that time to take back his speech advocating the
government ownership of railroads, a gesture against "the
interests," made at the bidding of Hearst, at the beck of whose
agents he is prone to bestir himself.

It must be an irksome livery, that of Hearst, for he hates all
service and overshadowing. Equally irksome is his service to
regularity under the rod of the Republican party. But he bows to
it, and supports Harding whom he hates. He bobs up like a
Jack-in-the-box and makes his laudatory speech whenever the name of
Roosevelt comes up, though in his heart he must reverence none too
deeply that overshadowing personality.

He has no roots except in the mob and no hope except in its aroused
resentment against inequality. Not being interested in individuals
he has not that personal organization possessed by Roosevelt, with
his army of correspondents, friends and idolators, in every hamlet.

And of course he has little hope of ever controlling his party
organization. He is curiously alone.

"There are only three men in the world whom I trust," he once said
to a friend. There is no reason to regard this as an exaggeration.
His attitude toward his associates in the Senate is this: "If I
were crossing a desert with any one of them and there was only one
water bottle, I should insist upon carrying that bottle."

On such pessimism and distrust it is impossible to build political
success. It can come only when his pessimism and distrust coincide
with like pessimism and distrust in the masses. He waits the day,
but gloomily, without confidence.

PHILANDER CHASE KNOX

"I like Knox and I admire him tremendously, but I will not ask him
to be my Secretary of State. He is too indifferent."

This characterization of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania,
attributed to his late colleague President Harding, summarizes very
aptly his strength and his weakness. One can very easily admire him
and, when he drops the mask of dignity, which seems almost pompous
in so diminutive a figure, one cannot help liking him. But in spite
of his successes,--which his enemies attribute to luck, and he
probably attributes to intellectual superiority,--he has never
quite achieved greatness and will probably go down in history as
one of the lesser luminaries in the political heavens.

Knox IS indifferent, especially to those who do not know him
intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the
contrary he has longed to s