Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-15
PRESIDENTIAL POSSIBILITY
HAS NEVER HELD OFFICE
Owen d. Young, If Elected, Would Be
: First Executive Without Political
or Military Record.
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

nomination for the presidency 10 owen
d. Young.
To suggest how great an innovation
that reflects, it is enough to say tnat
Mr.. Young, If he should be nominated
and elected, would personify unique
record. He would be the first President
of the United States who had never
held, preceding his presidency, any po-
litical Office, elective or appointive.
To have told any politician, or even
philosopher, 20 years ago that a man
could become President of the United
states without coming up through the
familiar paths Of political promotion
would have been, at that time, to pro-
woke q smile 1t has been as result,
chiefly, of their political careers that
Presidents have been chosen. Wherever
the presidency has not been the fruit
of promotion through grades OF political
office, it has been, as in the case OF
Ulysses S. Grant, the crown OF mill
tary career.
Us there any exception to this state
ment, which Is made here without con-
sulting books of reference minutely?
Has any man ever become President OF
the United States without having served
previously In any political or military
office? II any one who knows American
history infinitely, or cares now to make
q meticulous research, Is able to md
an exception, the exception will not
materially impair the truth of the gen.
eralization that, hitherto no man has
ever come to the presidency without
having previously served in at least one
other political Office. Generally, Presl-
dents have been chosen from among
men whose whole careers were political
or near political, such as Calvin Cool
idge, Warren Harding, William McKn-
ley)
Young DisapprOves Politics.
That there is plainly tendency away
from the tradition of giving the presi-
dency only to men who have had politi-
cal careers is suggested by the example
now in the White House. Mr.. Hoover
is the only President who ever came
to that station without h.. ling previ-
ously served in an elective political Of
fee. He had, preceding his presidency,
served eight years in one appointive po-
litical Office, the Secretaryship Of Com
merce.
Not only does Owen Young emerge
into the field of political possibilities
as q stranger, coming from the world
of economics, of private business. Mr..
Young knows perfectly the difference
between politics and economics-and
disapproves the former. He believes
that politics and men from the world
of politics, who now have q monopoly
been performing that job pretty badly.
He says-I quote from a speech he
made in December at the Lotus Club In
New York:
Our politics and our economics are
In conflict everywhere in the world to-
day. The forces are violent and
imposing. Some better way must be
found, accommodating each to the
other, or they will destroy each other.
In some European countries the ques-
ton is being seriously discussed Of pro-
Iding economic parliaments In addi-
ton to political ones, in order that men
especially qualified for the handling of
these difficult economic problems may
deal with them. What the solution may
be do not know, but / am certain
that one must be found. It has even
been suggested that If holiday Of
ornaments Is good, holiday of parlia-
ments would be better"
It will be inferred that Mr.. Young
does not think highly Of politicians nor
OF congresses as congresses are now
constituted. AS a very serious presi-
Dental possibility he makes no faintest
gesture Of fiattery toward the tribe who
have 1t largely in their power to elevate
him to the presidential nomination OF
deny 1t to him. If the politicians want
Mr.. Young to be the candidate of the
Democratic party they will be obliged
70 draft him. And they must draft him
on his own terms, which include the
privilege of saying what he pleases
about politicians
The fact is that some of the more
powerful leaders of the Democratic
party do want Mr. Young. In the circles
in which the Democratic nomination
for next year will be determined there
Is more talk right now about Mr.. Young
than about any other man.
Constitutes Phenomenon.
To say all that might be said about
Owen Young as a presidential posi-
bility is not within the scope of this
article. His conspicuousness among all
the possibilities, the favor with which
the suggestion Of him Is received-all
this constitutes a phenomenon. It Is
something new in the world. And the
remainder Of this article Is to be de-
voted to alluding, sketchily, to some
other phenomena that are new In the
world; phenomena that have no faint
est relation to Owen Young, but which
do prove that the world changes.
Every living American more than
IS or 80 years Of age knows by per-
Sonal experience that we are living In
a sensationally altered world. Persons
who are go years of age have lived, in
q single lifetime, through a greater
number Of changes, and more far
reaching kinds of changes, than took
place in all of 1000 years preceding
When Theodore Roosevelt went to the
Capitol for his Inauguration In 1901 he
! rode in an old-fashioned, horse drawn
victoria. Between that Roosevelt car
riage and the chariots in which the
Caesars rode about Rome 1000 years
before there was very little difference
Each was a thing Of wood and iron and
leather, drawn by horsepower-horse-
power in the literal sense. If 20 CEN
turtles had made any change it con-
sisted simply Of adding solid rubber
tires to the more modern vehicle.
But eight years later, In 1909, VIII
liam H. Taft rode to his Inauguration
in an automobile Between Taft's mo-
tor car and Rocsevelt's carriage the diff
ference was Unreasonable, compared 70
all the changes that had taken place
during all the 20 centuries preceding
Similarly, in the year in which
President Hoover was born, the farthest
distance any person could throw his
voice or any other person hear a voice
was just as much and no more thar
could be accomplished with a good pail
Of lungs In a favoring wind. But ir
the year in which Mr.. Hoover made
his acceptance speech at Palo Alto In
1928 his voice was heard literally
around the world. An oficial of the
American Telephone and Telegraph
Company said a little while ago that
today any man at any spot on the
surface of the earth can hear any
other man at any other spot; all
that Is needed Is the installation Of the
necessary mechanism, and over much
of the world the mechanism is already
in existence. Indisputably this Is 3
rapidly changing world.
The world In which we now live, that
Is familiar to us Of today, was In the
making is or 20 or 80 years ago