They make mental resolutions of reform. To no politician, to no
one, even with an instinct for politics, would they listen as they
listen to him. He speaks to American business with immense
authority. His selection is an example of that unusual instinct for
putting the right man in the right place which President Harding
has, when he chooses to exercise it.
The post was disappointing to Mr. Hoover; but it was the one in
which he will be most useful. Not a lawyer, he would hardly have
done for Secretary of State, in spite of his exceptional knowledge
of foreign conditions. Not a banker, he lacked the technical
equipment for Secretary of the Treasury. 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.
As business recovers and foreign trade develops, the magazine pages
will blossom with articles about what American enterprise is
achieving in foreign lands, about the cooperation between American
business and the American government, and, once more, about Mr.
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