidity, and there is no reason for doubt as to his meaning. He worked in the Senate with the Republican majority, who, to quote from one of his speeches last fall, were "agreed to bring about the ratification of this treaty if they are convinced that reservations have been adopted which are sufficient to safeguard the interests of the United States of America." This was his position last November and it has not been changed. It has not been different from the position taken by President Lowell, of Harvard, nor different from that of Mr. Hoover as expressed in all of his utterances of recent weeks. Yet newspapers which were enthusiastic for Mr. Hoover, as a treaty-and-league man, were

unsparing in their condemnation of Mr. Harding. Fair minded people, including such men as Mr. Hoover himself, ought not to condone the recklessness with which newspapers of high standing indulge in prejudices to the confusion of their readers. Senator Harding is wholly predisposed toward responsible and broad-minded foreign policies.

Definite

Questions

Senator Harding supported the

on Domestic Cummins railroad bill, including its plan for settling labor questions without strikes, in a frank and straightforward way that did him much credit. It is ridiculous for the agitators to pretend that men like Senator Cummins, Governor Allen and Mr. Harding are not friends of labor because they have desired to protect both labor and the public at the same time by providing more effective remedies for labor's grievances than are likely henceforth to be secured by strikes. It is true that strikes tend to give power to labor leaders; but they also bring much hardship to strikers' families. Senator Cummins, who i President pro tem. of the Senate and the foremost Republican member of that body, comes up this year for reëlection in Iowa, and he secured his renomination in the loca! primaries while the Chicago convention wa assembling. He is entitled to reëlection on the ground of great public service rendered, and Iowa should support him regardless of party.

If Mr. Harding should be elected President it would mean the kind of Republican victory that would give assurance of continued Republican majorities in the Senate and the House. As Chief Executive, Mr. Harding would work in cordial coöperation with Congress under the leadership of such men as Senator Cummins and Speaker Gillett.

θου. Coolidge

The selection for Vice-President Named for was made quickly, only one balVice-President lot being taken. Senator Medill McCormick of Illinois nominated Senator Irvine L. Len root of Wisconsin in a brief speech declaring that the man named for second place ought to be of presidential size. Mr. Lenroot is one of the best men in the party, and might have secured strong support for the presidency but for Mr. La Follette's control of the Wisconsin delegation. Furthermore, the convention did not think that Senators ought to have every post of honor; and the popular Governor of Massachusetts won easily on the first ballot. Governor Allen of Kansas and Colonel Anderson of Virginia were also mentioned, and either one of them would have been entirely acceptable to the convention. Mr. Coolidge's name had been presented on behalf of Massachusetts as a presidential candidate in a speech by Speaker Gillett that was one of all the best of the platform efforts. He had also been eulogized from the platform by Mrs. Alexander Carlisle Peiffer of Massachusetts, in a brief speech that was as felicitous as anything that the convention heard. Mr. Lenroot is needed in the Senate; and Governor Allen is young and has plenty of work cut out for him in his own State. Calvin Coolidge has the good will of the country, including that of the workingmen of Massachusetts. He stood for the supremacy of law and government when the Boston policemen went on strike, and he was reëlected Governor by an unprecedented majority. His name strengthens the ticket somewhat as the name of Roosevelt strengthened the McKinley ticket twenty years ago.

younger and the forward-looking elements, while much praise is due to several women who made brief nominating speeches and who won most of the platform laurels. If Mr. Lodge, Mr. Depew, and ex-Speaker Cannon represented the history and traditions of the party, it was Will Hays, Governor Allen, and some of the younger men and women present, who were doing the work upon which the party must rely for its present and future success. The nomination of Senator Harding was helped in no small degree by the vigor, strength and infectious enthusiasm with which ex-Governor Willis, of Ohio, presented his name. As respects convention leadership and management, the criticism most frequently expressed was directed toward a number of Republican Senators who were regarded as having come from Washington to Chicago to dominate a convention which they might (in the opinion of these critics) have served better by their absence. The so-called keynote speech should, said the critics, have been made by a member of the party who had not been involved in the tedious disputation between the Senate and the White House.

HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW AND MRS. DEPEW AT CHICAGO

(Mr. Depew, of New York, now in his eighty-seventh year, gave younger Republicans a fine example of spirited and felicitous oratory, his voice easily filling the great convention hall).

