National Affairs: A Parlor Game

Clinton W. Gilbert, famed Washington correspondent, author of The Mirrors of Washington, compared Senator Ralston and Calvin Coolidge:

If modesty is one of the virtues, Mr. Ralston has it over any other candidate who ever ran for the Presidency. There is a parlor game which consists in rating the qualities your friends possess. We might apply it to Presidential candidates. For modesty I should vote Ralston at 10 and Coolidge at 3. For ambition I should vote Coolidge at 10 and Ralston at 3. For honesty I should vote them both at 8, for I shouldn’t give any one 10 in honesty. For character I should make them both high. For modernity I should give the edge to Coolidge. Ralston belongs in the Prince Albert-coat period. But I recall this game always ended in a rating for “sex lure.” I shall stop right here.