fair comments and inconsiderate action. He said they desired to create the impression that he was doing nothing else. And this great, placid man had become sensitive to such petty things in the petty things in the course of a few years of official life.

Now, we know, as a matter of fact, that in playing golf he was trying to conserve his few shreds of health by an hour's surcease from the cares of office. They begrudged him the recreation necessary to keep life in his body, and made him the butt of their jokes. And because he was depleted and his nerves laid bare, he did not like it. That was indication sufficient to the observing that he had already become a changed man. He did not have the resistance. And then, by constant worry, care and irritations such as this, the vital forces were reduced to a point where, by a slight derangement in the system, he succumbed. His health had been insidiously undermined.

When he left Washington for his trip. to the west, his secretary informed me while in this city, he was already a broken man. Now we know specifically, in the jargon of medical diagnosis, exactly what ailed him. His wife told me the day before his death, when his condition appeared to be so satisfactory, as you will remember, that no one could understand the daily and hourly strain. to which he was exposed, and that she, as well as he, pined for the serener life which they had enjoyed before his elevation to the Presidency. They wanted to go back to the simple life, but they could not escape. They were chained to the responsibilities of high office-nor would they publicly avow that they wanted to escape. And yet, such is the barren recompense for distinction. "Those who ascend the mountain tops will find the highest peaks most clad in ice and snow." And yet it is the aspiration for high office that has led men in other years, and in other times, to the same inevitable fate.

It is recalled that an uncanny premonition, two days before the nomination was made at Chicago, while awaiting the result of the balloting, led Mrs. Harding, when interviewed, to say: "I can't see why anyone should want to be President in the next four years. I can see but one word written over the head of my husband, if he is elected, and that word is 'Tragedy!'"

It cannot justly be said that he sought the Presidency. It came to him. He had been long singled out by most of the political leaders as the most available man, and, of course, no man in his then perfect condition of health would avoid the honor or shrink from the duty when the call came. His term was in the reconstruction period, the period after the

The country wanted to see their President and hear an exposition of his policies. He could not refuse. And it now appears that, when he responded to the call, he felt he would not survive the journey, and so he told his doctor in San Francisco. And that brave man, facing what he believed to be his end, feeling that he had not the strength to carry him through, responded to the call of the people to come out and show himself. He had campaigned on his front porch at Marion, and he was not known to the country at large personally. They wanted him to come out, very properly, and show himself and expond his policies. So it was, that the brave man went forth, impelled by a high sense of duty, to what proved to be, as he had divined, his mortal doom. It may be said of him, as Alan Seeger, the soldier-poet of the war, said of himself before he gave up his young life:

"I have a rendezvous with Death-
Maybe he will take my hand,
And lead be into his dark land,
Close my eyes and quench my breath:
I have a rendezvous with Death!"

The world, my friends, is wont to acclaim military genius. Genghis Khan, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon have all excited thoughtless admiration. But, as Milton says: "What do these worthies but kill, murder and destroy?"-Their empire is founded upon blood, which is washed away. Their works do not endure! They purchase glory at the cost of the lives of men and women, not sparing even the lives of their own people, where "thousands die on battlefields to lift one hero into fame." And, in a world of rational men, sympathetic with their country's true greatness and the good of humanity, is it not the slower and less showy process of constructive statesmanship that seems worthier of the greater praise?

It has been well said that happy is the people whose history is uninteresting. Warren Harding wanted to make his people happy, to establish concord and to bring about a better understanding among the nations, and so abolish war. He gave out his heart's blood in lavish streams more than he could afford. His gentle spirit sought to impart a gentleness to others. He was the soul of courtesy. All his life he had practiced these

principles, and had he not attained his goal? He would teach to the people what he found advantageous to himself. He would give them the secret of his life and hoped by it that they should prosper at home and abroad.

