National Affairs: Contumely

Professor Irving Fisher of Yale in a. recent speech at East Liverpool, 0., recounted a conversation with the late President Harding during the political campaign of 1920. As a result certain newspapers and a few politicians heaped contumely on the head of Professor Fisher, accusing him of maligning the name of the late President. Mr. Fisher quoted the then Senator Harding as saying: ” I want the United States to get into the League just as much as you do. . . . Of course, I’m opposed to the Wilson League as I have always said; but the League can be changed. My idea is to call the nations together and ask them to make such amendments as are necessary to secure the approval of the United States.” On the basis of these words it was said of Mr. Fisher: ” The vivid imagination of the professor … ” We do not begrudge him the notoriety which a small soul in life succeeds in getting at the expense of a great one in death.”—Marion Star. ” Professor Irving Fisher . . declared in effect that Warren G. Harding played a double-faced part in the campaign of 1920. . . .”— The New York Herald. ” He indicates that Mr. Harding was explicitly for this country’s entrance into the League of Nations as it exists today.”—Toledo Times. ” I think it is a very poor commentary upon the intelligence of Professor Fisher. . . .”—Senator John K. Shields of Tennessee. ” He attributed to Warren G. Harding utterances destitute of courage and sincerity. . . . “He did not venture to make his attack during the lifetime of Presirent Harding. Neither did he hasten to do so immediately upon his death. Fixing a finely academic eye upon the calendar, he bided his time until the 30 days of mourning had elapsed. . . . . The flags were raised to full mast once more on September 2, and on that very day Professor Fisher’s tongue was loosened.”— New York Tribune. Professor Fisher, at whose expense these remarks were made, was originally a mathematician, but shifted the center of his interests to economics. He is a good friend of William Howard Taft. He was a member of Theodore Roosevelt’s National Conservation Commission, and was for 14 years an editor of The Yale Review. His hobbies are eugenics, public health in general, the League of Nations, free trade, the stabilizing of the dollar. His works include The Nature of Capital and Income, The Purchasing Power of Money, and other treatises more learned than malign.

Those who know Mr. Fisher assert without question that he never thought of casting a reflection on the memory of President Harding. He himself explicitly denied the imputation that ” President Harding favored the League of Nations, but did not dare to make his views public.” The statements attributed by Mr. Fisher to the late President are not contrary to the general substance of Mr. Harding’s speeches which favored an ” Association of Nations.” There is no question but that Mr. Fisher is innocent of all political arts, as some of his accusers are not.

Professor Fisher explained: ” There was no thought in my mind of being disrespectful to the President. … In his espousal of an impossible association of nations he had been accused by his enemies of insincerity. . . . Mr. Harding was sincere. He was opposed to the League as it stands. He was in favor of a different league. He intended to get the latter by changing the former.”