Evening star., 1925-01-14
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE

Coolidge needs a Secretary of State
who can work harmoniously with
the Senate. The confabulation there
upon opined that in George Wharton
Pepper Of Pennsylvania, George Hig-
gins Moses of New Hampshire or Ir-
vine Luther Lenroot of Wisconsin
the Senate contains at least three
men of commensurate stature. Pep
per and Lenroot are lawyers and
members of the foreign relations
committee. Moses is not a lawyer
he is an editor-but he has served
as American envoy at q foreign cap
ital. is a power in the foreign reIa-
tions committee and speaks French.
An American Secretary Of State who
speaks French is a rare bird. Hughes,
with all his skill, does not.
= x X x
II Calvin Coolidge wanted for his
cabinet chief a distinguished Repub-
lican, who himself was once within
reach of presidential glory and is a
lawyer, the confabulation decided he
could have gone farther than Frank
Orren .Lowden, former Governor Of
Illino ois, and done worse. There was
a loud chorus of sentiment that Low
den, by training, temperament and
native ability, undoubtedly has in
him the making of a great Secretary
Kellogg, his supporters adduced, If
1t be true that geographical eondi-
tions weighed in the decision that
made the Minnesotan Hughes sue
cessor. Lowden Is much travelled,
too.
Some one broke in with: why not
Nicholas Murray Butler?" The erudite
president Of Columbia University has
the international situation at his
tongues tip as have few Americans
of his day and generation. His sc-
Quaintance with world statesmen has
long been wide and intimate. He has
a strong claim on the gratitude of
the Republican party, In which he has
done wheel-horse service for 40 years.
Coolidge thinks high of Butler; con-
suits him periodically on domestic and
foreign affairs. Then, because a uni
versity president now had bounded
into the picture, another confabulator
chirped up. and said: why not
Herbert Spencer Hadleyr' The for
mer Governor Of Missouri. now chan
cellor of Washington University at st.
Louis has q trust-breaking record OF
the same sort that gave Frank Kel-
logg his early fame AS Attorney
General of Missouri, Hadley success
fully prosecuted the Standard OIL, the
IdliTOdQ5, the harvester, insurance ana
lumber trusts and the race track
gamblers combination of st. Louis.
His Republican escutcheon shone so
| brightly in 1912 that he narrowly
| missed being heir to the Taft-Roose-
Welt Presidential feud.
y u y g.
A suggestion OF surprising bofdness
| threw the confabulation into q high
| confusion. 1t was to no less an effect
than that incornparsbly the best man
in the United States to be Secretary
of State lis Calvin Coolidge's Iate
Democratic opponent for the Presi-
| dency-John w. Davis. No one present
! questioned Davis towering talent for
| the post Everybody questioned
whether the Republican party and our
politically minded country at large
could absorb such a shock. Two of
the confabulators, upon recovering
consciousness, calmed the ruffiled
waters. Quoth one: We'll, why not
! Davis? Grover Cleveland made a
Republican, Walter Q. Gresham. Sec
retary OF State in 1893" And another:
aren't the million or two Democrats
who voted for Coolidge entitled to some
Tecognitionf"