THE PRESIDENT'S POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 28, 2 August 1923, Page 6

THE PRESIDENT'S POLICY

It is gratifying that the latest reports upon the health of President Harding record an improvement. It would have been a calamity indeed if he had followed his predecessor and suffered a complete breakdown in health because of his devotion to duty. It was m the course of a speaking tour that President Wilson collapsed, and the object of that tour was to convert American opinion to support of the League of Nations. The breakdown of its principal advocate was a great loss to the League cause in America, and it was upon the wave of opposition to the Wilsonian policy that President Harding attained office. His close association with foreign politics has served to modify President Harding's. views. He remains an opponent of American participation in the League of Nations, but he has lately been seeking a new way of breaking that aloofness of which his supporters four years ago were such determined advocates. His tour, indeed, was undertaken partly in order to bririg American opinion to the view which he had come to hold. His objective was similar to the objective of . President Wilson's crusade, though he was seeking to approach it by a new route. The speech, which he himself prepared but was unable to deliver, indicates sufficiently the modification of his.views. ',

"There can be no great people in a position of permanent aloofness," he wrote, and proceeded to claim that the influence of America, exercised indirectly, had been a potent factor «in the promotion of world peace. In order that a more direct influence might be exercised, he urged America to enter the World Court, His reference to the League of Nations was in a friendly tone; "but," he added, "it is nof for America." Nevertheless the whole tone of the speech indicates a desire to bring America into more intimate contact with Europe, so that more aid may be given in unravelling the tangled politics of the Old World. It is ,to be hoped that President Harding wiJl soon be restored to health completely, so that he may pursue this aim. It has taken four years to bring him-.to this stage, and Kis successor might revert to the old policy of aloofness—till he, in turn, came -to understand its futility.