President Harding's Second Move

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17749, 28 April 1923, Page 12

President Harding's Second Move

Since he came into power-more power, while it lasts, than any other man on earth enjoys—President Harding has emerged once clearly, and once only, from the mists of officialdom and routine. Long after his administration has been forgotten he himself will be remembered as the nominal convener of the Washington Conference. And it is just possible that he is aiming: this week at a second refuge from the oblivion that all Presidents face. If we understand him—his excessive caution makes him difficult to understand—he is out now quite definitely to bring America into the International Court of Justice. His careful oration to the newspaper publishers on Tuesday was not quite the dramatic start Mr Roosevelt would have given to a big campaign. It must have seemed pallid and hesitant even to Mr Woodrow Wilson. But it has been announced by the New York "Times" as an address that gives him at last the real leadership of the party, and

it has apparently made an impression on the public. AH that is lacking is that Senator Johnson, of California, should rush into print with Senator Borah to denounce this "damnable "plot to make America abase herself '•'before Great Britain, and submit all ''her glorious destinies to the dictation, of a super-State.•' Until that happens it cannot be regarded as quite certain that the President's bomb is going to explode. Of course, Mr Harding is more cautious now than when he took the pulse of Congress a few weeks ago. Then, entering the Court was "a step towards what "America might yet do for tottering i "conditions in Europe;" and the phrase gave Mr Johnson such a fright that he began to despair of the possibility of "a few feeble individuals "with nothing on God's earth but the "voices and the strength that God "gave them" heading off this criminal conspiracy to get the United States, in spite of all, into the League of Nations. Now, Mr Harding is not going to enter the League "by a side door, "a back door, or a cellar door." Even the International Court of Justice is to be entered with reservations, so that if Senator Johnson breaks out again tiie .President will he compelled to defy him. So far he has defied nobody and nothing. In a book published the other day about the five latest tenants of White House there is a picture of Mr Harding sitting before a wood-firs in his private room, and saying to a confidential friend: "If these treaties ••[arising out of the Washington Con"fesfcnee] are ratified by the Senate, "then this Administration's name is se- ' 'cure in history. If the treaties are defeated, nothing I can do for the bal"ance of my term will be of more than "passing interest." But the Senate did ratify, and Mr Harding therefore .grows in boldness. It will be interesting to see whether he fills the months still remaining to him with activities worthy of his high office, or relapses again into statuesque neutrality.