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.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76