Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-03

dent precisely 100 years to the minute
after the departure from it of our last
previous President from Massachusetts,,
John Quincy Adams.
Mr.. Adams had held ONCE from his
boyhood. Mr.. Adams and Mr.. Cool
tdSe, of all our Presidents. NUT per-
hapS be set down as most conspicu-
ously and most persistently in the
category OF professional public men,
MIR. Adams continued to be a public
man after his surrender of the presi-
dency. In the House wing of the
Capitol there is still veneration for the
room in which he died as q member
Of the House from Massachusetts,. He
had been stricken while addressing the
House. He had fallen into the arms of
9 neighboring member, exclaiming:
This is the last Of earth--I am con-
tent" At that moment 81 years had
passed from the time when he had first
entered the service of his country as
secretary to our Minister to Russia.
It is not likely ever to be given to
anybody else to equal the variety and
the length of Mr. Adams holdings of
office In this Republic. It is not given
to anybody to know now If Mr.. Coolidge
will ever hold office again. It is per~
Missile TO remark, however, that gen.
timely professional public men of high
character and Of high experience never
have been, and are not now, excessively
numerous among us. It is permissible
further to remark that the truly great
est period in the life Of, Mr.. Adams
came upon him after he had left the
White House. 1t is permissible finally
to note that Mr.. Coolidge, whether he
ever again holds Office or not, can no
more cease to be public man than he
can cease before death to breathe.
Somewhere, somehow, his talents
which are those of public life-will be
summoned TO public life, officially or
unoficially. This fact is among the
psychological inevitabilities of the stu
alton.
Let Mr.. Coolidge be made the presi-
dent OF private corporation capitalized
et S20,000,000,000 with salary of
d ,000000,000 year. He will still fall
board is all that it should be; and his
neighbors will fall to wondering If he
would accept the post of school trustee
and soon, by an operation as inescap-
abe as that Of the magnet and the
needle, Mr.. Coolidge and public duty, in
one form or another, from small to
high, and from local to national, and
perhaps international, again will be
found adhering together, somehow, with
rite or without title, with salary or
without salary. with office or without
Office, but in any case adhering again
government and Calvin Coolidge-juSt
aS before.
TT accordingly is not not altogether in
= retrospect that these words on Calvin
Coolidge as public man, as a practi-
toner Of politics, are written. They are
written not about vanishing spectacle,
but about what he's proved to be con-
tinuous phenomenon.
They are designed to throw little
further light-if they can rise to that
altitude of success-upon the character !
istics that have made Mr. Coolidge the |
most surprisingly triumphant trans |
former of presidential party disaster |
into presidential party restoration irs all |
our history.
It never is to be forgotten now that |
when Mr.. Coolidge, upon the death Of
Mr.. Harding, assumed, as President, the |
leadership Of the Republican party. he |
found the entire organization shattered |
Ia inward moral and blasted In outward
reputation by the miSfortuneS OF his |
predecessor
It never is to be forgotten now that i
the reckoning easiest route toward
popularity for Mr.. Coolidge was at the |
expense of his predecessor.
II was for HIM, IL he had listened to !
the voice of purely personal and i'm
mediate aggrandizennent, to be a vocif: |
ercus denouncer of scandals and a |
ruthless dismiSser Of cabinet ministers, |
of all colleagues of Mr.. Fall and Mr.. |
paugherty, including Gas the drastic
ecleansers would have had it, Mr.. Mel
ION and Mr.. Hughes and Mr.. Hoover.
In other words, it was for Mr.. Cool |
3dge wholly to wipe off the old slate and
his own name signed at the bottom of |
1t, 10 the American people.
The permanent peak of Calvin Cool
1EtBe as a practitioner Of politics is that
Ne preferred the restoration Of the Re-
nnblican party to the denunciation of 1t
and that he achieved the restoration |
without commingling the innocent and
the guilty In a common personal ruin.
IL, instead Of being a consummate poll
fSeian, he had been facile and merely
1aroit denagogue, he could have saved
himself for moment by letting his
party sink for a generation. 1t is his
S1during title to station among our
historic geniuses Of politics thet he
saved both his party and himself and
that he Is able to arrive, as he will |
arrive tomorrow, at transmitting his
presidential office to a party successor
The study Of the observer of politics
aust then be directed to the means by
which this miracle-accounted in 1923 |
rs imposSihle-was accomplished. PurS
suing that study, the observer soon |
Hnds that he is confronted not SO
much with a method es with q man.
Mr.. Coolidge could net teach his |
method. for an insuperable reason
eNYIId
not teach his strange, his peculiar, his !
unique, objectivity.
E%%
1T could be laid down as a theorem,
- that the inmost secret Of Mr.. Cool |
tdge's politics is his unrivaled capacity |
for an absolutely dry-light objective |
examination Of himself and Of others |
He comes ultimately thus to power |
behavior Of human nature in mass. |
He could not teach his method Of poll |
tics unleSs-which cannot be done-he i
could teach his knowledge of men. !
That knowledge is his primary political |,
capital. He can be supreme politician |
because he Is first supreme psychol- |
pgist.
He begins with an intent and intense |
scrutiny even Of inanimate things He |
tends to know all the trees, individually, |
in familiar walk. He will note their |
separate different conditions and for
tunes.
He Is suspected even-alnost-of |
counting the Individual bricks In q IA !
niliar pavement and Of trying to esti-
mate. as 1t were, their reactions and |
intentions. He may seem to those who !
do not watch him closely to be oblivious
OF his surroundings, to be neglectfully
or dreanily lost In them. That is q /!
mere matter Of manner. He in fact !
likes himself upon the external uni i
verse with q Photographic eye.
He turns that same sort Of eye upon |
himself, his strength, his weakness, his |
his incapacity. his fate. He |
does not do this by feeling his way