PERSONALITIES

Southland Times, Issue 20201, 11 June 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

PERSONALITIES

A POSSIBLE PRESIDENT

(By

Ædile.)

The excitement, wrangling and anxiety associated in this country with the picking of an All Black team is duplicated and even exceeded in the United States when the time approaches for the election of a new president. This interest is spread over many months, and the elector has the chance to be a free spectator to at least three gladiatorial combats before the incumbent of White House is finally appointed. Although the party system is a feature firmly established in British politics, nothing like the United States party machines is known under the Union Jack, and the public misses a great deal of fun through this deficiency. Popular belief, is often wrong, credits the British party organisations with an efficiency quite the equal of anything known in the States, but they work quietly and do not glory in the spectacular trappings associated with the Republicans and Democrats, with their Conventions, processions, primary elections and plottings secret and open. These party machines are part and parcel of the American political system, they have a legal standing, and it is quite possible that the ordinary American elector couid not be induced to regard a president as properly elected if the party conventions had not wrangled over the initial selection of candidates.

This year the interest in the coming presidential contest is increased by several unusual elements. Both major political parties are busily engaged in a search for candidates and both are facing the prospect of serious divisions. Whenever a president seeks reelection he enters the national convention with prestige that is generally sufficiently weighty to ensure his

nomination, but this year President Coolidge is handicapped, by the fact that if he seeks re-election it will involve a battle against the unwritten law that no president serves for a third term. His case is on all fours with that of President Roosevelt, who became president for the balance of President Mcxvimey's second term, and then was elected president four years later. Mr Roosevelt then offered himself as a candidate for a third term and was defeated. President Coouuge rose for the Vice-Presidency to the highest office on the death of President Harumg, and after completing the balance oi tne four years was re-eiected as a Republican President. If he is put forward as ms party’s nominee he will have to ask the country to make him its first third-term president. He is not likeiy to obtain an answer in the affirmative and the leaders of the Republican Party are well aware of that fact. President Uoolidge is not as strong as President Roosevelt was, and

there is no danger of him splitting the organisation as the vigorous Teddy did. At the same time the Republicans have not yet discovered anyone to stand head and shoulders over all rivals and make sure of the nomination. The Democrats are in an even worse position. For years the Democrats have suffered the unhappy experience of splitting themselves into bitter sections whenever they attempt to choose a candidate. Woodrow Wilson's first victory was largely due to the divisions in the ranks of the Republicans brought about by the Bull Moose breakaway of Roosevelt and his Progressives, and his re-election, assisted by the war, found him too big a man to be challenged in the Democrat Convention. When the time came to choose his successor, however, the old quarrels broke out anew and four years ago these reached a fiery height when McAdoo and Al. Smith, locked in a bitter contest in which religious prejudice played a big part, broke the parry utterly. Al. Smith, the brilliant Governor of New York, is easily the biggest political figures on the Democrat side of politics and he is a man fully qualified for the presidency, but he is a Catholic and religion will probably put the nomination as well as the White House out of his reach. Already McAdoo has announced his intention of entering the lists for the sole purpose of defeating Smith, and there can be no doubt of the danger of another disaster.

It is at this point that the name of General Pershing enters. He is the one man who could be sure of winning the nomination in either party and it is probable that he would waik into the White House with an immense majority .if he elected to ask his countrymen for that, honour. The precedent of electing a soldier who has proved himself in the wars is brilliantly established in Washington, Taylor, and Grant, and none of these at the time of his election stood higher in the esteem of his countrymen than does John J. Pershing to-day. His name has been suggested Dy prominent members of each of the major parties, but nothing more has been done to press his claims, but that fact need not be taken as an indication of his having fallen out of the race. General Pershing must still be considered as a possibility, and if he secures the nomination his victory is fairly well assured.

General Pershing has had a distinguished record as a soldier, and as an administrator. He was born in September, 1860, in Linn County, Montana, and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1886. He served in the cavalry campaign against the Apaches in Arizona, where he won the approval of General Miles and was sent to Dakota to quell a Sioux rising in 1890. After acting as military instructor at Nebraska University for four years he studied law, taking the LL.B, degree. In 1897 he was appointed instructor in tactics at the U.S. Military Academy, but on the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he volunteered for active service. He served in Cuba during the Santiago campaign, was appointed Chief of Ordnance and in 1899 Assistant Adjutant-General. While in Cuba he organised the Bureau of Insular Affairs, of which he was chief for some months. In November, 1899, he was sent to the Philippines as Adjutant-General of the Department of Mindanao. In 1901 he was made a captain in the regular army and conducted a successful campaign against the Moros. He then returned to America and joined the General Staff. In 1905 he went to Japan as military attache at the American Embassy, and was with the Japanese army in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. In consequence of his success in the Philippines. President Roosevelt had him promoted BrigadierGeneral over the heads of 860 officers senior to him. He then returned to the Philippines as commander of the Mindanao Department and- Governor of the Moro Province where in 1913 he finally quelled the insurgents.

After this he commanded the Sth Brigade at San Francisco. While serving on the Mexican border in he lost his wife and three daughters, who were burnt to death in a fire; but his son was saved. In March, 1916, he led a resultless punitive expedition into Mexico against General Villa and was promoted Major-General for an operation which showed his daring and prudence. After the death of Major-General Funston he was given command of all the troops on the Mexican border and remained there till America entered the world-w'ar when he was chosen to lead the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.