The Wheeling intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1903-1961, 1921-05-21
BY MARK SULLIVAN.
National Political Correspondent
Of Tho Jptalli 0apcer


of The Intelligencer.
Washington. May 21.-Both for those
who try to understand a complex thing
and those who try to make 1t clear are
various devices for simplicity. or these.
one Of the most frequently useful is {,
picture a situation in terms Of the men
who figure in it. 1t Is part OF that
philosophy which says that what will
come out Of any situation will always
be whatever is the net resultant OF the
pulling and hauling Of the strong men
in 1t, and that the whole tangle OF the
world altogether comes down to strong
men seeking their own ends in their own
ways. sometimes at cross purposes,
sometimes in cooperation.
Such q picture Of Washington begins,
of course, with President Harding. His
dominant trait and purpose continue to
he as in the beginning, harmony. good
feeling, and back to normally" But
everybody has learned by this time that
while to President Harding harmony
means extreme consideration for tho
rights and feelings of others. 1t is as
far as possible from meaning willing
ness to abandon his own purposes or
easy-going compromise.
President Harding will squirm and
shrink from doing or saying n disagree
able thing; he will show obvious dis
comfort in his resistance to those who
want him to do what his own judgment
does not endorse: he will go 10 any
J length to leave q good taste IN the
mouth Of one who Is necessarily dis
appointed at the end Of transaction
with him-but in the end President
Harding follows his own ends az stead
lily and surely as any public man IN
Wa shington.
II is a striking fact that this Prcsi-
dent who was to be the creature or I.
senatorial obligarchy" has given the
senate, in his soft spoken way, more re-
Dukes than it ever had from any prcsi
dent in the same length Of time rresi-
dent Harding has his own program
about our foreign relations, and his own
determination to support the secretary
Of state, who is his own choice. That
! program goes forward slowly and stead
lily and. in the judgment OF all except
very few. satisfactorily.
washington's Strongest Group.
The strongest group Of men in Wash
ington, in the narrow sense Of resolute
men determined upon their own pur-
poses, is the irreconcilables Of the SEN
ate. Whether you like the fight they
It by sheer determination and tho will
| ingness to stake their own political eX-
istences on the outcome. For the pres
ent the irreconcilablcS are not as dis
satisfied as many reports imply. In the
| rejection Of the league of nations they
won q 100 per cent victory. and the slow
and gradual building of our new bridge
to Europe Is not likely to revive the
organized opposition of the past two
years.
BY most ways Of judging. Secretary
Hoover Is the biggest man in Washing
ton. His engineering training. his bust
, ness experience and the quality OF his
mind give him the kind of grasp on the
universe that small town grocer has
on his own business. If the country
should ever determine to hire a general
manager and leave everything to him
there would be no other candidate in
Hoover's class.
or politics Hoover knows nothing
whatever. He works out plan, then
finds that for political or for personal
reasons 1t can't be made to work. and
abandons il in the spirit in which he
would yield to an insuperable obstacle
in an engineering problem. The picture
that most Of us in Washington have is
| Of Hoover and Hughes united in fur
ance on our foreign affairs.
For the purpose of those European
problems which arc most immediate
these two arc the big men Of the cab-
net. Some Of the irreconcilable senator's
are suspicious of Hoover and Hughes
as not having shared the irreconcilable
attitude towards the league of nations.
But this suspicion Is a decreasing guam
tity, and every indication promises 4
smooth working out Of our foreign
problems by President Harding and his
advisers.
Concern About Hoovsr's Health.
Hoover works too hard. He plunges
into work in the spirit Of headlong self
forgetfulness with which some men so
into dissipation. Just lately there has
been some concern about Hoover'S
health, and his friends have been en-
gagged IN an effort to remind him that
he Is too big an asset to the country and
the world to be impcrillcd by neglect.
Hoover even at his best always looks
little tired. Keynes. in his book on the
peace conference, speaks of Hoover as
"lookingolike a tired. Titan"
Hughes also shows the strain a little.
When SGughes came to Washington on
the 4th Of March he had the spirit IF
galloping into his new duties. He still
WORKS haro, Out tnere IS enough dllllhu-
ton Of his exuberant vitality to be n"-
ticeable and to give concern to these
who realize how much rests on him.
President Harding also is little tired.
When you watch him at one Of thos e
big receptions shaking hands with lorg
lines Of visitors you can notice his tirel
personality, graspine at even that few
seconds of rest which his tired features
can get between shaking hands with
one man and beaming on the next
II the writer seems to lay unusual
emphasis on the mere element OF fatigue
in public men, 1t is because any one who
reported the peace conference knows
better than tho public commonly does
how devastating a thing fatigue may Ia
and how much 1t has had to DO with