Great Britain is first of all a master politician. This is unquestionably true in spite of the fact that he never ran for office, never served on any party committee, and never had. any official part in public life' except when, for a very brief time. ju his early life, he had one of those honorary and ornamental military positions in the obsolete institution that we call a Governor's staff. It was this attention from the Goyer-nor of New Jersey that causes Mr. Harvey to be called "Colonel," writes the Washington correspondent of the " Observer."
But In the sense of understanding those currents, whirlpools and floods of public feeling which constitute politics as a science, and in know-jing how to direct them and take advantage of them, Colonel Harvey has no living peer. The political part of his career is absolutely without parallel in American history. Bo far as T can recall, it is without parallel in English history. Tt is possible that something approximate ing to what he has done may have occurred occasionally in the more volatile politics of France.
Democrat aND REPUBLICAN.
Colonel Harvey was a member of the Democratic Party. As such he picked from the comparative obsecurity of a college presidency a man who, he thought. could be made President. For six years he groomed. him, brought him from the presidency of Princeton University to the Governorship of New Jersey, and placed him in " position where the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States was sure to descend upon him, At that is protege, Woodrow Wilson, int, in 1912, Colonel Harvey and parted over an episode that was as trivial as a mere phrase in a personal remark that Mr. Wilson made to him. Thereupon Colonel Harvey quietly accepted the cards that fate had thrust upon him, remained in the Democratic party for a becoming period, then passed across the line to the Republican Party, became the chief critic of the Presidential policies of his former protege, framed the issue on which Mr, Wilson, was subsequently defeated, achieved a dominating hand in selecting the Republican candidate, Mr. Harding, and now, as the beneficiary of his part in putting Mr. Harding into the White House, receives what is in many respects the most coveted gift in the power of a President.
To have been the chief force in naming two Presidential candidates in two different parties would be a unique distinction anywhere In America it is so extraordinary as to be without parallel. With us party lines are rigidly drawn. Our parties have some of the fraternal solidarity of secret societies or college clubs. To pass from one party to another is rare. But to pass from exalted power in one party to equally exalted power in another, as Colonel Harvey has, is without precedent.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.