The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-06-24
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY E. HOUSE.
(From Philadelphia Public LedeerJ
In RETROSPECT and a Forecast.


How did you come to pick Hard
ing?" writes reader who recalls
prophecy made in the column some
two or three months ago. WAS it
another case of fool for luck or did
you have the inside info?" We had
such information as Is available to any
man who sits, day by day, at a desk
and reads and digests the newspapers
that come to 1t. We resent the sug
gestion that We may have been IA
vored by luck. AS newspaper man
We have fingered SO long on the fringe
of politics that We no longer are sur
charged with its enthusiasms, blinded
| by its illusions or swept by its emo
tional disturbances. The trail of the
Republican nomination led directly to
Harding or a man of his type. And
Harding lowered well above any other
candidate suggested in the premises.
1t was apparent three months be-
fore the. date of the convention that
no candidate under consideration
could gather strength enough TO
sweep it. That meant the leaders of
the Republican organization would, in
! the end. make or dictate the nomina-
| ton. They didn't want Wood and UNI
der no circumstances would have
taken him. Not that they had any
thing against the doughty general.
They conceded TO him strength of
/
high order. But they figured a mill
tary candidate with a leaning toward
compulsory military training would
inevitably be beaten. The country has
just been thru considerable amount
OF military training and is fed up"
/ on 1t. 1t was matter of party pres
! ervatfon to beat Wood in the conyen-
ton. Wood having failed to sweep
| the country. there never was any
doubt that he would be eliminated
when the time came. Lowden was
/ looked upon by the organization with
greater favor. He was in many ways,
! the type of candidate desired. But he
was an uninspiring figure closely al
lied to one of the most literally abused
of the corporations, and he had been
careless with his check book. Probabl
he had sucked no greater number of
eggs than any other of the leading
| candidates, but he had disdained to
hide the shells. Had it been necessary
to take Lowden TO beat Wood the or
ganiZation would have taken him. But
it didn't really want him. And it had
no concern for Johnson's pretensions
! other than to hope that by stroking
him softly with a velvet glove it might
keep him and his nondescript mass of
followers in the party and IN line for
the ticket. Save for later revelations
concerning the expenditure of vast
sums If money by the leading candi-
dates. that was the situation when the
Harding prophecy was printed in the
column.
And there was Harding's tall and
imposing figure looming in the back
ground. He had an established repu-
tation as a statesman of sorts and a
sflrery tongue. He was the type de-
sired. His dignified campaign had Of
Tended none of the other candidates
Harding had ratified no skeletons.
| probed no open wounds and had left
no burning animosities in his wake. He
had refrained from clashing with ths
'favorite" sons. and his campaign
budget had not been under official
scrutiny. He was a candidate made to
| order for situa ton almost certain to
rise. No inside information was need
! ed to pick him as the probable legatee
| OF the Republican organization.
We no longer have political enthu-
| Siasms. We can contemplate the work
| of the Republican convention without
and Notwithstanding it is a whale of a
ticket. 1t has. as yet. aroused no great
enthusiasm. But ii will before the
| campaign is over. The Republican
Americans who. born in the dirt of
obscurity. have achieved eminence
thru their own efforts. and has nomi-
mated them for president and vice
i president. 1t Is a ticket that comes
clean. Both branches of it bark back
thru generations of cIean-cut Ameri-
canIsm to humble poverty and honest
toll. There is no faint upon either
branch. Senator Harding may not be
a great statesman. Nobody knows.
| But he is a clean. outstanding Ameri-
can citizen who worked his passa ge.
and he lives in an old fashioned house
in a country town. Come eventide he
puts his feet upon the railing of a
wide porch and looks out upon a big
front yard sodded to bluegrass and
studded with sugar naples. To fifty
millions of people in this country that
Is the real symbol of Americanism.
Pictures of the Harding home in Mar
ion and of the Coolidge semidetached
! cottage in Northampton will make
! more votes for the Republican ticket
| this fall than all of the oratory cast to
the four winds in the battle of the
| pustings.
| At any rate. that is the reaction of
!