GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
(Second Message)
Recorded May Third, 1921
I concur with Alexander Stephens when he says: “Congress has never been so supine and so serpentine.”
Millions are sent to the people of distant countries in no way related to our Government or people, and yet Congress permits thousands of veterans of the great war to continue in a state of neglect, suffering and humiliation.
Do the authorities believe that when the day of trial arrives the friends and relatives of these veterans will hurry to volunteer for active service? The country is being fascinated by incidents and events in far-off regions, and the tragic conditions at home have entered a chronic stage.
There are too many old men in Congress—men who never did more than fight grasshoppers or watch a game of football from reserved seats.
We do not like the looks of the President’s pronunciamento. It contains too many side issues. He is making Mr. Wilson’s mistake of being verbose. Mr. Wilson tried to hypnotize Europe; the Senate is trying to hypnotize Mr. Harding. Popularity breeds as much contempt as familiarity. No President can ever succeed in conciliating all classes, sections and parties.
The politicians of Buenos Ayres have now spoken as I predicted in my first message. They have attacked Mr. Harding for his speech on Pan-Americanism, all which goes to prove that the President is repeating for South America Mr. Wilson’s blunders in France.
Remember what Lincoln said to Judge Whitney:—
“Those fellows think I don’t see anything, but I see all around them. I see better what they want to do with me than they do themselves.”
The politicians of South America see better what the President wants to do with them than he does himself.
The administration will face a critical period in the early fall. There will be a break in the dominant phalanx. A social and political readjustment will compel mediation in quarters the most unexpected.
The new political and commercial dispensation for the English-speaking countries will begin on September twenty-second at two P.M.