Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-09

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, who
has set the political dovecotes fiutter-
| ing with his representations of Pres
ident Coolidge's 1928 intentions. has
ranked as a White House oracle for
the past six years. No unofficial per-
sonage comes and goes at the Execu-
tive Mansion more regularly. Since
March 4, 1921, the cultured head OF
Columbia University has been a guest
there on numerous occasions Presi
dent Harding was accustomed to con-
suit DIR. Butler freely and frequently
on critical questions of both domestic
and foreign politics. Soon after Mr..
Coolidge became President, he contin-
ued the practice of his predecessor
and invited DIR. Butler to sojourn at
the White House periodically. The
statesman-scholar of Morningside
Heights specializes in calling spade
a. spade. His hobnobbings at the adj
ministration fireside are always well
coined on that account. Butler is con-
sistently careful, after he has how
cred near the throne, to diSclaim any
authority to speak for his exalted
host. But there are cases on record
when the president of Columbia
taught something one day, and the
President of the United States did it
soon afterward.
One of the three men who are con-
sidered to be closer to Calvin Coolidge
than any others was asked by this
observer not long ago what the Presi-
dent really has up his sleeve regard
ing denomination. II don't know"
idge knows" The bosom friend am
plified his confession of ignorance by
explaining that 1t is the Coolidge way
to conceal important decisions until
the zero hour--that is, when 1t Is nee
essary to make them 'known--and not
to divulge them a moment sooner.
The President is said by the distin-
guished authority In question to have
practiced that precept persistently
since his earliest political days. The
view was thereupon hazarded that 1t
may be as late as year hence before
an anxious country, and q still more
anxious Republican party, VIII De
taken into the confidence OF Cautious
Cal"
Not since the President took office
| in August, 1928, has he faced SO eager
a
him Yesterday In quest of light and
leading on the Butler 1928 affair. But
the White House spokesman was new
or more evasive. He referred his in
tarropators to 1.-The Mind of the Pres
| ident1-C. Bascom Slemp's "revela-
ton" of Mr.. Coolidge as unfolded by
himself. Diligent search through the
| Slemp encyclopedia of the PRESIDENTS
views on public questions discloses no
Il 49,,
inkling of Mr.. Coolidge's thoughts on
| the subject of a third term. But there
| is in Mr.. Slemp's own analysis ana
| INTERPRETATION" of his former chief a
ma ssaee which may not be without
some bearing on the issue just raised.
''In dealing with public or political
ouestions." Slemp says, president
Coolidge has political intuition almost
| nsychic. One cannot see, touch or
hear a political tide, but 1t can be felt.
The man in public life who fails TO ere
ate a tide or sense an adverse tide Will
soon be politically lost. Coolidge, with
the single exception of Roosevelt, has
nossessed this intuition in the most
marked degree of all our recent Presf-
dents. : Calvin Coolidge believes
that the people sense the great issues
of the day and reach the right con-
illusions regarding them. AS ne sees
il. the task of great national leader
is not to try to go ahead of this ma
iestic army of human thought and as
piration, blazing new and strange
paths"
X X X y
Sterling Fessenden, a longtime resi-
| dent of Shanghai, is chairman of the
municipal council which now yields
complete power over the great inter
national community outside whose
walls China's warning factions may
soon clash. A native Of Maine and