Slemp vs. Butler?

The Coolidge campaign--or what reports divine will be the Dawes campaign for Coolidge--had to conquer some difficulties in its organization before it could proceed calmly and coolly. There was a little disagreement among the mechanics, a scene in the President's private office when one of them almost went on strike.

The trouble came to a head following the Cleveland Convention. But the Convention was only its immediate cause. Its ultimate cause lay further back, in the selection by Mr. Coolidge of his political advisers. At the beginning, the President had Frank W. Stearns, Boston business man, whose hobby is politics. Next, the President chose C. Bascom Slemp as his Secretary. Slemp is a man whose element is politics. His assistance was as necessary to the newly-made President as the assistance of a social secretary is to a newly-rich woman. With the approach of the pre-Convention campaign, Mr. Coolidge selected (by and with the advice and consent of Mr. Stearns) William M. Butler to be his manager. Butler is a man amphibious both as to politics and business.

Whether it was because Stearns and Butler came from his native habitat, because he naturally leaned toward their type, or because he considered it the part of wisdom to seek such assistance, Mr. Coolidge associated himself with this busino-political rather than a pure-political group. One of the first fruits of this general policy was the antagonism which developed between Congress and the President. The next in importance was the revolt which led to the nomination of General Dawes for Vice President.

Butler let it be known that he had picked Senator Borah for that place-- an error in strategy which gave the Old Guard, pure-political faction, an open-ing for revolt, a chance in the confusion to seize the power which had been taken from them. Slemp was at hand and in no sympathy with Mr. Butler's futile efforts at the last minute to swing the nomination to Judge Kenyon, Representative Burton or Secretary Hoover. The Old Guard, resenting Butler's domination and doubtless with the comfort if not the abetment of Slemp, seized the first candidate who, it seemed, could defeat Butler's choice. First Lowden-- then Dawes.

But if Mr. Butler had failed to secure his choice for Vice President, he still held the reins. With the organization of the new National Committee he took control as Chairman, and Slemp returned to Washington--as Secretary to the President. The Secretary's feelings can be imagined. His accumulated political wisdom had in no small degree been responsible for Mr. Coolidge's nomination. Quietly he had led the southern delegations into the Coolidge fold. He had wrought to give political power to the President, and now Mr. Coolidge chose to entrust that power to a man who not only went contrary to Mr. Slemp's opinions but obviously had bungled in part. On top of this an editorial appeared in The Washington Post --believed to be from the acrid pen of George Harvey--in which it was intimated that one member of the Presi- dent's official family would resign because of the Cleveland affair. That member was Secretary Slemp.

Then C. Bascom Slemp marched into the President's private office. He remained there for an hour and 45 min- utes. One reliable correspondent, Frank R. Kent, of the Baltimore Sun, stated flatly: "Mr. Slemp was mad when he came back from Cleveland, and he was mad when he went into the President's office yesterday morning and resigned, because that is exactly what he did." Mr. Slemp said such a statement was "much stronger than the facts." At any rate the President pacified him. When Mr. Slemp emerged, he announced that he had not resigned, that he was going to Cincinnati to a relative who was ill, that when he came back he would be made a member of an "ad-visory committee of the National Re- publican Committee, which will have the real management of the campaign." As a matter of grammar, the last clause was interpreted as a modifier of "advisory committee"--a proposition which would have meant practically the deposing of Mr. Butler as head of the coming campaign. Next day the President took pains to point out that Mr. Butler was to manage the campaign as Chairman of the National Committee, that the advisory committee was to be advisory.

Mr. Slemp's future position is not clear. The extreme interpretation was that he had in all but name been discharged from the Coolidge organization. At least it did not seem that there had been any considerable addition made to his authority in the smoothing-over which Mr. Coolidge had accomplished.

White House reports tended to minimize the episode. The Coolidge organization swung once more into solid front --even if camouflage covered real openings.

Strangely enough, when the Old Guard turned on Mr. Butler and picked the handiest candidate for the Vice Presidency--General Dawes--it did not greatly alter the busino-political spirit of the ticket. Dawes differs greatly from the Coolidge type: the Republican candidates may well be dubbed "Cautious Cal and Charging Charlie." Yet Mr. Dawes does not fly the flag of politics above the pennants of all other considerations. His very vigor is a challenge to the pure-political school of leaders.

Soon he is to go to the White House for a visit. Then, doubtless, plans will be laid for the campaign in which he is expected to do most of the speaking.

Meanwhile in his home town-- Evanston--he made his first political speech of the year to an admiring, but mixed-partisan, gathering of neighbors:

"To such an extent has grown the evil of demagoguery among politicians that the real facts and the economic principles involved in questions of national policy are continually obscured by a dense and putrid fog of demagogic argument designed simply to forward selfish personal, political and group interests.

"In the campaign which is before me, and as a duty which I owe not simply to a party but to the citizens of the United States, I pledge myself to adhere to the truth and to the common-sense conclusions to 'be drawn therefrom.

"Regarding the demagogue on the stump, whatever may be his party, I want it distinctly understood that in the coming campaign I ask no quarter and will give none."