Personal Politics

Personal Politics*

There is no more entertaining writer on politics than Clinton W. Gilbert, and there is none better able to estimate political personalities. His interest is much more in men than in issues. It is a great opportunity for him, when a national campaign comes around, to write a book on the dramatis personae of the game.

Excerpts:

Candidate Coolidge. ". . . He is shrewd and calculating. You have only to look at his face to see that. It is a Yankee face. It just missed being a mean face, with its tight mouth and the over-sharp nose set at too pronounced an angle with the brow. The eyes are narrow and veiled, though they light up readily. The brightness of the eyes and the frequent smile save the face from repelling you. The smile is frugal. . . ."

Candidate Davis. ". . . He is one of life's fair-haired boys. . . . When he sells his legal service he does not throw in his soul for good measure. . . . Mr. Davis' mind is as smooth and round as his face. . . ."

Candidate LaFollette. ". . . We all owe him a debt of gratitude for exposing the corruption that went on under the eyes of poor unseeing Mr. Harding. . . . He governed a state long and well. People still live in it and grow rich. Corporations do not flee from it. He has served many years in the Senate and no extreme proposal has come in with his name on it. ... He has never recognized the validity of 'the smile that wins.' . . . Diplomacy has always seemed to Mr. LaFollette something base, something akin to a surrender of principles. I do not think he has ever understood the human heart. . . ." Candidate Dawes. ". . . He was not one of the Arrow Collar Kids of politics they usually put up for the Vice Presidency. . . . Well, there he is, a man who has done more and felt more than most men have, a cautious banker and a mad enthusiast, an artist, the best of friends, a hard boiled business man exploding with emotion, thinking straight in figures, but illogical and picturesque in speech. . . ." Candidate Bryan. "Younger brother to greatness, private secretary to a three-times candidate for President, business manager of the one-man Bryan newspaper, the Commoner, booker of the prince of Peace lectures, caller of the taxicabs to the Lincoln home, checker of the sacred suitcase on all trains--how could he emerge himself as a personality, the best gasoline-buying, coal-selling Governor Nebraska ever had? . . . He runs the State of Nebraska as if it were a small-town shop and he were the shopkeeper. And I am bound to say that he has run it well. He believes in William J. as William J. believes in Genesis. . . ." Candidate Wheeler. ". . . He is more like Mr. McAdoo than like any other man in Washington. . . . He has Mr. McAdoo's boldness, self-confidence, aggressiveness, relentlessness. He has all of Mr. McAdoo's cocksureness and infallibility. . . . He is more impersonal than Mr. McAdoo. Mr. McAdoo hated vindictively the men who had stood in his way; at heart he was a feudist. Mr. Wheeler has no feuds; he hates what men have done, not the men themselves. . . . He is young and handsome, two great virtues. He is a favorite at Washington dinner parties, which radicals ordinarily are not. He has a charming wife and that helps him. He has poise and self possession. He is never boastful or strident. . . . He bears no resentments. . . . He expects to be roughly handled and takes rough handling like a soldier."

--You TAKES YOUR CHOICE--Clinton W. Gilbert. (One of the authors of The Mirrors of Washington)--Putnam ($2.50).