The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-05-30
Mind
ACTS SOLELY
ON FACTS
Must Be All In, But Decision
Once Made Is Firm, Action
Prompt, Says Hard
Continued from First Page1
jell; and he jeIls not into . jelly
hut into . woclx

Continued from First Pagel
jell; and he jells not into jelly
but into rock.
AT the moment of this transfer
nation he seems to experience Q
feeling Of enormous relief. An In
innate associate Of his remarked
s:When I see the President look
suddenly unusually cheerful.
know he has just succeeded in de-
Gliding something"
Having decided. he acts. and acts
promptly and without any further
hesitation or worry. 1t might al
most be said that when ne makes
his mind up about a thing he gets
1t off his mind
He seems always to have had
this quality. He seems to have
been slow in reaching decisions and
then firm and fixed in applying
them.
In the Boston police strike he
postponed action until the police
commissioner of Boston and the
mayor of Boston and almost every
body else In Boston had acted.
When, however, he finally took his
famous position toward the strike,
he took it completely and he held
1t continuously to the very last
consequences.
His trouble Is in finding out what
Il ID that he wants to do.
The explanation may lie in the
fact that Coolidge il not a particu-
lariy instructive or intuitive per-
son. He does not know what he
thinks about q public question by
looking inward He has to look out
ward. He has to observe. He has
to listen.
Wants An Facts.
In a difficult matter he has 10
listen q long time. He has to get
all the facts. He keeps postponing
a decision because new facts keep
coming in.
In the Daugherty matter he nod
ded approvingly at some Of the
tacts. presented by Daugherty's
enemies. They impressed him. A
few minutes later he would nod an
provingly at some of the facts pre-
scented by Daugherty's friends. They
impressed him, too. Meanwhile, an.
parently there was within him abs
solutely no instructive driving i'm
pulse one way or the other.
1t might also be said that from
the standpoint Of the making Of |
public policy Coolidge IL not . DER.
son. He IL a process. He il a |
test tube, In which the facts are
assembled and In which ultimately |
some controiiing TACT suddenly pre-
cipitates a decision.
CoQidge'S mental equipment CON.
int
out or facts and decisions. At the |
newspaper conferences at the White
House it will often happen that
when the President is asked his |
views on a certain subject he will
state four or five facts about that
subject and then stop. In statinc |
the facts he seems to think that
ne has stated his views.
Mind Is Objective.
In other words. his mind IL q
highly objective mind. 1t dweIlx on
the outside world. 1t keeps looking
at outward facts. large and small.
1t is related that once at a dinner
party. after prolonged and almost
uncomfortable silence, the President
opened his lips to remark:
Khe cat jumped up on my deek
today and tried to sleep there
True or not true, this story tells
a truth about Coolidge. He watches
men, women. cats, trees, and all the
rest Of the external universe within
reach of his eyes; and he discovers
what he thinks only by first dis
covering what exists.
For such. a man it might be said
that silence is almost coHnpulsory.
He has to be silent in order to be
able to listen and in order to be
able thus to get the facts which
he needs. He has to be silent in
order to be able to mediate on the
Facts which he has accumulated.
Silence q Necessity.
From this standpoint Coolidge's
sllences have to be regarded not
as perversity, but as a necessity.
Wlthout them the public policies
OF coolidge the politician and states
man might never get known even
to Coolidge himself.
IL all sums up into saying that
Coolidge, both as administrator and
as politician. Is to the last degree
matter.of-fact. AS politician. he is
SLOW because he is settling the
facts. AS administrator, he is fast
because he has got them settled.
In all Of which, and particularly
IN his silences and in his dry mat.
ter-of-fact witticisms, he seems pecu.
liar. He has acquired a great
reputation for being a peculiar
character. Why? Only because
ne is living out of his time.
Copyright, 1924. BY Current News
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