that they could expect the Versailles treaty by the next White
House messenger; that "that whiskered,"--but nothing lies like
direct quotes,--that "that whiskered" Secretary of State would soon
get us into the League of Nations, being able for his purposes to
wind President Harding about his little finger!

His excitement in such an emergency naturally communicated itself
to his hearers. What to do? It was unanimously decided that the
only adequate course was for Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to resign as
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by way of
protest.

Henry Cabot Lodge running away from his chairmanship would be Henry
Cabot Lodge behaving as romantically as Horace's wolf. The good are
terrible, as Anatole France said in the words with which this
sketch begins. It is not so much that you can not resist them, as
that they lead you to make such fools of yourselves.

Mr. Hughes prevails, however, not merely by his virtue, but by his
intelligence. His is the best mind in Washington; to this everyone
agrees, and it is not excessive praise, for minds are not common in
the Government.

Mr. Harding has not a remarkable one, the people having decided by
seven million majority that it was best not to have one in the
White House, choosing instead, a good heart, excellent intentions,
and reasonable common sense. Mr. Hoover has a fine business
instinct, great but diffused mental energy, but hardly an organized
mind. From this point the Cabinet grades down to the Secretary of
Labor, who, when Samuel Gompers, Jr., his Chief Clerk, addressed