The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-12-17
GOSSIP SAYS
HUGHES WILL
Be SECRETARY
Says Mark Sullivan - Sees
Elihu Root as Sort Of Liason
Officer With European
Statesmen.
MCCORMICK TOO Blunt
BY MARK SULLIVAN

WASHINGTON, d. c., Dec. lit
ought not to have been necessary for
Senator Harding to say that Senator
Mccormick in Europe is pot his rep
resentative. Speaking of Senator Nc
Cormick as Senator Harding's "Col.
House" is merely case of the popu-
lar disposition, occasional among all
of us, to think and write in phrases
and formulas, and is unjust to both
senators.
Senator Harding, if he felt that cour-
tesy to his predecessor permitted him
to do so, would probably say with a
good deal of emphasis that he doesn't
believe in the idea of Colonel
House" as permanent institution of
government That he doesn't propose
to have any Colonel House, and that
ii he should have a Senatorial Interna-
ional Colonel House for the conduct
of foreign affairs, he could probably
choose a senator who at least is or
has been a member of the foreign
affairs committee.
Mccormick Blunt.
Senator Mccormick, on his part,
doesn't need to be anybody's Colonel
House. and is temperamentally most
unified for that role. He is too much
given to the explosive blurting out the
truth to be a carrier or diplomatic
messages.
Moreover, he doesn't depend for his
political standing on having a Presi-
dent Wilson or anyone else to lean on.
He doesn't need to depend for his
place in the world on his standing with
any other individual. He stands
squarely on his own feet, and has his
place in the political world by virtue
of a franchise from several hundred
thousand voters of the sovereign state
of Illinois.
Individual Person.
Further than that, he is, among all
the leaders in the Republican party,
probably the one who is least adapted
to being anybody's Colonel House; by
conviction and habit he is an extreme
ly individual person. with a sharply
pungent personality, independent in
his political past and by temperament
strongly disposed to go his own gait.
Among the younger senators, the ones
in the forties, Senator Mccormick is
probably the strongest.
No one has a better right to 20 to
Europe on his own account, and no
European statesmen on an equal basis.
In his personal and official contacts
he is aggressively American, almost
belligerently American. But that
doesn't prevent his having intimate
personal relations with >European
statesmen. He has a much larger &C.
quaintance with European politicians
and leaders of thought than any other
senator.
Knows Europeans.
In the Mccormick house at Wash.
ington you are nearly always reason
ably sure to find foreign ambassador
as guest for dinner, and two or three
travelling European schalars staying
overnight. 1t was Senator Mccormick
who translated for his fellow mem
bers the speech that Premier Viviani
delivered on the floor of congress and
/ think himself once made a speech in
the French Chamber of Deputies. In
deed, 1 think one of the purposes oi
his present journey to Europe was to
deliver a series Of lectures in one oi
the Paris universities.
Gossip Picks Hughes.
In way. it is true there is no OBJ
servable disposition, not with Senator
Harding necessarily, but with the
other Republican leaders to adopt the
idea of semi-oficial Colonel House
The man these leaders have in mind
is Mr.. Root. If the current predisposi
ton and cropping surmises of all the
Republican leaders about the Secre
tary of State were distilled, the result
would look little like Charles E
Hughes as Secretary of State, with Mr.
Root in the position of a sort of liasor
officer in actual contact with the
League of Nations statesmen abroad
This may be 1000 miles from the
mind of the only man whose ideas on
the subject count for anything, name
iy Senator Harding. But in moving
about among the other Republican
leaders you find it is quite obviously
in the minds of a good many oi
them.
Copyright 1920 by The New York
Evening Post, Inc.)
nPnoJ 0lIknn AInrT "a