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.
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