Fess Incident

When the little bald man went into the President's office, White House newsgatherers paid no special attention. That particular little bald man was always going into the President's office. He was President Coolidge's great & good friend, Senator Simeon D. Fess of Ohio, who used to be a college president* and still looks like one though he long since mastered the art of big politics--mastered it so well that he has come to be regarded as President Coolidge's mouthpiece on the Senate floor. President Coolidge once tried to dispel this aura from Senator Fess by saying that not even in the Senate days of William Morgan Butler of Massachusetts did the Coolidge Administration have an accredited Senate spokesman. Nevertheless, Senator Fess continued welcome at the White House and constantly was seen there. This particular morning he was, he said, going to talk with President Coolidge about railroad laws.

When he came out again, Senator Fess looked overheated. His eyes danced and his collar looked too big for him. The merest cub of a White House newsgatherer could have seen that something had happened, that Senator Fess had something more than usual to say. He was, in fact, going to reproduce for the newsgatherers the conversation he had just had with President Coolidge.

"I was telling him," said Senator Fess, "that I was more convinced than ever that the people of the country would demand his re-election so strongly that the party could not think of nominating anyone else and he could not refuse to accept the inevitable, regardless of his personal choice to retire to private life.

" 'I notice,' the President said at this point, 'that you have made quite a number of public statements to the effect that I would be nominated. I would prefer that you would not repeat those statements because they put me in the position of appearing inconsistent.'

"I hastened to assure the President that I had never given the impression I was speaking with his authority. . . . He insisted with some heat that the country would assume that he did not mean what he had said. . . ."

It goes into history as "the Fess incident." From it, future U. S. Presidents will learn a lesson about the embarrassments of amity. For in spite of President Coolidge's "heat," in spite of a tart suggestion by President Coolidge that Ohio politics* colored Senator Fess's interpretation of the country's "strong demand," Senator Fess continued to predict more freely than ever the renomination of the man he calls on so often.

"It is my opinion," said Senator Fess after what the press called his "scolding," "that the mere fact that the President does not say something more in face of the general public clamor, is proof enough that he intends to accept the nomination when it is offered to him. . . . It is the Coolidge way of doing things; it is the Coolidge psychology."

To "the general public clamor" President Coolidge continued unresponsive, leaving G. O. Politicians just about where they were before. Men as daring as Senator Fess said that the "Draft Coolidge" movement had been vastly advanced, since now it must be seen that the draft would be genuine. Others were vexed, not daring to boom for Mr. Hoover, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Lowden, Mr. Dawes or Mr. Whoever until sure that they could believe in a convention prediction which Senator Fess has reported President Coolidge to have made. This prediction was one word shorter than the famed "choice." The President said: "It won't work out that way. I will* not be nominated."

*After teaching history and law at Ohio Northern and Chicago Universities, he was president of Antioch College (Yellow Springs, Ohio), 1907 to 1917.

*Not only would Senator Fess benefit personally, as a Coolidge ticket man, by President Coolidge's renomination, but the Ohio G. O. P. in general would benefit. The Ohio law requires that Ohio delegates to the national party conventions shall go instructed. A muddle might ensue should Ohio have to decide between its two sons, Speaker Nicholas Longworth (Wet) and Senator Frank B. Willis (Dry). *Last week, Dr Henry van Dyke, retired patriarch of Princeton University's department of English, and a twinkle-eyed Democrat, wrote to the New York Times: ". . . But why put it in the negative ? The positive is shorter, clearer and better. 'May I not ?' is less handsome than 'May I ?' 'I do not think' is a weak substitute for 'I think--not.' 'I choose not to be a candidate in nineteen twenty-eight' is a sentence of good English. But it would not have a leg for the debate to run on; and this might diminish, if not eclipse, the gayety of the nation." If Senator Fess quoted President Coolidge exactly in the statement, "I will not be nominated," Dr. Van Dyke or his peer at grammar could write the New York Times another letter pointing out that the Coolidge renomination question is now definitely settled in the negative, since "I will not" expresses determination whereas "I shall not" would have been simple prediction.