Man and the Mask

Washington chuckled, the whole country grinned. The President had been caught taking an illicit horseback ride. He has a mechanical hobbyhorse in his dressing room--a horse with a tin body, on which is cinched an ordinary saddle. By pressing successive buttons, the horse can be made to trot, to canter, to gallop at various speeds--an electrical motor supplying the motion (which is entirely vertical). Three times a day, for ten minutes, he rides.

Of course Washington chuckled. One of the Senatorial wits--from the press reports, one could gauge rather accurately that he was Senator Caraway-suggested that this jiggling steed should be called Foreign Policy, because it had neither head nor tail. Another Democrat declared on the floor of the House: "I shall not be surprised if soon it will be heralded to the people that the President is riding this wooden horse for the purpose of cutting down the oat bill at the White House stable."

Mechanical horses aren't novel. Most first-class ocean steamships have them. In the gymnasiums of clubs frequented by tired business men, they are a regular institution. In fact, Dwight W. Morrow, partner in J. P. Morgan & Co. and classmate of the President, uses one. It was Mr. Morrow who brought the contrivance to the President's attention and presented him with the one now in the White House. It might never have been discovered had not it become disabled and a hostler-electrician been called to repair it.

But it was discovered and the fact that it had been hidden made the public's delight the keener. "Now," the public conceived, "we are getting behind the President's mask."

Yet the personality of a President is always a myth. He receives so much publicity, he is so copiously interpreted, that the view of him is effectively screened by all that is said about him.

Mr. Coolidge's partisans set up one screen on which they paint his portrait in heroic lines, bold, strong, silent. His antagonists set up another screen on which they limn him as futile, vacillating, insignificant. What of the truth is not hidden by one screen is completely masked by the other.

He has been President for 18 months and promises to be for 48 months more. Yet the public still knows him only by his masks-witness his nicknames: "Calvin the Cool," "Cautious Cal," "Calvin the Silent," "Economy Cal"-and it is said that in London he is known as "Courageous Cal," in Paris as "Le Capitaine Cal."

From the time of his arrival at the White House until the time of his election last November, hardly anyone could see Mr. Coolidge, even on private occasions, without noting that he was watchful of every action, of every word that might be reported directly or indirectly in print or in unprinted gossip. He was oppressed by the fact that he was in a delicate position. Literally overnight, he had been thrust into the presidency. He had to adjust himself, and he knew that he had barely 15 months, in which to show whether he was a misfit, or a fixture.

He had a very real humility, if one could judge aright; not the pious sentiment assumed by nearly every politician on going into office, but the humility of a man who finds he is faced by "a tough proposition" to meet which he must draw on his best capabilities. Likewise he had confidence, the conviction that his mind could unravel the intricacies of any problem, given time and the facts.

The first thing he did was to put up the barriers, to step behind a shield of Presidential immunity from direct quotation. The gulf between his past and his present was staggering. He had made his career on the same plan as a young man, able but conservative, who goes into a bank, works hard, tries to be efficient, puts by, bit by bit, takes his annual raise and with reasonably good fortune rises eventually to an undistinguished executive post. Imagine such a man suddenly being thrust into high and rather frenzied finance. Such, largely, was Coolidge in politics.

From coping with the politicians of a state, its business men, its voters and its industrial and financial problems, he was thrust among the politicians of 48 states, among business men, engaged in tremendous operations; he was confronted with a public many times greater and more diverse and hidden from him as effectively as he was hidden from it, with industrial and financial problems of an altogether new order. There was no use pretending that his experience as Vice President had given him more than a kindergarten education for his new office and he needed a college degree at least.

He came in contact, now with men approximating those mythical beings called "statesmen,"--men like Hughes, Hoover and Mellon--men who dealt in generalities which had hardly touched him. He had a few contacts with this group and with the financial group whom he had now to deal with. There was Frank W. Stearns, Boston department-store owner, who had been his backer and adviser. He grappled Stearns to him in this contingency. He renewed an older contact with some of his Amherst classmates and associates--men like Dwight W. Morrow. He had been living in a quite different world from theirs.

At first, he had to take advice, but did so with some hesitation. He appointed C. Bascomb Slemp as his Secretary to handle a number of political problems. He leaned on the arms of Secretaries Mellon and Hoover, but, when tax-reduction was proposed, he let Mr. Mellon float it as a trial balloon with tacit consent, before determining how strongly to support it.

When he was four months in office, he had to write his first message. Laboriously, painfully, he went over nearly every proposal which was before the country. He tried to master each. Believing, as a New Englander does, that a thing is either right or wrong, he did not attempt to dodge or straddle any question. Even the red hot Soldier Bonus he touched, briefly to be sure, in his own interest, making his statement merely: "No."

The message "took" with the country. It was the first sign of encouragement for him. There followed set-backs--the oil scandals which he did not handle with too sure a hand--a wrangling, hissing Congress. In addition, during this period of adjustment, he had to acquiesce in a barrage of campaign publicity for the November election. Nevertheless, by June he had sufficient confidence in his position to veto with some directness two important measures--the Soldier Bonus, and Postal Pay Increase Bill.

In the first phase of his Presidency, he was in contrast to some of his predecessors-Wilson, for example, who came stalking into office with complete confidence in himself and his understanding, directly ordering the whole tariff and banking systems of the country remade; or Harding, entering, entirely affable, intending to do good. Harding was a good fellow among the stage folk of the national drama. Wilson was a cosmopolitan. But Coolidge was used mainly to Massachusetts.

Election was a great turning point for Mr. Coolidge. He is still adjusting himself, but he knows better where he stands. So far, he has made no attempt to subdue Congress or to lead it, as Mr. Wilson wished to do. He might perhaps say: "I will stand by myself, and let Congress fall by itself."

Signs of this attitude are abroad. With Mar. 4 hovering around the corner, he began to make numerous engagements for speeches and trips-things that were taboo earlier. He said briefly what he thought on portions of foreign policy. He summoned a few Senators to breakfast and an exchange of points of view, but, in the main, his attitude was: "That's what I want; take it or leave it." He seemed to have effected a working understanding with his Cabinet, especially Messrs. Hoover and Mellon.

There are four years more in which to decide whether Mr. Coolidge is able to complete making himself over from the savings bank locale to the high finance cosmopolis. He will never address Congress like a Wilson. His equestrianism will never resemble that of the British royal house. He will probably keep his wooden horse--and take thorough daily exercise aboard it.