New-York tribune., 1922-07-05
Harding Sees End Of Liberty
In Domination by Classes
tcontInusd from page oao

(Cbntinueo Ivuh' pdpo oue}
said, "denies to minority fancied
sense of personal liberty, but the
amendment is the will Of America ana
must be sustained by the government
the law will undermine our very foun-
dations."
sMy friends and neighbors," Presi-
dent Harding began before reading
from his manuscript, ait is pretty hard
to be President and perfectly natural
and normal. Some days when you have
exercised infinite pa&i ience and toler-
ance and have had the assistance of
your friends who have some measure
able degree of wisdom, you retire at
night and think the world is going to
roll along all right, but when the re-
turning tide comes in it is the same
old story over and over again, You
see when everything goes lovely. the
President never knows anything about
it, but when there is struggle he be-
comes the chief sponsor. For example,
here sits in gray distinguished son
Of Ohio, General Dawes, who has in
augurated for you and for me the bud
get system of government. General
Dawes will go out to save $5,000,000
and never tell me word about it, but
if some one in the government spends
thousand more than is needed he
comes in to me with a kick.
eff there is anybody in Marion who
feels that l have sighted him he must
understand it just isn't possible to
greet every one. would love to have
the personal touch with all of you,
just as anybody in Marion. l wish
could stay little longer. ! will well
come. the day when I can come back
to stay with you permanently. 1t is a
very fine thing to be President of the
United States, and it is good to keep
on thinking it, because when you wake
up from your dream you will find it q
very different thing"
Centennial of Marion
Launching into his prepared address,
the President said:
"1t is exceedingly good to come home
and meet with you again and join you
in the centennial celebration of the
founding of Marion. Frankly, it would
be preferable to come simply as q
Marionite and speak as one, because
it is easily possible for me to feel q
peculiar intimacy toward such an oc-
casion.
~ cannot justify claim to any great
but as q newspaper worker for more
than third of century have done
lot Of cheering, which is no less es-
! sential to the forward movement in q
community than it is in football or
baseball. Amid the cheering and boost
| ing | did my share Of observing and
| recording, and could relate things in
teresting to you of Marion, but they
would seem rather trivial to that larger
community which is habituated to ex-
pect some form of broadcasting to
every Presidential utterance.
"An interesting reminder Of tho in
escapable responsibility. for Presiden-
tial utterance came to me year ago
was on a brief vacation in the noun
tains of New Hampshire, and my gen
erous host said we must go to the
nearby village, which had been his boy
hood home, and meet the people who
would be assembled. We motored down
the mountain; we had most agreeable
meeting, and l spoke extemporaneously
for probably fifteen minutes. Sixty
days later there came to my desk q
newspaper published in Peking. China
with verbatim reprint of the speech.
"Of course there was nothing in
one fit for public service viii! ever
"My thought iso that, ordinarily,
there is time and place for particular
speech, but in the Presidential Office
all times and all places, are AyeEy much
alike! tFherea may be a justiRed pride
in the manifest interest Of all of our
own people and the world being in
terested in what the United States gov
ernment is thinking or saying, but /
confess being human enough to wish
to talk of the intimate things relating
to Marion, without misconstruction or
misapplication -~,,-
"There is very much Of the latter
Maybe it will not be unseemly to re-
late an instance. Several weeks ago,
when the returning tide of industrial
activity made the time seem oppor-
tune, invited some forty or fifty
captains Of the great iron and steel
industry to dine with me, to confer
about the abolition OF the twelve-hour
work day. I did not choose to pro-
claim the purpose in advance, because
dislike the tendency to promise ex-
cessively and accomplish inadequately.
Imagine my surprise, yea, my amuse-
ment, to read in an important metro
politan newspaper that I was dining
the steel barons to shake them down
for the deficit in campaign funds of
1920.
Good to Talk of Marion
ut would be good to talk about
Marion, just among ourselves. know
nothing more interesting to any man
than his own community. If he isn't
interested he isn't good citizen.
"A century sounds like long while
as first impression, but after all it is
| only little while. There are COM
munities in the world ten or twenty
centuries old not half so important
in world activities to-day; perhaps
they have contributed to human prog
ress infinitely less in all their time
than Marion has in one century. Nay,
in shorter time than that, for the
Marion we boast has been really only
half century in the making.
~ moan no dsparagement of the
older aAd earlier citizenship of sturdy
Gut lte-s which pioneered the way.
Theirs was great and highly essential
work in blazing the way for the pres
ent day civilization. 1t required strong
men and noble women to turn wilder
ness into worthwhile habitations.
Malaria and plague sorely tried human
bodies, even though souls cheerfully
resisted.
General Pershing hos ,poken of the
fearless colonists, and ne ought to re-
we're them for their surprising bequest
of liberty and nationality, but the
builders of the West, the men and
women who marched with the west
ward star Of EMPIRE were no less
la l.