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 soar like the eagle but he has the wings of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a feeble and futile fluttering.