If the people elect a man like Mr. Mellon to office they do not enlist in the public service the combination of persons and forces which is known by his name. Or if he is all that he seems to be, measured by his great fortune, perhaps they get him after he has spent his force or after his head is turned by success, or at any rate they put him into an unfamiliar milieu and subject him to that corrupting temptation, the desire for a second term or for a higher office.
And to go back to what I have said before, they make self-government go into bankruptcy and ask for a receiver.
The great business-man President is just a romantic development of the great business-man illusion.
THE BOTTLE NECK OF THE CABINET, AND WHAT IS IN THE BOTTLE
Mr. Mellon's associates in the Cabinet were most of them chosen on substantially the same principles as he was, namely, that success in business or professional life implies fitness for public life. We have no other standard. The present Cabinet is an "exceptionally good" Cabinet. Many of its members are millionaires.
Some of them owe their place to the rule that those who help elect a President are entitled to the honor, the advertising, or the "vindication," of high public office.
That is to say, the same considerations that rule in the selection of Senators rule in their selection. They were recruited from the class from which Senators are recruited. I can not say the mental level of the Cabinet is above that of the Senate. Take out of the upper house its two strongest members, its two weakest, and half a dozen of the average sort, and you construct a body in every way equal to the Cabinet of Mr. Harding in intelligence and public morals.
Most of them, never having been members of the upper house, have not suffered from the depreciation in the public eye which attends service in the legislative branch. They come rather from the wonderful business world.
There are, moreover, few of them compared to Senators. Smallness of numbers suggests careful selection, superior qualifications.
And the secrecy of Cabinet meetings makes them impressive. If reporters were present, the public would realize that the Cabinet as a Cabinet was mostly occupied with little things.