Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1922-06-15
PATHETIC MIR. HARDING

There was an element of pathos
in Mr.. Harding's protest to the
Washington correspondents against
the publication of criticism of his
administration. made on the floor of
the House and the Senate.
The president knows that the ad-
ministration is adrift, but he has a
simple, child-like faith that it
might be able to bump into a safe
anchorage if only means could be
devised to suppress all adverse
opinion. One might be puzzled to
explain why president with Mr..
Harding's record of unfailing cen
sure toward everything that Mr..
Wilson did should be so sensitive
about criticism of his own admins
tration, but while Mr.. Harding
holds the same office that Mr.. Will
son held, he is not in the same po-
sition.
Mr.. Wilson was president of the
United States in his own right, and
Mr.. Harding, like Mr.. Taft, is
proxy president. The difference is
that Mr.. Taft was elected as Mr..
Roosevelt's proxy and Mr.. Harding
is the Old Guards proxy. Mr.. Hard
ing knows that he was not nomi-
mated for president in order to have
policies and programmes of his own,
but to serve as a rubber stamp for
1.-The best minds of the party.
Among these best minds is Harry
NJ Daugherty, who made the ar
rangements at Chicago for the
Harding nomination and is the
chief liaison officer of the admins
tration. Whenever there is a job of
plain or fancy fixing to be done it
devolves on Mr.. Daugherty.
Naturally the president is indig-
nant when Republican congress-
men attack Mr.. Daugherty and de-
mand an investigation of the De-
partment of Justice He is no less
indignant when Republican newspa-
pers publish these attacks and sup
port the congressman who are in
sistent on an investigation. This
is all contrary to the code of Ohio
politics in which Mr.. Harding was
trained, and he cannot understand
it, so ne talks about political
blackmailers" and urges the CORES.
pondents to put on the brakes. ]"
BY this he means that they should
not print anything said or done in
congress which might embarrass the
administration.
Ordinarily Mr.. Harding is calm,
placid person. but government is
getting on his nerves. His party is
shot to pieces and the advice that he
receives from the leaders is usually
bad advice If he were a strong
president he would long ago have
taken charge of the situation, de-
veloped a programme Of his own
and made his fight fOr it, but he is
not a strong president and would
never have been nominated if there
had been the faintest possibility
that he might develop into one. He
sees his administration crumbling,
he watches the record Of congress
grow from had to worse. he finds
that popular discomfort within the
party is steadily increasing, and SO
he begins TO scold the correspond
ents for writing the news.
The cold. unpalatable >ruth is
that Mr.. Harding holds an office
for which he is not qualified by
training or temperament, but he
might be doing better with it if the
! leaders of his party in congress had
been more intelligent or if they had
ever run straight with him. While
Mr.. Wilson was president Mr.. Hard
ing made the historical remark that
government. after all, is a very
simple thing" 1t has already prov
ed so complicated in Mr.. Harding's
own case that the best he can do is
to ask the country to stop talking
about it, even when public morals
are shocked by a Daugherty scan
dal.-N. Y. World.