THE PRESIDENT IN THE MIDST OF A DELEGATION "There is a certain engaging frankness about the man that usually goes with the possession of superb physical powers, a something that subconsciously says that he is more than a physical match for the men that he meets and therefore does not need subterfuge to protect him" "No description of life at the White House would be complete unless it included an account of Mrs. Harding, because she is an integral part of her husband's life. She has a graciousness all her own that makes you feel at home if you are visiting the White House" men out of work. He is particularly anxious that the period of reconstruction and readjustment be quickly brought to a happy conclusion, and that the wisest measure to produce this result be speedily found. He is particularly pleased to have the constructive assistance of Herbert Hoover in his Cabinetto assist in this reconstruction. Mr. Harding has been accused of being a representative of the Old Guard and a strict partisan of big business. Mr. Harding's position is that he is interested in the return of prosperity Capital and Labor is that both must be protected in their rights, and that neither shall be discriminated against. He is opposed to measures that have a socialistic import, as tending to destroy vested rights. An no transcendent genius, and, very strange to say, one who clearly recognizes this fact, and is willing to accept advice and counsel of men perhaps abler than he. A man conscious of his present power, but who has no desire to force his will upon his fellow workers on whose shoulders coequally rest the responsibilities of government. honest man, honest with himself and with the public. A man of good judgment and entire practicality. A generous, kind-hearted, and thoughtful man. Thoughtful of his subordinates, generous to his adversaries, and cordial to his equals. A man whose head has not been turned by the honors thrust upon him. A plain, every-day, practical man without illusions or visionary ideas. A man that is a supporter of stable government. A man intensely American in his instinct. A man under whom the power of the executive will voluntarily fall lower than it has for the last twenty-five years. Incidentally there are many who believe with Mr. Harding that the reduction of Presidential authority is urgently necessary for the preservation of our democratic form of government. MR. CHRISTIAN, PRESIDENT HARDING'S SECRETARY "President Harding, to his subordinates at the White House, is thoughtfulness and kindness personified. more considerate of them than he is of himself" to America and he believes that concessions must be made by both Labor and Capital to secure this desired end. He does not believe that Labor should be discriminated against, nor on the other hand that business should be harassed as a demagogic measure to secure popular support. He recognizes that prosperity cannot come as long as there is a feeling of insecurity for Capital, and consequently is opposed to measures tending to destroy confidence in the stability of investments. His position, then, upon He is One of the Strongest Groups of Presidential Advisers and Department Heads in a Generation. Their Personal Talents and Peculiarities Y BY MARK SULLIVAN OU can state it either way: You can say that Charles E. Hughes is the cornerstone of the Cabinet because he is in the State Department, and the State Department is the post that must bear the greatest load. Or you can say that Mr. Hughes would be a cornerstone anywhere you put him, and that he was put in the State Department because that is the place where a cornerstone is most needed. As it happens, Hughes is the cornerstone of the Cabinet in even a further sense, for to those who followed the Cabinet-making closely it seemed fairly evident that Hughes was the first member chosen and that the rest of the Cabinet was built from him upward. After Harding had been elected, after he had cleared his desk at Marion, after he had taken the rather disastrous vacation trip to Texas which turned out much too tumultuous for any quiet thinking, and after he had boarded a ship to go to Panama-then occurred probably the earliest moment when he was able to put an undistracted mind on the first and biggest of his new tasks. Those who accompanied him think it was just at that time that the name of Hughes occurred to him, and that when it did occur to him he had the air of relief of a man who sees an opening through his troubles. The filling of the State Department threatened Harding with many difficulties. Many of his old associates in the Senate, and most of the men who had served with him on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, had strong ideas of their own as to who should conduct our diplomatic relations. It was a time when the angry emotions of the campaign and of the League of Nations fight had not yet quieted down; and the irreconcilable Senators, still in the mood of a victorious dog that continues to chew at his victim, wanted a Secretary of State who should be of their own thought in thoroughgoing opposition to the League. Some of them, indeed, thought that one of their own number-one who had fought shoulder to shoulder with them against the Leagueshould be chosen, and there was much public and pointed suggestion to the effect that Senator Knox should be the one. On the other hand, there was a large group of Republican leaders, and important Republicans in private life, who deplored the thought that the work of constructing a new bridge from America to Europe should be put in the hands of any one who had been publicly and avowedly unfriendly to all that Europe has been doing for two years past. This group wanted Mr. Elihu Root, and in this wish they were reënforced by large numbers of thoughtful and disinterested people, who based their argument on the sound ground that our foreign affairs should be entrusted to the hands of the one American who has had the largest experience with them. Temperamentally, Senator Harding is a man whom it would always pain to do a thing that savors of truculence. Sympathetic understanding of the feeling of others and consideration for them is almost a guiding trait with him; and unquestionably there would have been the flavor of truculence toward foreign statesmen, already justly sensitive about our diplomatic manners, in appointing, as the official who must have personal relations with them, any one of the irreconcilable Senators. Such a choice could not avoid having the effect of added injury to the feelings of our late Allies, who had fought with us during the war, who had at our official solicitation joined with us in forming a league of nations, and had then seen that league repudiated by the Senate group. On the other hand, it was clear that Harding hesitated about naming Root, probably almost wholly for reasons that "just happened." Harding and Root have qualities of personality markedly dissimilar, and of the sort of dissimilarity which might have made one or both ill at ease in the kind of close association that must exist between a President and his Secretary of State. To a mind so troubled, when the thought of Hughes |