TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHICAGO CONVENTION AND SENATOR HARDING.
OUR English " high brows " are very apt to wag their heads over the follies and futilities of the American Party Conventions held for the nomination of Presidential candidates. They show marked signs of " virtue shock " at the futilities and ineptitudes which are discovered in the proceedings of the said Conventions. We are not at all sure, however, that if an even balance were struck we should not have to admit that the futilities and ineptitudes of our Press when concerned with the Conventions are not quite as great. What the British people as a whole want, and most ardently, is not merely a good understanding with the people of America—that goes without saying— but the development of a special sympathy between the two branches of the English-speaking race which, while it leaves both branches absolutely free and independent, will see to it that our common ideals of liberty, justice, peace and democratic rule shall prevail throughout the world. But the only way to secure such sympathy between us and the Americans is that we should understand each other and show confidence in each other. Understanding and confidence through sympathy are, however, growths which are very easily checked, chilled and destroyed, especially in a world garden haunted by an immense number of people whose chief object is to sow tares and choke the growths we have just named.
A great deal of the writing about the Republican nomin- ation and Senator Harding, though no doubt well meant, is calculated to produce anything but good feeling between people of this country and of America. For example, we note that Senator Harding is treated by one section of the Press as a political, nonentity, a mere machine-man and so forth, while another section denounces his victory as a triumph for the great and selfish business interests. He is described by implication as the typical heartless capitalist, or else the cold-blooded instrument of the capitalists who are bent on stabbing to the heart the cause of labour, and so forth and so on. Al to the truth of these allegations we are not in a position to pass a final judgment, but we should think it exceedingly unlikely that a body so intent upon winning as the Republican Convention would have made Senator Harding their unanimous choice if he was in truth the mere tool of Capital, the bitter opponent of Labour, and a man likely to adopt a policy of destroying the - Labour Unions and ruining the hopes of the workers. A man of that kind is not very likely to make a popular candidate. Yet if a popular candidate is not obtained, the Republican Party runs a great danger. In any case it is exceedingly unwise, as well. as exceedingly bad manners, for our Radical newspapers, at a mere hint or suggestion from the other side and without any first- hand acquaintance with the facts, to run off with the idea that Senator Harding is the avowed enemy of the working man.
For ourselves, we shall say quite plainly, and we feel sure we can do so without giving offence to any portion of the American people, that we should have preferred to see a different nomination to that which actually took place. The Republican Con-. vention had before it an important list of candidates, and two of them were men of high distinction, General Leonard Wood and President Murray Butler, the President of Columbia University. General Leonard Wood has been called, and rightly called, the Cromer of America. He is not only a soldier and military organizer of great ability, but also a civil administrator, as he proved in Cuba, capable of working out and developing the very best traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race in the matter of main- taining law and order, re-organizing a country wasted by civil war, and laying the foundations of a well-ordered and self-governed State. General Wood did in Cuba work very much of the kind that Lord Crono,er did in Egypt, and in some ways General Wood's task was the harder owing to the nature of the population. Spaniards, negroes, half- breeds, and added to them a large influx of adventurers from all parts of America, formed a difficult population to govern. This difficulty was increased by the fact that Cuba was a very little way from Washington and that certain great commercial interests were heavily involved in the trade of Cuba. General Wood, with his deep know- ledge in matters of national defence and his wide acquain- tance with foreign problems, would have made an admirable President. A similar verdict, though on somewhat different grounds, must be passed in the case of Dr. Murray Butler. Dr. Murray Butler is an expert in all matters of education, and especially of University education, but he is a great deal more than that. He has always kept himself in touch with political life in his own country, and also with the political life of Europe, and he has done so in no pedantic or academic spirit, but with the full knowledge and the understanding outlook of a man of the world. Too often the men who understand home politics in America know nothing of foreign affairs, while the Americans who devote themselves to foreign affairs, and who know the trend of European politics, are totally ignorant of the politics of their own land. Dr. Murray Butler knew that to be fully effective as a statesman he must study both home and foreign polities. But though we confess we should like to have seen either of these men chosen and sent to the White House—it is almost certain that the candidate of a United Republican party will win—it must not be supposed that we are interested in either candidate because we imagine that he would be friendly to Britain. What we want, and what we believe the British people as a whole want, is not an Anglophile President, but the President who will best• represent the American people and best look after their essential interests—the man, in a word, who will make the best American President. If that is obtained the British people are not going to trouble about whether there is this or that extra percentage of friendliness to themselves in the President. The best President for us will be the best President for America, and we know it. Foolish things may be said and stupid things be done by American orators and politicians and Legislatures and Conventions, as they are done by similar persons and similar institutions in this country and all over the world, for everywhere muddling is the badge of the statesman tribe. So difficult a job it is to rule. Nevertheless, we are convinced that in the last resort there is no Englishman nor any American mad enough or wicked enough to embroil the two nations who speak the language of Shakespeare at such a time and in such a world as this. When the wolves are prowling round the but in the forest are the inmates likely to get down their axes and go for each other ?
Remember also that a man who was conspicuous for British sympathies would be the man least able to do us a good turn. He might very likely be forced to be disagree- able in order to show that he was not what his opponents described him to be, a mere tool of Britain. The man who is famed for his hundred per cent. Americanism will be in a much freer position to do the right and reasonable thing. Though Senator Harding is a dark horse, we should not be in the least surprised if this old-fashioned type of American statesman turned out as so many of his predecessors have turned out—shrewd, reasonable, broad minded, and fully able to let a great position and great events mould him into a great man. President McKinley was one of the most successful of Presidents, yet when he was elected his country- men thought comparatively little of him. When he died the world acknowledged that he had risen to the occasion in the war with Spain and had conducted himself, both during the war and in the hour of victory, with wisdom and honour. That Senator Harding if he becomes President will prove a McKinley is more than likely. That he will let himself be made the tool of the capitalists we do no; believe for a moment. He may have used, for all we know, anti- Labour and pro-Capitalist language, but Presidents, like kings, when they once get onto their thrones or their chairs, are very apt to find that the world is altogether a different place from what they thought. Out of a very natural reaction their deeds belie the words spoken by them before they held high office. It is notorious that Crown Princes and other Heir Apparents when they come to their thrones eilappoint the various interests who were supposed to have " nobbled them." Every refilling of a great office adds a new contingent of disappointed Falstaffs to the world's stock.
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