The Washington herald., 1921-03-14
COMMON SENSE AMERICANISM,
WITH THEATRICALISM ABSENT,
CHARACTERISTIC OF HUGHES
Harding's Secretary of State Talks With Com
plete Franlkness of Grave Tasks.

iceiiHb tHdt NO dhy Sdpltdii<ihS 'he
common griefs and common trials
of the past and no enemy enveloped
in the cloak of contrition is going
to put anything over on US. II they
tried to. there would be Charles
Evans Hughes standing between.
and his attitude would be "All right.
III have the law on ye."
He likes the phrase. lin the last
analysis" for its convenience. and
his mind estimates things ''in the
last analysis" while other minds
are puttering over them in their
superficial aspects, their indirec-
tions and their possibilities
He swings back on your questions
with answers like this:
For your information. there's
nothing in it,
Or this. apropos Of the news from
Russia via every country sexcept
Russia:
Russian reports we get are very
conflicting and. from the standpoint
of information. very unsatisfac-
tory"
Or again, in exploding yarn
about an alleged policy:
Such action-I might put IL this
way-will not be necessary"
welsh to Meet Welsh.
One of the most heartenine
thoughts that came to. me while
giving heed to his words and in
tently reaching for his personality
was that one Welshman Is now 60
ing to have to talk business with
another Welshman, and the thought
filled me with an impious kind of
glee, for I know the Welsh pretty
well. Hughes is OF emphatic Welsh
extraction. His mother was a Con-
nelly of the Scotch-Irish Connellys,
but her son comes also of the same
family that produced Joseph
Hughes. the great London Baptist
preacher.
Within a month he will be So
years old and have the notion that
the gray-eyed. pleasant voiced.
erect. smiling man is physically,
mentally and spiritually in the
prime of his career. There was an
effect Of certainty in the poise, the
tone and the sentences of him that
sent the onlooker to that conclu-
sion. He stood Throughout the talk
which was long, as such talks go
sometimes with both hands thrust
| deep in his trousers pockets and
sometimes with them loosely
clasped in front of him. He doomed
very tall. and very erect as he stood
and there was no constraint in his
manner. While he talked he tee
tered little on his feet but did the
lettering on one spot That trick
brought back to me the story of
how the father taught him to stay
put.
| You move about SO much when
you recite your lessons" said the
father So Charlie" selected a seam
in the carpet as a deadline and toed
1t. and did his teetering there,
| Uses But One Gesture.
He used a firm. spacious gesture.
which l shall have to call a swim
ming kind of gesture (his only one)
with which TO enforce words that
swept away rumor, speculative and
Excitement and 1t was exhilaratinS
to watch-both arms sweeping out
In front Of him and then coming
down decisively.
His smile is very winning and
spontaneous and he uses it with
charming effect in greeting, but he
seems to smile more with his eyes
than his lips. He smiled with spe-
cial courtlines when he had to re-
fuse to answer a question and al
ways he would turn, with rather
| hattering attention direct to the
man who Questioned him.
@An Immense Impersonality.-
His note, / would say, both in
personality and views, was quiet
reasonablsness, and yet, as i have
tried to tell you. there was some
thing very heartening in both.
He was like q man saying to you:
Friend, this is the right thing
and 1t Is the thing that is going to
be-"
His words SO compelled and
steadied me that the personality
did not SO much occupy me as 1t
usually does In these interviews.
In fact, somebody in talking Of
Hughes once asked. what Is his
personality iike?'
The reply was: He has none.
He is an immense impersonality."
One thing he certainly is not
and that Is smirking diplomat
trying to play-act Talleyrand.
have seen something af those evil
birds in other lands. Europe is to-
Gay what II Is because of them.
Best of all is he Is an American
sane, proud and civil, and when we
left his ante-room I heard one or
my countrymen say to another,
Isn't that the first American voice