The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-12-25
PRESIDENT JOB
 IS MANKILLINC
 WRITES KANSAN

Tr. president will moi be at his work for a long time Probably he !. never may take his place again as ~ leader in American politics Foolish . 'E If. 0.t.n1 haro surround his con, . #""nr wtrh mystery And naturally
 . unt naying rhr facts makes
 .' -. mon say first that he is
 Hf..ne from complete nervous col . lapse. secondly that he has suffered . mH aroplattc stroke and third that ... has a broken blood vessel at the h... of his brain
 Tn. only thing known is that his m'w.nf is nervousness and that it affects his capacity for future leader . ship r probably comes from over strain. oror-trafn probably upon the arteries of tho sixties slowly, tho n.m.ruely aging under such a load o. responsibility as no other man .sn. lad on earth before.
 . ". Ma. created in America a ! political institution called the presi- '.n,y which must mean a death sen tence to the man who functions fully under 5t Every year for score ] of years the institution has been ac- . cumu1attng power and with the power . comes a tremendous responsibility which hardly can be- delegated.
 IT,. power is legal and constitu- H.aaI The responsibility is largely extra legal and superconstttuttonal t1r none the less a vital function of ] H." office of president The power comes with the administrative work
 mtrnd to keep the greatest single ! executive unit on earth going every day
 Cabinet members who are directly responsible for this administrative
 ~"l of course. look after the de tails. but the administrative policy 1 rhe -eIoction of the chiefs under the cabinet members must come before 1 the president The more or less .ntimate knowledge of what is doing in thousand great activities all over the land and all over the earth in ..e.ur days must be always in the andthfs consciousness i al Iii. power quite apart from the . f.alu' weight of its responsibility must croat a physocoIogical impact anon the mind and d strain upon the heart which will grind youth out of any human body. however hard that body may be
 l Then add 10 the merciIess sense of lower. and stin more awful sense of responsibility that comes from the taer of political leadership. and we have a Frankenstein of human duties made by a free people to curse the man they choose to lead them which makes their choice curse
 ! And as if that were not enough we ar. about to force upon the president . leadership of all the nations of the earth For, if the league of nations works. it will work only because . America leads it. And America who i takes world power and assumes world responsibility.
 Icarus tried to fly to heaven, He gor so near the sun his wings melted. We have built slowly an institution called the presidency which is so big no man can live who fills it.
 What a child is humanity trying to take from God the powers of destiny
 However that may be, it is interest ing 10 American readers to know how 1 congress has shriveled under the growing power of the presidency.
 It is not Wilson's power Roosevelt took it; he had to take it or fail. Taft tried to shirk it. tried to be a presi- dent under old constitutional lmita- tious and the people cast him out in . conrumely because he would not kill . himself in their service.
 The president constitutionally is . supposed to pass upon laws submitted ] by congress. As a matter of fact ! when a president comes into office his party comes with him, and he has to draft laws, to submit policies virtual 1 ly, 10 say what congress should do and what it should not do, to be the prime mover in national legislation.
 More than that the president must prepare public opinion for his policies, must eXhort, advertise, and be the voice interpretive between his party council and the entire people The second year of his administrative either sees a new party come in or he sees his own party indorsed