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Herbert Hoover: Harding
A bad particle to ride into fame behind, that word "and," begetter of much oblivion! Who can say what goes after the "and" which follows the name McKinley, or Hayes, or Cleveland, or even Roosevelt? Who has sufficient "faith in Massachusetts" to remember long the decorous dissyllable connected by "and" with the name Harding? The link, "and," is not strong enough to hold. You recall the "and"; that is all; as in the case of that article of food, origin of many "calories," to use Mr. Hoover's favorite word, in the quick-serve resorts of the humble, where it supplements ably and usefully, but without honorable mention, slender portions of beef, pork, and ham. To describe briefly, in a phrase, what has happened to Hoover; two years ago, it was "Hoover"; to-day, it is "and Hoover."
Why the connective? Because, to put it bluntly, however great his other gifts are-and they are remarkable-he lacks political intelligence. He reminds one now of a great insect caught in the meshes of a silken web. He struggles this way and that. He flutters his wings, and the web of politics fastens itself to him with a hundred new contacts.
Facing possible elimination from public life, he accepted a dull and unromantic department under President Harding. He was told that he could "make something of it." Modern Greeks bearing gifts always bring you an opportunity which "you, and you alone, can make something of." He is trying to make something of it, something more than Mr. Harding and the party advisers intended when they gave him the Secretaryship of Commerce. He is trying to dramatize some turn of fate and be once more a "big figure." He is tireless. He arrives at his office fabulously early. Clerks drop in their tracks before he leaves at night. He has time to see everyone who would see him; for he can never tell when "the man with the idea" will knock at his door. Unlike the British naval officer charged with the duty of examining inventions to win the War, who is decribed by Guedalla as sitting like an inverted Micawber "waiting for something to turn down," he is waiting for something to turn up. He does more than wait; he works twenty hours a day trying to turn something up. And he will turn something up. The chances are that he will do as much for the infant foreign trade of this country as Alexander Hamilton did for the infant finances of this country. He promises to be the most useful cabinet officer in a generation. But this is less than his ambition. If he were an unknown man, it would be enough; but you measure him by the stature of Hoover of the Belgian Relief. Like the issue of great fathers, he is eclipsed by a preceding fame. As well be the son of William Shakespeare as the political progeny of Hoover, The Food Administrator!
