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.
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