AMERICA’S MINISTER FOR WAR.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16050, 7 February 1918, Page 6

AMERICA’S MINISTER FOR WAR.

“ANOTHER LAWYER.” MR. NEWTON D. BAKER INTERVIEWED. (By Hamilton Fyfe in the Daily Mail.) “You were a lawyer before you entered politics, Air. Secretary?” I said. ho replied, and then added with a tight-lipped smile, “Another lawyer, you see!” / His manner is legal. I' was taiteu into his room in the War Office by Dr. Kepper, of Columbia University, who is lending his services as principal private secretary. He said, “Take a scat” ; then lie looked at me steadily through largo round eye-glasses. I began to explain why I had come. He still gazed. I felt he was sizing me Up. I went on with my explanation. At the end of it he nodded his head, took off his eye-glasses and wiped them, threw himself back in Jus chair, Curled his legs up, and said, “Well, now I’m glad to see you.” I felt that he meant it, which I should not have done if he had said it as soon as he saw me in a merely complimentary way.

The Hon. Newton D. Baker is a small man, compact, wiry, like a lightweight boxer. He was not thought mucli of when he became Secretary for War, but people have gone on thinking better and better of him over since. He was a pacifist then—.that is to say, he was opposed to taking up arms for any cause and believed “that mankind had readied a stage in which war on a great scale had become impossible.” ■Ho soon came to an understanding of the truth that the way towards making it impossible is not to fold our arms and repent moral maxims, but to give those who start war such a taste of it as will teach them to prefer peace.! AVhilo I talked to Air. Baker in his sunny room—the usual Cabinet Minister’s room, discreetly sumptuous—l thought of a speech 1 had heard him make at Cleveland a few weeks before. It was a speech about the causes and the objects of the war; as he explained them his whole body was shaken by the emotion that overcame him. His voice had a passionate ring in it when he told his hearers his belief that the outcome would be a finer sense of justice, a firmer foundation for the reign ot righteousness on earth. He is a sincere man, a righteous man, an idealist, and lie, is putting all the force of his convictions, all the passion of his idealism, into the equipping of the American armies for the destruction of the common foe.

In Cleveland he was among his own people. Twice he served as Mayor o. the city. They would have elected him for a third term, but he said “No.” He intended then to go bock to private life. liut the President had marked him as one who had influence with the Middle Western Democrats and who was at Uie same time a man charictor and capacity. Hence his appointment to Succeed Mr. Garrison, whose eagerness that hia country should be prepared beforehand for a possible entry into war went beyond what weu then the President’s plans. It was an appointment which met with hostile criticism. Not only was the new War Minister a pacifist. He was, outside of Cleveland, very little known. A DISCOURAGING START. Only a dozen years or so had passed since lie left his home-town in Virginia to join a firm of lawyers in the Middle Western city. His partner, a much older man, warned him, of course, that he had better stay where he was. He proved his ability in the wider sphere, and after some years began to think at out city politics. One night his partner, again a man considerably older, with a reputation as a speaker, asked Mr. Baker to take his plage at some meeting. The chairman was disappointed when ho saw the substitute. He introduced him in a slighting tone. Mr. Baker declares that he said: “Judge Forau is unable to come and has sent his boy. Boy, let ns hear what you have to say.” It was probably not put quite so bluntly as that, but it was not encouraging to an untried man. However, he let the audience hear what he had to say and they were pleased with it. From that day hia reputation was sure. He became in time Cleveland’s most active' citizen. But, as I'have said, outside Cleveland. he was scarcely even a name when the call came for him to enter the Cabinet. Ho, had to conquer public opinion in face of obstacles. This ho has done swiftly and in a most satisfactory way. He haa not talked, he has worked. He is believed to bo proving Himself equal to the heavy task laid upon him, the task of organising his country’s fighting strength. As for the money placed at Mr. Baker’s disposal by Congress, it lias reached a total of sixteen hundred million pounds sterling, and this is only a beginning. Yet there is a general confidence that Mr. Baker can bo trusted to look after the interests of the men and wisely spend the' money. Ho has won that confidence. He looks like keeping it. He works hard. Ho is painstaking and thorough. He has a legal quickness of penetration and an unlegal habit of making up his mind quickly. He keeps his balance amid the play of vast forces Kind can tell a story with dry humour even in the , midst of weighty deliberations. Thus ha told, to illustrate the rapid headway that discipline ,is making, of a private in a railway car who was bidden by a sergeant to button his unbuttoned ipinic. “According to regulations,” the sergeant said. .At that moment a passenger rose and addressed the sergeant. “You have a pipe in your-■ mouth, : ”/he observed. “You should not give orders in that fashion. lam Major Blank. Go homo and read paragraph 174, section M.” “If Major Blank,” said a voice coldly from the other side of the car, "will himself read Section K. he will seo that no officer should reprimand a sergeant in the presence of a private. I am General Dash.”

President Wilson appreciated - that story. He and Mr. Baker are friends as well as colleagues. They have sympathies and tastes in common. It is characteristic of. the Secretary' for War that when he is downhearted, as every man burdened with responsibility for the waging of the war must be now and then, be speaks of his fear that destruction and wastage may leave the world so engrossed in the struggle for a hare living that the “higher things of life may be for a time forgotten.” That is a thought, however, whifch increases instead of weakening his energy. He hopes to tnrn aside this danger by bringing the American effort to hear as rapidly as' possible and so to prevent the higher things from being engulfed.