National Affairs: Strong-Minded Men

The uncertainty, if not the obscurity, into which sharp-witted Senator George Higgins Moses of New Hampshire was plunged directly after the Hoover nomination, persisted and persisted until last week. Senator Moses was the original Hoover-ite in the Senate. He was made permanent chairman of the Kansas City convention. He was widely discussed for the VicePresidential nomination. That was the Moses crescendo. After Senator Curtis was nominated, Senator Moses was widely predicted for Republican National Chairman. Then that title was given to Secretary of the Interior Work. Senator Moses was announced as Eastern manager for the campaign. Then Chairman Work began to function and Senator Moses was announced as just one of Dr. Work’s many subordinates. Contrary to G. O. P. tradition, there would be, said Dr. Work, no New York headquarters for the Hoover campaign. That was the Moses diminuedo. Senator Moses hastened to Washington. He was told he might be something called Director of the Service of Plan and Policy. He returned to Manhattan thinking that he was Chairman Work’s practical-political advisor and virtually his peer. But last week, at a Manhattan meeting of National Committeemen from the New England and Middle Atlantic States, Senator Moses found that Dr. Work still intended to control the entire campaign from headquarters at Washington; that he and not Senator Moses would preside at Eastern advisory meetings. Senator Moses gave way to thoroughgoing irritation. “I am not a Mahomet’s coffin!* ” he cried. “I am President pro tem of the Senate. I was selected by Mr. Hoover’s friends to preside over the National Convention that nominated him. I shall go to Palo Alto to deliver the speech of notification. I see that it is useless to remain in the campaign after that. So I guess I will take the first steamer to Europe and rest!” But the campaigners dined late that night at the Harvard Club and in the course of the evening Senator Moses was persuaded to accept a new title—Vice Chairman of the Advisory Committee. Dr. Work remained chairman of this body, ex-officio. Senator Moses’ chief duty would be to aid in the Congressional campaign, with special reference to the seven Senate seats held by Democrats between Maryland and Maine. Resilient, Senator Moses declared that he was satisfied. “Serious differences are sometimes characteristic of strong-minded men,” he said. “I should say that just now harmony is at least a foot thick hereabouts.” And off he dashed to Dublin, N. H., to enlist the services of Col. George Harvey, publicist-extraordinary to all Republican nominees since 1916 (before which he helped “make” Woodrow Wilson). Puzzlers for the cause of so much confusion over the status of Senator Moses found it, or thought they did, in the Senator’s wetness. He is a much too forthright gentleman to have concealed his personal convictions on the Wet side. There he stands with Senators Edge of New Jersey and Reed of Pennsylvania, and National Committeeman J. Henry Roraback of Connecticut. Though long potent in G. O. P. councils, all are now most inconspicuous in the Hoover movement with the exception of Senator Moses, who had to fight for the place he did get. If Hoover is elected with Republican Dryness a dominant issue, the Moses record as a Wet might even interfere with his inheriting from Senator Curtis the leadership of the G.O. P. in the Senate. And, ironically, next in line for that honor will be the other leading Wets, Senators Edge and Reed.

* The crude drawings of Mahomet’s coffin which were sold (and still are) to pilgrims at Medina, gave rise to a legend that the coffin was suspended between Paradise and Earth. Admirers of the wealth of allusion and metaphor in Senator Moses’ conversation have before now quoted to him (from The Vicar by Poet Praed): His talk was like a stream which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses; It slipped from politics to puns It passed from Mahomet to Moses.