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The weight behind Mr. Mellon's presidential pronouncement this year was, of course, primarily the weight of "the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton." Critics may well contend that the reductions of taxes and of public debt, and the funding of foreign loans that have been accomplished during the Mellon regime, could have been compassed by any other competent banker; that the Mellon genius is mythical and that between it and Prosperity, if any, there is not the remotest connection. But the politically important fact remains that Mr. Mellon and not some other banker has been the man in the office since 1921. It matters not what Treasury official wrote and what Congressmen revised the tax reduction bill that preceded the Coolidge landslide of 1924. Mr. Mellon's name was on it. Sometimes it is said that the name of Mellon is anathema to the farmers. If that is so, it is not reflected in the Secretary's mail, yet public men who have bitter enemies usually hear from them directly. The fact is that when Secretary Mellon talked about the Presidency, the country listened almost as respectfully as if President Coolidge were speaking—more respectfully, in the case of the politicians.
For besides the Secretary of the Treasury, the primate of Pennsylvania was speaking, and Pennsylvania is a primate among the States. So reliably Republican that its Favorite Sons never have to be considered for the Presidency, yet so large (38 electoral votes) that it can never be ignored, Pennsylvania enjoys a peculiar dominance in national G. O. P. conventions (and on Congressional committees). This dominance would be lessened by any division within the Pennsylvania organization. Hence Mr. Mellon's reiteration last week that the Pennsylvania G. O. P. is a "cohesive" whole, despite certain well known differences between Mellon men and the henchmen of Philadelphia's defamed William S. Vare.
Finally, genius or not, politician or not, when Mr. Mellon spoke about the Presidency, people heard him as his party's greatest patrician. Today he fills the place in U. S. public life so long occupied by Charles Evans Hughes. Regardless of such sneerers as the New York World, which reminded people that Mr. Mellon came to office during the Harding regime, no Republican had a better right than he to talk, as he did last fortnight, about "the standard that we have set for this high office." Perhaps a thought of this crossed Candidate Lowden's agitated mind when he retorted to the Administration, for Mr. Lowden is something of a patrician too, in a large, squire-like way.
But inflection is of small importance to the Grand Manner, which is a perfection of spirit underlying all a man's acts, private and public. Shy to a painful degree, Mr. Mellon is nevertheless noted for his courage. His integrity, of course, is beyond question. Memorable illustrations of these two qualities were the swift ejection from the Treasury in 1922 of Elmer Dover, Ohio Gangster, and Secretary MelIon's long stand-up fights on the Internal Revenue Bureau with hard-hitting Senator Couzens of Michigan.