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

contented him to outthink, to outplay
to lay low his self-supposed intellectual
superiors. He never for q moment at
tempted to persuade any one he was
anything he was not.
When, for the first time as President
he entered the Federal city, he walked
through the Union Station as If he were
a shrinking prisoner under guard. Years
later, when his political supremacy over
the country had been achieved and
fortified beyond all hope and almost
beyond all precedent, his evening walks
with secret service men around the
public circle at the back Of the White
House still showed him as If he were
being obscurely dragged to jail by a
couple Of fortnight and competent OH
GERS Of the law.
He came to dominate nation o!
supersalesmen without once trying N
sell himself" to any man.
modesty. That analysis of 1t does no,
suffice. Mr.. Coolidge is not unconscious
of his political prowess. The origin OF
his indifference Of Self-selling would
seem rather to lie in that extreme
realism. that extreme effectiveness, that
extreme external awareness, that makes
him see Calvin Coolidge as he might
see any other human gnat and put him
in the place to which destiny has ap-
pointed him.
Realistic thus toward himself in a de-
gree that can justly be called super
sophisticated, he gazes at others through
the same uncolored and undistorted
lenses. His penetration into the char
acters Of his fellow statesmen In Wash
ington Is theme which will yield in
Vulnerable anecdotes when he and they
can no longer hear them. He could, II
he would, write the best character
sketches that could be produced for any
literary picture gallery Of the Nations
Capital.
It IS at that point. It is at the mo-
ment Of considering him as an artist In
character, that his skill as q master OF
politics begins to explain itself to the
patient analysis Of him and Of his career
It has been said Of him over and over
again:
has succeeded"
He indeed has character. He has II
n1omentously. A man with character.
though, could wreck party as readily
as restore it. He could wreck 1t by In
sensitiyeness to the characters Of others
Mr.. Coolidge, superlatively, has noted
the characters OF others and chus little
by little discerned the mass character
Of the electorate.
LIE was told by almost all the mem.
bers Of his cabinet that the ap-
pointment Of Mr.. Morrow, q partner in
Morgan d Co., to Mexico City would
be universally disliked. He said 1t
would be popular. 1t was.
He was told that what the country
wanted was presidential excavations OF
scandaious Federal criminals In high
places. He held that all the country
wanted was the doing of legal justice
upon them. He was precisely correct
in this.
He was told that he must intervene
in the great anthracite strike and quell
the strikers. He held that most people
would rather see the strike settle itself
without injunctions or jails. The event
' A hundred such illustrations could
be recounted.
Mr.. Coolidge, student OF himself,
student Of his acquaintances, student
Of behavior, while others were going on
human noises, went on the human ma
tsIre behind the noises and the listeners
to the noises fell and he prevailed.
The paradox that concludes and ex-
presses his career to date. as he now be-
comes q private citizen, is that this
great occasional recluse, who can
spend whole days In the White House
communing virtually with only himself,
IS also, In his mental explorations. con-
tinuously and essentially 8 hutnanist.
People people on vast scale have
become hts speciality, his habit, his
riorv, his trade. I'd Is bound to re.
turn to II, Tomorrow we say to him,
Farewell, Z only presently TO say 70
am eon1eyneTsI c1'se egR'11