AMERICA'S LOSS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 185, 4 August 1923, Page 6

AMERICA'S LOSS.

The death of President Harding comes j i ac a shook to the world; it will bo an ' immeasurably greater blow to hie countrymen. Americans are very proud of their Presidential system. Their President is the first citizen in the world's greatest republic, and they know that the office is open to the man of humblest origin. It is the crown , of their democratic edifice, the most impressive outward manifestation of their political faith. In his rise. Warren Harding was the traditional American. He owed nothing to family, influence, or wealth. He worked with his hands and brain from his boyhood, being by turns farm hand, painter, teamster, and journalist. His career was touched with that romance of sturdy and thoroughly democratic self-reliance that is one of the finest things in American life. It would be an exaggeration to call him a great man. In the long line of Presidents, where he stood twenty-ninth, there have been only a few men who deserve that much cheapened adjective. It has been possible for a mediocre man, and even a nonentity, to rise to the position, for the nature of politics nnd the method of nomination tell against the man of brilliant gifts and strong outstanding personality. Generally speaking, however, a man must be above the ordinary who wins his way through the ruck to the White House. Mr. Harding was a shrewd, capable man, who had made a mark in national politics before he was nominated for the Presidency. He had less moral force and idealism than Mr. Wilson, but more common sense and a greater capacity for handling men. A plain, unsubtle man, direct in speech and thought, hut given to accommodation, he represented well the American feeling of hie time. As President he faced a set of difficulties that were partly of his party's making. He had been elected on a policy of isolation from European affaire, but he found that it was impossible to hold strictly to this ideal. Hie position was doubly embarrassing in that he had too much sympathy for Europe for gome of his "hundred per cent American" supporters, and not enough to please people in other countries who anxiously looked to the United States for help. He would have nothing to do with the League of Nations, but he strongly advocated participation in the International Court that the League erected. President Wilson broke down in health on a campaigning tour in the League's interests. When President Harding was seized with his fatal illness he had just made a series of speeches In j which he urged modification of the old ; policy of aloofness to the extent of try. i. ing to make the International Court a , success. His great-achievement as Presi- , dent was the Conference at Washington, , which gave the world the undertaking \ restricting warship building, the Pacific , Pact, and a new agreement about China. , It is a tragedy that he should have been . cut off in his prime, with so much left , undone that profoundly affects the pros. 1 pects of the world's slow ascent from ! the pit of war and its consequences, r The new President's position recalls 1 that of Roosevelt when he succeeded on i McKinley's death at the hands of an , assassin. Roosevelt, however, was a , most exceptional man, and his times were easier than those in which Mr. ' Coolidge finds himself. For the moment, however, the dominant note i is one of sorrow for the passing of the s head of the nation, and in their mournj ing Americans are assured of the sympathy of the world, and especially" of ' those parts of it which are allied to t. them by ties ,of race, language, and !• political traditicfcfc .