The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-12
PRESS ON WARREN G. HARDING

PRESS ON WARREN G. HARDING
 An untimely death is a relative thing. A man who dies before his appointed task is completed dies un- timely, no matter what his years. Mir. Harding's death was untimely both in point of years and with respect to the unfinished nature of his task. For that reason it will always be impossi- ble to present a complete estimate of his career and record as president of the United States. As the months passed by, he was becoming a better president, both because he was be- coming better understood and because he himself was gaining better un- derstanding. Nevertheless, the press of the nation has sought to appraise his short tenure of office both in the light of it's permanent effect upon our history, and in it's revelation of liar ding himself.
 It is curious how much of the com ment deals with Harding the man, rather than with Harding the chief executive. Doubtless he himself would have preferred it so. Thus the Wash ington Post; "The kindliness that em- .anated so naturally from MT. Harding made it comparatively easy for him to accomplish progress toward better things, where other men, equally gifted Intellectually but deficient in heart, would have failed. He per suaded the strongest nations on earth to quit building rival fleets of battle ships. That is the greatest single stroke toward universal peace that has ever been accomplished. MT. Harding achieved this feat largely through his personality, operating upon the per- sonal sentiments of the men who gov ern Europe and Japan. The heads of governments not only admired MT. Harding, but they were warmed by his geniality and inspired by his simple idealism. He uttered no lofty rhetoric, but went straight to the point with optimism and American common sense. Whatever he asked other nations to do he pledged the United States to do. He made his good faith unmistakable, but he did more than that-he made his good will equally unmistakable. Hence the great governments found themselves under the obligation to meet him upon his own ground. There was no diplomacy in his methods, as diplomacy is understood. He did not play one government against another, or hold secret conferences with any of them. Each knew that it was re- ceiving the treatment accorded its associates"
 Another personal tribute is given by the New York Herald: "Men will forget that he was called away before he had opportunity to show the height of his qualities. They may forget, when something that he started in his modest, quiet way has grown to great ness, that he began it. They may cease to wonder whether he would have grown greater if God had spared him. But they will not forget the character of one whose besetting fault, if it may be called so, was an unwill- ingness to wound any man."
 Similar expression is given by the Tampa Tribune of the far South "Whatever may be the judgment of impartial history upon MT Harding as a president, there is no dispute as to his admirable personality and his good intentions. He had the genial and democratic spirit of the newspaper man and he was noted for the warmth and unselfishness of his friendships as we'll as for his approachability In many repects, he was the most demo- cratic of our recent presidents. He did not dote on style or dignity. While he esteemed fully the greatness and responsibility of the high office he held, he always recognized that he was, after all, only man, a plain American citizen, elevated by his countrymen to their loftiest position, yet still one of them"
 From Springfield, Massachusetts, the Republican says; "He himself never overrated his powers, and his natural modesty was reinforced by the close contact with people brought by his experience as a newspaper ed itor in a small city. He did not pre- tend to be genius, and believed, not without reason, that the people like sometimes to raise to high office an average man of little intellectual pre- tentions, but closely in touch with popular feeling. That he represented faithfully the feeling of America in some of it's phases during the great psychological let-down that followed