Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1916-05-04


- " EWTON D. BAKER," l had been told
by a man well acquainted with him,
sis the kind of thoroughly good citi-
zen we all approve of highly-and
f\ fail to initiate! He has lofty ideals.
M~ Y He has high principles. He is utterly
EAzM sincere. He is simple and unaffected
III both in thought and life. He has a
NA~A clear, well-disciplined mind. He has
IMESl5sU an extraordinary command of concise
KN@&W and effective speech. Without being
in the least ELUSIVE, he is a good
mixer. You will find him full of charm. Out in
cleveland he lived in a modest frame house with
his wife and three children, smoked flake tobacco
in a 25-cent pipe, drove his own Ford, and for
amusement read Greek and Latin books on the
street cars" Thus runs an article by Rowland
Thomas in the New York World.
1T is interesting to notice" my informant added,
that he is the second of Tom Johnson's disciples
70 be lifted into prominence by President Wilson.
Brand Whitlock is the other. 1t is hardly exagger-
alton to say that Brand Whitlock, in Belgium, has
proved himself a great man. Will Baker be as
successful in the war department.? Frankly,
much as like him personally, / am wondering
whether he will measure up to the job. What he
mas done he has done well. But-he has never
been tested out in really big affairs. Has he the
capacity for them? You know a .3S-caliber re-
volVer may be a perfect weapon-as a revolver
put IdH ldHenIaDIy IL pressed into service as a
seacoast gun! Is Newton o. Baker big enough to
be secretary of war at a time like this? That's
what I'm asking myself. That's what the country
lis asking itself, l think"
Naturally those remarks ran through my head
tas l talked with the new secretary of war last
week. | saw him twice, once in his modest bed
room at the University club, where he is living
for the present as a bachelor because the children
are in school in Cleveland and we don't want to
fbreak into their vpar - Thu cnnnud fina he xuoc
DIN his office in the war department, the office to
which one penetrates through that dread ante
chamber where hang the portraits of all the previ-
ous incumbents Of the office,
On both occasions I got the same impression
of the physical man. Nature, in molding his body,
ibid a neat job. He is a markedly small man, but
lin proportion all the way through. His littleness
carries no suggestion of the dwarish. His head
lis large, but not enough so to make him look top
heavy. His hands and feet are of moderate size,
well formed and muscular. He has a chest big
enough to breathe in, a waist which carries no
fadipose luggage. His skin is swarthy, his hair
black and straight. A pair Of hazel eyes full Of
life, but comprehensive rather than keen; the
wide mouth of an orator or actor, mobile yet firm
Iof lip; the brow Of a scholar; a face in general in
(which the perpendicular lines of strength are ac-
tcentuated, a manner at once dignifed and friendly,
ia bearing which | should call attentive rather than
alert-these are the characteristics of the outward
man.
His mentality is not SO easily characterized. /
shall have to try to bring it out for you in a series
of rather detached glimpses, as he himself re-
vealed it to me in the course of our conversation.
Our talk ranged over many topics. we had, for
instance, been speaking of the extraordinary
amount of reading of standard English authors
he had done before he was twenty years old, and
Il asked him whether the familiarity of his mother
tongue thus acquired had not been an important
element in his various successes. He said: Il
think that is true. Ability to express myself eff
~fectively in speech has been Of great value to me"
This led to a brief sketch of his personal his
tory. Mr.. Baker was born in 1871 in Martinsburg,
Nv. Va, a community of 5000 persons, wherein his
father was the leading physician. He was the
second of four sons. At the age Of twenty, in
1891, he received his degree of Bachelor of Arts
from Johns Hopkins university, having completed
the four years course in three years. Followed q
year of graduate work in Roman law, comparative
jurisprudence and economics, and then his law
course, which he took at Washington and Lee uni
versity, completing the two years work in one
+ year. "That compression" he told me-, was done
flor family reasons. Money was not plentiful in
a country doctors family, and there were other
sons to educate" After his graduation In 1885,
mfr. Baker hung out his single in Martinsburg to
indicate that he was willing to practice law" az
he puts IL, and remained in that receptive condi
tion until 1896, the last year Of the Cleveland ad
ministration, when Postmaster General Wilson
called him to Washington to be his private sec
Fetary. 81 divided my two cases between the othei
members of the local bar" he told me, land went.
In 1899 Mr.. Baker was invited to come to Cleve
land. o., as a partner with Foran & McTigue, one
of the city's leading firms Of trial lawyers. Hi
went there, met Tom Johnson and was magne
tized; by that association was drawn into loca
politics and had fourteen years of active cam
~paigning there, serving four terms as city solicitor
under Mayor Johnson and two terms as mayo
after his chief was deposed. He declined to ruI
for a third term, and had just resumed his Law
practice at the beginning of this year when he wal
called to Washington.
Returning to our topic, / asked him to wha
other qualities besides his ability as a speaker hi
felt indebted for what he had accomplished. HI
pondered that and said:
MAKES WORK FOR LAuNDRIEs.