The Press Tuesday, September 7, 1920.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16933, 7 September 1920, Page 6

The Press Tuesday, September 7, 1920.

The Next* President. The managers of the Republican Party's campaign for the American Presidential election must be assumed to know their business, and if the suggested national movement to enlist for Mr "Warren Harding, the Republican candidate, a solid block vote of six million GermanAmericans omanates from the party's headquarters, one can only suppose that tlioso conccrned in Mr Hiding's. victory are assured that the advantages of such a step would outweigh the disadvantages, which seem obvious enough to ■anyone who remembers the disfavour with -which "hyphenated Americans," ns they were termed, were regarded in ' the States during tho war. Apart from this-point of view, however, the movement appears to bo opposed to Mr Harding's own ideas. Speaking in his "homo town" of Marion, Ohio, he is reported to-day as denying that he is appoaling .to any particular class of Citizens for support, and asserting that he is only aslcing real Americans to vote for him. This is quite in keeping with what one has learned of tho Senator's opinions and character.si'rifco iiho Chicago Convention £ave him world-wide fame. He has been described by a section of the English Press as a cold-blooded instrument of the capitalists, a bitter opponent of Labour, and so on ; but. the "Spectator" points out very truly that it is exceedingly unlikely that a body so intent upon winning as tjie Republican Convention would havo made • a unanimous choico of a candidate who was likely to adopt a policy of destroying tho Labour unions. At no time in recent years would a candidate with sucth views have been popular; at .the present moment to put forward such a candidate irould be to invito certain defeat. The "Spectator" admits that it ( would hav* preferred to see another eandidaco nominated—either Genoral "Wood, a fine soldier and military 'organiser apd a great civil administrator, as fho proved in Cuba, or Dr. Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, "an expert in all mat- " tcrs of education, and a man with an " unusually wide knowledge of homo '■ and foreign politics, and the under-: "standing outlook of a man of tho " world." It is on account of the possession of theso undeniable qualities by , the two men named that the "Spectator'' would have liked to sea one of them sent to tho White House; and not because 1 either would bo friendly to Britain. "What wo want," it says, "and what we believe the British peo- " pie as a whole want, is not an Anglo- " philo President, but tho President who "will . . . niako tho best American' " President." If such a man is elected ' there will be no need to trouble as to whether he possesses "this or that extra " percentage of friendliness" to Britain. I If he is the best President for America . ]:o will certainly havo too much com- . inon-senso to say or do anything that v.oulil embroil the two great branches of the English-speaking race. "Remember also (adds the "spectator") that a man who was conspicuous for British sympathies would bo the man least able to do us a good turn. He might very likely be forced to bo disagreeable in order to g'.iow that he was not what his opponents described him

to bo, a mere tool of Britnin. The man Mho is famed for his hundred per cent. Americanism will be in a much freer p-sirion to do the right and reasonable thing. Though Senator Harding is a dark hors--\ ive should not W in the least surprised if this old-fa.-h'oncd t.vp° of Amerirrm statr-=meii turned out —as so manv of his prcclo~p<s=o p s have t'imo-1 out —s'>ro\ul. reasnnnhle, b'"oadrrin.Ted, ni?r| fuUv ablo tn lot a crreat position and prcat events mould him into a great man.'" Oar contemporary, in a ivord, lonks upon Senator Harding, upon irho r c victory it eonnts confidently, as a potential Mr-Kinlev, a man net greatly thought of when elected, but ono v.bo lxx-ame one of America's notable Presidents. If Mr HarrlHrr i= eio-ter! and does as well nt the 'White- House as President MeIvinley did Britain -will have no eauso to regret the American people's choice.