Res Publicae

(See front cover)

Time fled, and still the G. O. P. knew not whom it would choose to oppose the settled choice of the Democracy next November. The uncertainty was greater than ever following Secretary Mellon's declaration last week that "many men may develop in the convention, for you never know what will happen" (TIME, May 21).

Candidate Hoover, the Administration's busy but not supremely happy Beaver Man, waded into a trout-stream in Pennsylvania and for three days indulged pensively in the Sport of Presidents. He used the subtle, sporting fly, however, instead of the homely, almost infallible worm.

Candidate Lowden, the determined Farmers' Friend, returned to Chicago after visiting Washington and Manhattan, and indulged in the sport of candidates. He enunciated an Issue. He paced the floor of his office, shook his silvery poll, pounded his desk, even smote listening newsgatherers on thigh and chest to publish his point.

In Manhattan, Mr. Lowden had said: "I am not going to do anything to create bad blood." But in Chicago he was excited and emotional over what he said was the East's shocking disregard of Farm Relief. The McNary-Haugen farm bill, containing the "equalization fee," talisman of the Lowden campaign, lay on President Coolidge's desk awaiting a probable veto. Mr. Lowden intensified the political significance of the bill by shouting:

"I do not want the nomination unless the Republican party meets the farm issue fairly and squarely!. . . I have no hankering for the kind of fame that rests on an unsuccessful Presidential campaign!. . . Agriculture realized the moral and economical wrong of Slavery and joining with Business it created the Republican party. I feel that there is again a crisis and unless this partnership [Agriculture & Business] is maintained now, the candidate named at Kansas City will have a hard road to travel!"

Some observers thought that this statement actually raised an Issue--the first

Issue of the campaign in either party--and that it fixed the lines of force in the coming G. O. P. convention. Others viewed it as only a temporary resurgence of an undercurrent which can be diffused in the convention and submerged afterwards.* No one suggested that it bettered Candidate Lowden's chance of being nominated but all were agreed that it threatened Candidate Hoover.

There are three factions in the Republican party: Hooverism, anti-Hooverism and the Administration. Of these, Hooverism is the most popular, as demonstrated by the primary elections. The Administration is the most potent, by virtue of its record and occupancy. Anti-Hooverism is miscellaneous but its chief hero is Candidate Lowden, because he has a definite program for a large, definite group of voters. That this program is more important than personal success to Candidate Lowden is not doubted, except by such cynics as could read "sour grapes" between the lines of his conditional renunciation last week.

Had the Administration declared itself wholeheartedly on the side of Hooverism, there would have been an end not only of Candidate Lowden but of his program. But the Administration, in the person of Secretary Mellon, declared itself last fortnight not so much in favor of Hooverism as receptive to it for want of anything more perfect. There seemed to remain a cranny of doubt about Candidate Hoover's ability to bring off a Republican victory. Into this cranny Candidate Lowden hastened to drive his wedge of Midwestern warning.

To suppose that Andrew William Mellon entertains a doubt of the Republican party's ability to elect its carefully considered candidate, whoever he may be, is to suppose that a methodical mathematician would introduce an unnecessary variable into an important equation. To Mr. Mellon, politics is not a game, where chances are cheerfully taken, but a calculation, where chances are eliminated by careful thought. A final formula having been adopted, the factors necessary to make it work out are, so far as possible, obtained and introduced. Doubt is not a helpful factor where a positive result is desired. So doubt is discarded and Mr. Mellon says that, when the Republicans meet at Kansas City, "we will not be merely selecting a candidate but in reality selecting a President." From Andrew William Mellon, that remark sounds more like conviction than bluff or optimism.

Politics is not a game for Mr. Mellon for the reason that, unlike most public men but like many a great public man, he entered politics involuntarily and after experiencing extraordinary responsibilities in private life. A game is a thing you play. A duty is a thing you execute. Mr. Mellon has been an executive for nearly half a century. His father made him responsible for loans in the Mellon bank while he was still in his 'teens. Before he was 30, he was charged with administering his father's whole considerable estate. Thereafter he ruled and expanded an industrial empire constructed of steel, railways, oil, coal, electricity, insurance, ships, bridges, plate glass, aluminum. In 1920, this empire of Mellonia was dominant in a sphere of industries with some $2,000,000,000.

Mr. Mellon's first experience of politics was in 1920 when he read in the newspaper that he had been named as a delegate-at-large to the National Republican convention of that year at Chicago. His first act was to ask Judge James H. Reed, his lawyer, father of Pennsylvania's present Senator, if the thing might not be avoided. Judge Reed said yes, of course it could be avoided, but he advised Mr. Mellon to accept as a matter of public duty. Mr. Mellon said he expected to be very occupied that coming June. Judge Reed said very well, that he would arrange to accompany Mr. Mellon to the convention as his alternate, so that Mr. Mellon could leave if necessary. Mr. Mellon acquiesced, and when the time came, attended the convention.

