Behind the Mirrors: The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington

was, namely, that success in business or professional life implies fitness for public life. We have no ot

help elect a President are entitled to the honor, the

ors are recruited. I can not say the mental level of the Cabinet is above that of the Senate. Take out of the upper house its two strongest members, its tw

fered from the depreciation in the public eye which attends service in t

to Senators. Smallness of numbers suggests

f reporters were present, the public would realize that the

ords pr

ls of administration were discussed." Now, of course, reasons of state may occasionally restrain the disclosure of what actually was the subject before the Cabinet. Yet

ute the mailing of their letters throughout the day, instead of keeping most of them to mail late in the afternoon when they are leaving their offices. The Postmaster General pointed out that the go

ent's hands by the war. There are millions of dollars' worth of such property." A mere detail of administration,

r all, every administration takes its color from the President. Mr. Wilson's a

some friends a critical situation. "But," interjected one of the listeners, "does President Harding u

ds of Japan, and how a couple of days later Mr. Harding informed the press that it did not cover the home islands of Jap

is the bottle neck through w

Hamilton had the mind to grasp the problem of this country's relations to the world and of its interest in the world's recovery from the havoc and the hatreds of the war, and the constructive imagination to reach a solution of it. What could Alexand

adequate to attempt control of his own destiny. There are the forces to be considered." A third is the great business-man illusion. Mr. Morgan going abroad to consider reparations may accomplish the wonders which mere statesmen can not. All these induce avoidance of responsibility, and Mr. Harding has the human liking for avoiding res

l this that Mr. Hamilton has a free mind, which he had, relatively, when he operated a century and a half ago. At that time he had not to think much of Public Opinion or of parties. And the me

reative." It has created so many vast illusions like those above in the

ut by slov

sufferance, o

o maintain that as a measure of reality Mr. Hughes's mind is distinctly inferior to Mr. Harding's, which is one reason why he never did become Presid

of their reports. A thing is said to be common sense when it satisfies the heart, the mind, th

rinciples, and logical deductions. He does not sense anything. And only men who sense reality have common sense. For Mr. Hughes facts are solid; you can make two nice, orderly l

n only in dealing with others. Yet he arrives in other than logical ways at a sureness for himself which is never Mr. Hughes's. For the Secretary of State statesmanship is an intellectual exercis

ely intellectual exercise. The practical result which was to be desired when Mr. Hughes took office was stab

act that Carranza had issued a decree making possible the confiscation of American property in Mexico, b is the principle of

bilance of the Greek philosopher who, having discovered an important principle of physics, exclaimed: "Eure

of her strong neighbor that she was never likely to do so, that the Mexican supreme court had ruled confiscation to be illegal, that the Obregon government was as stable and as go

t to have our property in Mexico respected. We should not be in any stronger legal position to intervene in Mexico if she violated the contra

shed-stability across the border and a restoration of good relations. Yet Mr. Hughes was immensely satisfied with his intellectual exercise a + b = c, c being not a solution of the Mexica

t sacredness with which he was brought up to regard the Bible. "Sanctity of contracts," is his favorite phrase, the word "sanctity" being highly significant. He has, besides, Mr. Harding over him, and the Senate to reckon with. And in the case of Mexico he has as a fellow Cabinet member, Mr. Fall, the picture in whose

hievement. But even his major achievement, the Washington conference with its

reatens, to flame up again. The problem of a real peace confronted Mr. Hughes, because Mr. Wilson had sought to establish one and failed, and had thus set a certain standar

where there was war was difficult; perhaps it was too hard for any man, but has not humanity-I say humanity because it is Mr. Harding's favorite word-has not humanity

upportable naval budgets. All wanted naval limitation. It was only

not Mr. Hughes's idea. Let us do the man in the White House justice. He conceived it on the Mayfl

s wanted it ended. Japan and England wanted it substituted by a compa

t upon naval armament and accept the Anglo-Japanese plan for a wider pact in the Pacific. The d

ious was the expedient. The idea of naval limitation was no more original than the idea of the conference. Mr. Borah had proposed it. Lord Lee had proposed it, in the British

ns of fine breeding. As you saw him in the plenary sessions clutching the lapels of his coat with both hands and modestly strugglin

