GREATNESS OF HARDING

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1923, Page 7

GREATNESS OF HARDING

HIS CHOICE OF THOSE TO HOLD OFFICE. A fine tribute to the dead President I was paid by Cyril Arthur Player, when referring in ;> recently-published volume to Mr. Harding's ability to choose the right people n3 friends and co-workers for the United States. Referring to » gvcat reception hold ut the White [ ilouss ia iks,. tfejv J^ni; oi 1821^ jvheaq

the Disarmament Conference was sitting in New York, Mr. Player wrote of the late President as follows:— President Harding stood on the threshold of the room where he was to receive the great New Year's throng, and, turning to a friend, placed one hand on ms ( shoulder and the other on his arm. A nappy New Year," he said with that boyish smile, as he gazed long into the eyeE of the friend. • And yours, Mr. President," came the reply, as the friend motioned toward the'waiting line outside, '.'already has begun!" It was a happy day for the President. More than 6000 persons, the records say, shook his hand that day, and ne, forgetful of the physical energy it consumed, gave himself up to pure enjoyment.

. It was, in its way, the typical Harding gesture. The crowd wound its way 'v a long ribbon through the White House grounds, along Pennsylvania avomie, past the State, War, and Navy umldmg, and down Seventeenth street, to within sight of those buildings where the Conference holds its sessions. It was a symbol. The President is the connecting link between that ribbon of humanity which stretches to the confines of the Union and that potent conference.

The greatness of Harding is the greatness by-which he chose a greater than himself to hold office under him! None denies the high mentality of Charles Evans Hughes, Harding least of all. fi ari!?? was b|S enough to give him the highest. Cabinet position. Harding welcomed the Conference in simple terms and then stepped aside. To Secretary Hughes was given the opportunity to win everlasting fame as the moulder of a great event. His first speech proved it, for while the Presidents speech faded away, the words of Hughes rolled thunderously around, the world and awakened startled echoes in every capital. President Harding is the man who stood aside. In perfect loyalty and in complete confidence he has left his delegates to their task. There is no critical atmosphere about the White House. Hughes, Lodge, Boot, Underwood fear no complications because of wilful opinion from the executive. To them he has given the task; their results he accepts.

All this the people see, and all this they seemed to express as they filed past in their tens of hundreds in a simple, ancient ritual of goodwill. They were anonymous in their units, but a nation in their collective significance; just as President Harding is and prides himself on being "just folks," but at the same-time is the chief magistrate of a great democracy. Perhaps- history will remember the words of Harding longer than those of Hughes; for what Hughes uttered was the plea for expediency, the solution of a material problem; while the words of the President were the eternal faith of the nation.