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So high rose the Young-for-President talk that Mr. Young last week divulged a letter of his to a Little Falls, N. Y. publisher: "I say definitely and finally that I cannot, for reasons which are so controlling as not to be open to argument, accept a nomination for the Presidency, if made." The fact remains that no man in U. S. history has ever refused his party's highest call to duty.
Baker's Week. Unlike Mr. Young, Mr. Baker was keeping quieter & quieter as Convention day approached. Last week, for once, he had no out-of-town speaking engagements. Clients could readily find him in the offices of Baker, Hostetler & Sidlo in Cleveland's Union Trust Building. On primary day he plodded through the rain to the Shaker Heights precinct to vote, went down to work as usual. That evening he attended a farewell dinner to James H. Rogers, composer, organist and the Plain Dealer's music critic, who was moving to San Diego. In a little speech Mr. Baker recalled how, as Secretary of War, he had carried to France copies of Composer Rogers' "When Pershing's Men Go Marching to Picardy," and distributed them to Marshal Foch and General Petain for French bands to play.
Among Mr. Baker's political visitors of the week was George Creel, Wartime propagandist for the Government. Mr. Creel, already a red-hot Baker man, reported: "Going about the country and talking with all classes and conditions, the name I hear most is that of Newton D. Baker. Every thinking Democrat hopes you'll be drafted." Mr. Baker tush-tushed such talk, again shrugged off whatever duty June might bring.
Heart's Heelprints. Strange is the contrast between today's public acclaim of Mr. Baker and the derision and denunciation that were his lot in Washington. He was an "innocent" (his word) in 1916 when he became Secretary of War just as Mexico went on a rampage. He was damned as a pacifist. He was called "Newtie" because he is small (5 ft. 6 in.). He was mocked for the flowers on his desk. The Army found he was not a "good fellow," the Senate that he did not play golf. When the War started he was charged with unpreparedness and, when it ended, with mismanagement and extravagance. Republicans, out to smear the Wilson regime preparatory to the 1920 campaign, got indictments right & left for War frauds but, except in four trivial cases, could not make their charges stick in court. Through all this storm of abuse Secretary Baker held his tongue, did his work. He left Washington in 1921 a penniless and disillusioned man. When a friend suggested that he was tough to criticism, Mr. Baker dolefully replied: "If you took my heart out, you'd see the heel prints on it." Much of his reluctance to seek the Presidency may be due to the treatment he got in Washington.
The last decade has brought a new and better public estimate of Newton Baker. He is no bigger than he ever was but his stature as a public man has increased many cubits. A typical revision of opinion was Encyclopedia Britannica's, wherein Mr. Baker changed from an "American politician . . . condemned as lacking in energy, foresight and ability," to an "American lawyer, administrator and party leader . . . subject of severe criticism, much of it for partisan ends."