So, in the din and confusion of the times, his voice was clear and emphatic for a world court to settle matters by conference rather than by a conflict. He had voted in the Senate against the League of Nations, but he had voted to accept the League of Nations with the reservations proposed. He did not wish. to reject it entirely. He said he wanted to attract the good of it and reject only what he considered the evil of it; and he believed that a world court, proposed by the League of Nations, was a good and forward-looking step. It was, in a party sense, a courageous thing for him to have done, but he did it. This plain, calm man had courage. He was no soft putty-made politician that yields to every impression. He stood his ground, although all the rest of them were cold in disapproval or expressed alarm.

Whatever be the merit of his position, he was convinced. Many of his friends who considered him available, perhaps because they thought he was a man who would be malleable in their hands and bend to their will, were greatly astonished. But it is an old saying that power brings wisdom. Warren Harding, in the White House, reached a high stanlard of becoming independence. He could be moved, but not moulded.

He was not only lovable, but he was strong in those essential things which make a man firm when once convinced. He was not concerned, apparently, whether it was going to improve his political fortunes. He kept his eyes in the boat.

This man voted for war in the spirit of peace. I well remember the day, the tremendous responsibility which was upon the Senate, to vote for war, because even the blind, could foresee the slaughter and the sacrifice. It was the step that one might well hesitate to take, and, this man, loving his fellows and loving peace with all the ardor of his great heart, voted for war. He understood why he voted for war and he did not hesitate to express it on the floor and in the circle of his friends. There was no division among loyal men in that hour. They were not voting to go to war in order to win any advantage by conquest. Not so. Their souls were perfectly clear as they cast that ballotthey were voting to preserve the integrity, not wholly of France or of England or of Italy, but of the United States.

Unless the challenge of the Kaiser was taken up, after insult and injury, this country would have lost its self

respect, and, with German success, probably would have been made a tributary State to the Prussian Empire, because the Kaiser's evil designs embraced the world. And, seeing that, Warren Harding knew that unless this conflict was settled, and settled right, there would be no peace in either hemisphere, and the whole world would be aflame. So he voted to kill "The wild beast of Europe" while yet there was time.

Former President Wilson, you may have observed in the press reports, deemed it an honor, wounded as he is in the same struggle, to follow, as a mark of respect the caisson, wrapped in the American flag, bearing the mortal remains of Warren Harding, because Wilson, too, stood for the reign of law, as opposed to the cruelty and injustice of force.

President McKinley's last speech at Buffalo was in favor of broadening our

international trade, which is "the calm health of nations." by removing unnecessary restrictions; just as President Harding's last speech, given out at San Francisco, declared for a more liberal conception of America's obligation to the fatherlands of the world. In that he rose to the dignity of his position, and demonstrated his love of the human race. His sympathies were as broad as life; his devotion to peace spontaneous and sincere. Let me quote a few words of that address:

"From the day the present administration assumed responsibility, it has given devout thought to the means of creating an international situation, so far as the United States might contribute to it, which would give assurance of future peace. We craved less of armament and we hated war. We felt sure we could find a rift in the clouds if we could but have international understanding."

(All warfare, according to Carlyle, is misunderstanding. We go to war, not with one another, but with distorted phantasms, which we call one another.)

"We felt sure that if the sponsors for governments could only face each other at the council table and voice the conscience of a penitent world, we could divert the genius and resources of men from the agencies of destruction and sorrow to the ways of construction and human happiness."

Of course, with becoming caution, he did not want to involve his country needlessly in any war. War can only be declared by Congress. No matter what our engagements made by the President, who directs our foreign affairs, there is no power outside of Congress to declare war. He felt that his country should not stand aloof in setting up the principles of determination by law-tribunals for such questions as

might be submitted to a court by the free consent of the litigants. He wanted a tribunal in which two States could amicably submit their cases to the court, voluntarily under no compulsion to do so-but to provide this open way for a peaceful settlement. And there are those who would bar that way! But Warren Harding was not one of them. He further said:

"The abstract principle of a world court was engendered in the Hague tribunal. The concrete application of that principle has been made by the League. Sound theory and admirable practice have been joined successfully. The court, itself, is not only firmly established, but has clearly demonstrated its utility and efficiency."