An Occasion Not Fully Improved

Governor Morrow, of Kentucky, I would have aroused enthusiasm ; and some vigorous young leader for permanent chairman would have expedited the convention's business and perceived the opportunity for making the whole occasion an educational and inspiring one, keeping in mind the presence of many new voters, especially the enfranchised women. In view of all the thrilling history that the country has made since the convention of 1916, there was opportunity for splendid oratory and distinguished platform leadership. The tradition of mysterious management behind the scenes is always resurrected for these occasions; and many gullible persons supposed that this Chicago convention was controlled by Senator Penrose, who was seriously ill in Philadelphia. Governor Sproul, of Pennsylvania, was well supported, but not well enough known to the country for convention success this year. Dr. Butler had most of the great New York delegation behind him, and would have made a fine presiding officer and official orator if he had not been a recognized candidate for the nomination. Inasmuch as the Senators present were supporting half a dozen different candidates, it was absurd to charge them with having conspired to control the proceedings.

"Two-thirds" Rule at

The two great parties as organized are in a real sense a San Francisco portion of the nation's machinery of government. It is an injury to the nation as well as to the party itself if one or the other of these organizations works under improper rules. Drastic reform will Drastic reform will now be demanded and expected. Far from hurting such rudiments of Republicanism as exist in the South, the proposed reform of "rotten boroughs" will have exactly the opposite effect. As we have already intimated, there is much less practical reason for changing the basis of representation in the Democratic Convention. Whether or not the twothirds rule should be abrogated is the question of most importance for Democrats to consider. But for the rule requiring a twothirds vote instead of a majority vote, Hon. Champ Clark would have been the Democratic nominee in 1912 and would undoubtedly have been elected President instead of Mr. Wilson. Clark had carried the Democratic primaries and had a majority in the Baltimore convention, his vote on the tenth ballot being 556 and Mr. Wilson's only 350. It was not until the forty-sixth ballot

HON. WILL H. HAYS, CHAIRMAN OF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, AS CAUGHT IN A FLASHLIGHT SNAPSHOT WHILE CONFERRING WITH SENATOR HARDING AFTER THE CONVENTION WAS OVER. MR. HAYS WILL BE CHIEF CAMPAIGN MANAGER

that Mr. Wilson had votes enough to nominate him. Four years ago the ticket of Wilson and Marshall was renominated by acclamation. This year at San Francisco, if the nomination were made by simple majority vote, as in Republican conventions, it is quite possible that Mr. William G. McAdoo would be chosen on the first ballot.

How It May. Affect Candidates

As matters stand, an anti-McAdoo combination formed by Tammany's New York leaders in conjunction with such delegations as those of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, might block the nomination of McAdoo. On the other hand, Mr. Bryan and his friends might surely block a "wet" candidate. The San Francisco Convention will have 1092 members. A group of 365 delegates holding firmly to the purpose of defeating any particular candidate could outweigh the preference of as many as 727 delegates. If Governor Cox of Ohio, or Vice-President Mar

shall, or Mr. McAdoo, or Senator Owen of Oklahoma, or Ambassador John W. Davis, is to carry the day at San Francisco, he must obtain at least 728 votes. It is obvious that this two-thirds rule is of importance, not merely to Democrats but to the whole country. It has given us Wilson rather than Champ Clark for President during a period of eight years continuing until next March. Unless death should intervene, our next President will be Warren Gamaliel Harding, or else he will be the man chosen under the two-thirds rule at San Francisco. It is a question, therefore, of wide interest whether or not the minority in a Democratic convention ought to be able to veto the choice of the majority.

York principally by Mr. Root before his departure for Europe, where he is working with a group of distinguished jurists upon the technical framework of an international court of judicature. This year's election is not destined to be a "solemn referendum" on the League of Nations. That issue cannot by any stretch be made to lie parallel with the cleavage between parties. The Chicago convention adopted a very reasonable plank on labor and industry, but it is denounced by some of the leaders of organized labor, including Mr. Gompers. The Democrats at San Francisco may not find it any easier to satisfy the spokesmen for organized labor. The Chicago convention refused to accept either of the proposals about Ireland that were urged by two factions of the Irish leaders. If the Democrats at San Francisco yield to dictation on this point, in order -as they will be promised-to secure three million Irish-American votes, they will merely embarrass their presidential candidate; and they will not be very sure of winning the votes by methods so palpably lacking in real conviction.

Mr. Bryan's Forecasts

Mr. William J. Bryan, who constantly attended the Chicago convention and who will be the foremost personal figure in the Democratic convention at San Francisco, has contributed to this issue of the REVIEW a frank and straightforward article upon policies and issues as likely to present themselves to the assembled Democracy. Mr. Bryan for the past half year has strongly favored the acceptance of the Senate reservations and the adoption of the peace treaty. Not only does he rejoice in the fact that national prohibition is an established thing, but he believes that both great parties ought to uphold it. Since the Republicans did not mention it at Chicago, he will insist that the Democrats endorse it at San Francisco. His labor views seem very much like those of the Republicans, as also do his opinions on various other subjects. He does not discuss candidates, and does not see that any individual stands out as the party's fore-ordained leader for the reconstruction period ahead of us.