The so-called Mellon Machine did not take form in western Pennsylvania until after the death of Boies Penrose in 1921, and when it did, Andrew William Mellon was its motive power, not its engineer. Outside of Pennsylvania, Mr. Mellon was politically unheard-of in 1920, when President Harding, at the suggestion of the late Philander Chase Knox, asked him to take over the national treasury, then 24 billions in debt.

The weight behind Mr. Mellon's presidential pronouncement this year was, of course, primarily the weight of "the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton." Critics may well contend that the reductions of taxes and of public debt, and the funding of foreign loans that have been accomplished during the Mellon regime, could have been compassed by any other competent banker; that the Mellon genius is mythical and that between it and Prosperity, if any, there is not the remotest connection. But the politically important fact remains that Mr. Mellon and not some other banker has been the man in the office since 1921. It matters not what Treasury official wrote and what Congressmen revised the tax reduction bill that preceded the Coolidge landslide of 1924. Mr. Mellon's name was on it. Sometimes it is said that the name of Mellon is anathema to the farmers. If that is so, it is not reflected in the Secretary's mail, yet public men who have bitter enemies usually hear from them directly. The fact is that when Secretary Mellon talked about the Presidency, the country listened almost as respectfully as if President Coolidge were speaking--more respectfully, in the case of the politicians.

For besides the Secretary of the Treasury, the primate of Pennsylvania was speaking, and Pennsylvania is a primate among the States. So reliably Republican that its Favorite Sons never have to be considered for the Presidency, yet so large (38 electoral votes) that it can never be ignored, Pennsylvania enjoys a peculiar dominance in national G. O. P. conventions (and on Congressional committees). This dominance would be lessened by any division within the Pennsylvania organization. Hence Mr. Mellon's reiteration last week that the Pennsylvania G. O. P. is a "cohesive" whole, despite certain well known differences between Mellon men and the henchmen of Philadelphia's defamed William S. Vare.

Finally, genius or not, politician or not, when Mr. Mellon spoke about the Presidency, people heard him as his party's greatest patrician. Today he fills the place in U. S. public life so long occupied by Charles Evans Hughes. Regardless of such sneerers as the New York World, which reminded people that Mr. Mellon came to office during the Harding regime, no Republican had a better right than he to talk, as he did last fortnight, about "the standard that we have set for this high office." Perhaps a thought of this crossed Candidate Lowden's agitated mind when he retorted to the Administration, for Mr. Lowden is something of a patrician too, in a large, squire-like way.

But inflection is of small importance to the Grand Manner, which is a perfection of spirit underlying all a man's acts, private and public. Shy to a painful degree, Mr. Mellon is nevertheless noted for his courage. His integrity, of course, is beyond question. Memorable illustrations of these two qualities were the swift ejection from the Treasury in 1922 of Elmer Dover, Ohio Gangster, and Secretary MelIon's long stand-up fights on the Internal Revenue Bureau with hard-hitting Senator Couzens of Michigan.

Another aspect of the grand manner as it is found in Secretary Mellon is his instinct for beautiful things. There is a richness about the sombre furniture and dark blue upholstery in his office which nothing in official Washington approaches, not even the redecorated White House. His apartment on Massachusetts Avenue is hung, not with an Art Collection, but with pictures of lovely women, unmistakable gentlemen, young girls, old ladies, painted because they were fit subjects for fine art by Vermeer, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Romney, Lawrence, Hals, Rembrandt, and bought by Andrew Mellon because life is a fine art and such things belong to it naturally when you can afford them. Something of the same instinct that acquired the Mellon paintings is also seen in the Mellon motor car, which was specially designed and constructed entirely of aluminum, not because Mr. Mellon was a power in the aluminum industry but because it seemed a perfect thing to do, and perhaps useful to others.

The Mellon theories of economics and government are neither original in conception nor brilliant in exposition, yet there is a trait of the Mellon mentality which reflects again that fineness of breeding which people have sensed in the lean, grey, little patrician of the Treasury Department. It is in the grand manner intellectually not to worry, not to cross bridges before rivers are reached. This Andrew Mellon never does. To his ability to put off until tomorrow that which is not today's concern, his intimates attribute his unimpaired vigor at an age when most of his business contemporaries are dead or retired after lives which in few cases approached his for fullness or success. "There's luck in leisure," he said last autumn when newsgatherers importuned him for a political utterance. As a political sidestep, it was a neat phrase, but it was more than that. It summed up a good deal of the philosophy of a man who understands that the wisdom of power is in its judicious application, and that politics and votes are like finance and dollars in this: the longer you can delay shifting from an investment to a speculation, the more interest you will accumulate.

* Candidate Lowden's hopes for a G. O. P. Campaign plank favoring the equalization-fee type of farm relief were further submerged last week by the announcement that Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, anti-McNary-Haugen man, is to be chairman of the Platform Committee at Kansas City.

* Name: Maggie. Breed: Holstein. Sex: Heifer.