The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1920-07-09
GEORGE B. LOCKWOOD.
A BUSINESS MAN
FOR PRESIDENT
George B. Lockwood in the National
Republican

business man by occupation to become
President of the United States.
There have been n president, hold
ing Office of chief executive through
out a period of 131 years; all soldiers,
lawyers, planters or publicists by pro-
fession; not business man by occu-
patton in the whole long line. War
rem G. Harding will be the first bus
mess man and the first newspaper
man to succeed to the office.
Yet the office of President deals
with the biggest business concern on
earth-the United States of America.
The American government is great
corporation in which a hundred and
ten million people are stock holders.
From that corporation the people
must draw dividends, or to it they
must pay assessments. 1t deals vi
tally with the welfare Of private trade
and industry, upon which depends
the material prosperity of all these
millions. Yet until now, in all our
century and third of history, not one
business man by occupation for the
biggest business post on earth!
Under the present national admins
tration the government has broken
down completely on the business side.
1t was a Democratic senator who de-
clared that under the present man.
agement every department had col
lapsed. Through lack of competent
business direction the machinery of
government has been so incompetent
ly handled that the situation calls
loudly for the services Of a salvage
corps. Waste, extravaganza, incom-
potency, ineficiency, have cost the
people billions. They have heaped
huge burdens of taxation on the backs
of the people, They have under
mined the faith of the people in their
government. They nearly lost the
war through the failure to furnish
our soldiers at the front with proper
equipment, and through a debauch
of waste at home that brought infla-
ton, profiteering, decentralization in
public and private affairs, in it's wake.
These abuses, due to lack Of business
sense on the part, primarily, of the
President of the United States, still
menace the very solvency and safety
of the nation.
Along with all this break down in
the management of the nations own
business affairs, has been a totally
wrong attitude on the part of govern
ment toward legitimate business en-
terpris, accompanied by an effort to
make the government itself the uni
versal employer and provider. The
machinery of government has been
utilized, under the camouhage of war
necessity, to politicalize industry.
More interested in politics than in
business, for which the head of the ad-
ministration confesses aristocratic
scorn, the aim has been to build up
the public payrolls and destroy the
private payrolls of the country. We
have had, as someone has well put it,
too much of politics in business and
too little of business in politics.
Out of this chaos comes loudly the
call for the reconstructing hand of
real business man; one who has actu-
ally wrought in the field of practical
business affairs. The answer to that
call is the Republican nominee for
President, Warren G.. Harding, who,
in a typical American community,
built large and thriving business,
under adverse conditions, from the
ground up, and who, through years of
actual contact with men and things in
ha hue
mess means and how it should pro-
perly be conducted.
There is a world of theories and
words, and world of things and
deeds. Too many processing to be
statesmen dwell in the former, and
too often, charged with great respon-
sibility, they make mess of practi
cal affairs. Warren G. Harding is a
product of the school of practical ex-
perience; a graduate of "the univer-
sity of hard knocks. The great bus
mess problems of government, now
foremost because of the oppressive
burdens Of taxation, the vital neces-
sity of recognizing the government
on a business basis, and the immedi-
ate need of giving to American bust
ness enterprise and American agricul-
ture and American labor the encour-
agement essential to ward off wide
spread commercial calamity as the af-
termath of war-these conditions call
for man in the Presidency who in
the world of practical affairs has
learned to deal with business prob
lens in business way.
And so, in response to this immedi-
ate, pressing need, Warren G. Hard
ing will be the nations first business
man by occupation in the Presidenc,
of the United States.