Is he dangerous? He is, only if public passion becomes dangerous
and only up to the point where the speakers of revolution pass from
the stage and the doers of it rig up their chopping blocks. At
present he furnishes the words, the ugly words, which men throw
instead of stones at the objects of their hate. He is the safety
valve of gathering passion. Men listen to him and feel that they
have done something to vindicate their rights. They applaud him to
shake the roof, and vote for Mr. Harding.
It is customary to speak of his magnetism over crowds. He has no
magnetism in personal contact. He walks toward you as if he were
about to deliver a blow, an impression that is strengthened by his
square menacing figure. His voice is unpleasant. His smile is wry.
He not unusually has a complaint to make against the public,
against the press, against fate, against you personally. He is not
interested in people, as Roosevelt was to so an amazing degree, and
as magnetic persons usually are. He is cold, hard, and selfish. His
quarrels are numerous, with the campaign managers of the Armageddon
fight, with his own campaign manager of 1920, with the newspaper
correspondents. He is habitually pessimistic, and pessimism and
magnetism do not go together.
His complaint that the people were docile and would not recover
their confidence and self-assertion in his time, was a bit of his
inevitable gloom.
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