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1916. In 1910 President Taft put him on the Supreme Court bench as an associate justice. In 1916, a tart note to President Wilson marked his resignation from the court and his entry upon one of the most stupidly-managed political campaigns in U. S. history. On the evening of Nov. 8 he went to bed convinced that he would be the next President of the U. S. On the morning of Nov. 9 he arose to find himself once more a private citizen.
Grand Duke. When President Harding in 1921 named him Secretary of State, Mr. Hughes's appearance suddenly improved. His beard was trimmed shorter. The best tailors got orders for his suits. He engaged a valet to turn him out to perfection. He resembled nothing so much as a Russian grand duke under the empire. He conducted the State Department in the grand manner.
U. S. history bulks large with his diplomatic achievements: peace with Germany. the Washington Conference 5-5-3 naval ratio, rationalization of the nonrecognition of Soviet Russia, the World Court, resumption of diplomatic relations with Mexico.
But the pure white flame of Liberalism had burned out in him to a sultry ash of Conservatism. He had become a cosmopolitan figure, with icy grace and assurance, but had lost all his old fervor of a reform crusader. His mind had captured his heart.
"Chilly Charlie." As a Harding Cabinet member, he was no White House crony. He played no poker with the President, Albert Bacon Fall, Harry Micajah Daugherty and Charles Forbes. They called him "Chilly Charlie"—and worse— resented his austere respectability.
"One-Man Theory." Last week it was a man of awful prestige whom President Hoover made Chief Justice of the U. S., a lifetime job paying $20,500 per year. His elevation, from the popular viewpoint, put him in the same category as such famed lifetime jobholders as the Grand Dalai Lama at Lhasa. Like them, he was invested with a new sanctity, an infallibility that set him above and apart from ordinary human beings. From this notion springs the belief that only the man who holds the office is fit to hold it.
Against this "one-man" theory last week stood Calvin Coolidge "Apostle of Common Sense," who will be long remembered as a U. S. President who said that U. S. Presidents do not have to be great or distinguished men. While others marveled aloud at the unique perfection of the Hughes appointment, Citizen Coolidge took it as a matter of course, implied that the U. S. was well stocked with other good and able men available for the highest posts. Said he:
"I have said before that this is not a one-man country. This event [Taft succeeded by Hughes] has again demonstrated it."