this conference." Certainly as you heard the voice, moved and moving, emotional perhaps for the first time in his life, you realized that it was not Mr. Balfour, "proceeding on his f

de was Mr. Frank Simonds's, "It was invented to

UR B

nger future they will be seen to be no more than a prolongation of the intent of the Versailles treaty, confirming the di

ble as he is, events have a way of overtaking him. Remembering what happened on election night in 1916, I think one cannot sum him up better than by saying that he has the habit of always being electe

s of the Secretary of State are the limitations of a legalistic mind. The limitations of Mr. Hoover are the limitation

rce without a moment's hesitation, "for one dollar I can buy so many calories"-carrying it out to the third decimal plac

impulses; perhaps I should better say he then has men where for the free operation of his scientific mind he requires to have them. For in a famine men become mere c

orn. I do not know how to cook corn. I do not like corn." They behave in

tion had been a success and become the order of the world, Mr. Hoover might have made a great head of a state; with labor conscripted and food conscripted, all you would have to do would be to apply the food, counted in calories, to the labor, and produ

a fiction that haunts Mr. Hughes's brain; the chemical retort man, of Mr. Hoover's mind; the economic man, another convenient fiction; the s

in his mind than is Mr. Hoover, operating for the first time in a society of free, self-governing men. Or perhaps it would be a better analogy to say that if the chemist when he put an agent into a retort c

years for its accomplishment. I do not pretend that this is the final dissociation. All we know with certainty of the real Hoover is

ng, Mr. Daugherty, or Mr. Weeks as to what agents there are in the political retort, and whethe

fertile mind, which invents, however, only minor chemical reactions, neither he nor Mr. Harding being sure enough about the dirty

the Cabinet. The Attorney General lives in an unreal world of his own, which

close to the President as any other lawyer or citizen of the United States." "Standing close," men may laugh at the gods, may "take the cash and let the credit go." It is a world of little things without any tomorrow. Long views and large views do not matter. Forces? P

pped in vague sentimental words, hold sway. It is because he belongs to that world that Mr. Daugherty is Attorney General. Mr. Daugherty "stood cl

Daugherty. He is as clean and honorable a man as there is in this country." In such a world as this, your friend can do no wrong. Goldstein, who received the $2,500 from Lowden's camp

dent, to Senators, to Governors of Ohio, or Legislatures of Ohio. His was not a highly lucrative practice, for Mr. Daugherty is one of the few relatively poor men in the present Cabinet. You may deduce from th

t is what Daugherty was, always is an object of doubt. And for this reason he always seeks what is technically known as a "vindication." Conscious of his own rectitude, as he mea

to gain personally from "making a record" in the Attorney Generalship, a title and a higher standing at

ommodiously on the side of the gods. The gods may be unkind even to those who mean to be with them from the outset, establi

Felder, who "stood close" in the Morse case and who perhaps for that reason appears as counsel in the Bosch-Magneto case, where the prosecution moves slowly, and who moreover permits himself some indiscretions. There is a whole

little world, and life's, perhaps temporary, revenge upon him. No one at this writing can pass judgment, so I give, a

easily cemented together, and thus "standing close," should not have too smooth an exterior. His view of the world being highly personal, his instinctive idea of office is that it, too, is personal, something to be use

of Mr. Daugherty about organization, and half of the other persuasion about the sway of moral forces. All in all he is nearer akin mentally to the President t

ENERAL H.

and politics to business. He is a middle grounder. He quit banking satisfied wi

verything that he showed in making money; his narrowing eyes, the

ot a first-class mind for it, as his

ut they do not feel strongly about it. He never becomes the center of controversy, as Daugherty is, as Hoover has bee

appointed. Mr. Harding had said of him, "His is the best mind in the S

e Far West in the movies. His voice is always loud and angry. He h

ey don't follow me on Mexico I shall resign." He has been a negative rather than a positive

ably he is right. His biggest contribution to his country's

ace, is an excellent technical adviser

elligence. He committed political suicide cheerfully, when the Cannon machine in the House fell into disfavor. He would do anything for a friend, not as Mr. Daugherty

glad hand. When a crisis presents itself in industrial relations, Mr. Hoover, who spreads himself over several departments, attends to it.