But what practical steps had President Harding taken to reduce the danger of war and to allay the fear which weaker powers, misguided, perhaps, entertained as to the aggressive designs of the American Republic? Had he done anything? He had called the conference. in Washington, which, apparently, has borne more substantial fruit than any other conference. And that was on account of the exceptional position of the United States, disinterestedly capable of advising the world powers. Whatever may be the wisdom of this action, it is certainly consistent with the high purpose with which the President faced a difficult situation. History alone can determine whether the generosity of the Uni

ted States was met in an honorable and fit manner, and with reciprocal co-operation, which we fully expect. The reduction of armaments was accomplished by the leading nations agreeing to the "five-five-three" plan of naval maintenance and construction. That was supposed to put the United States on a parity with the greatest nations, and other nations to stand in proportion to their importance as existing naval powers.

Then the Four Power Pact between the United States, England, France and Japan related to keeping peace in the Pacific. If accepted in good faith, which, as I said, history alone can determine, it should protect our possessions in the Pacific without war. Therein lies a great question. We can protect everything that we have, but we want to protect it without war, and here is an agreement by which these great powers

undertook to respect one another's rights, and that is all there was to it; and that was the second achievement of this great conference called by Warren Harding in Washington.

The spirit of these agreements is the spirit of Harding, the man, and, if they fail, it is only because his generous soul was more trustful and confiding than the common run of humanity. He, clearly, among modern statesmen, I will say, was a superman in his belief of the efficacy of the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount.

His whole conduct, in these and other matters, was highly creditable to our civilization. Civilization consists of restraint-not using the power you possess for the infliction of injury upon others but to give all others, at home and abroad, an equal chance in the development of their individual destinies. velopment of their individual destinies. No meddling with the other man's affairs-give him an equal chance in the development of his own destinies and protect him in it-and then there will be peace. If his spirit permeated the earth, standing armies would fade away, and man would be imbued with the sentiment of fellowship, if not of brotherhood.

So it will be seen that, although he was only a little more than two years in the presidential office, there was no mistaking his policy, which he had partly inaugurated, and was progressively moving towards the accomplishment of a peaceful settlement of international disputes. The greatest task, however, still lies before a suffering and leaderless world, which is now beginning to realize the interdependence of States. He was fast breaking loose from the thraldom of parties and would doubtless have espoused, pursuant to his principles, a more liberal trade and foreign policy, and would have been able, under the prestige of a re-election, perhaps, to have forced his views upon the Congress. Not only, therefore, do his countrymen realize his loss, but the people of the world must feel that the death of such a sympathetic humanitarian in high office is a serious setback to a better understanding among the nations, and is, therefore, in the nature of a world calamity. The despairing people of the world are looking to the traditional his

tory of the United States which, from the time of Daniel Webster, expressed a solicitude for the welfare of other peoples less fortunate. In his great speech as early as 1827 in the Senate of the United States on Grecian independence, Webster said substantially that it has been and is our policy to sympathetically lift by the hand people fighting for a chance to live and be free. Knowing this, they saw the greatest example of true Americanism in the persons of the President, laid low. What must be their disappointment and their grief.

Warren Harding is no more. He is gone. He was drawn into the vortex of international politics, and clung fast to his conscientious belief that peace might be obtained and war abolished by the same exercise of civilized forbearance by which the several nations of the world regulate civil society. He believed there was some way of doing it, and he jumped into the leadership. There was nothing cynical or distrustful of his fellow man in his discussion of public questions. He gave no offense. He gave all others the credit for the same candor and honest purpose which peculiarly belonged to him. His days might have been spared for the enjoyment of the genial and pleasant life, which was so sweet to him, had he not found his greater pleasure in the service of his countrymen, whose very labors, also, have decreed his early death.

It is hard to say whether he was tinged with that strange malady of greatness which covets posthumous fame. If so, his passing could not have had a more dramatic setting. One of the monarchs of the earth was warned, on pain of disease and death, to abdicate his throne. But, forgetful of self, he labored on to the close with this expression, "The throne is a splendid sepulcher!" The presidency is a splendid sepulcher!

friend, humanitarian, Senator, PresiGood-bye, Warren Gamaliel Harding, dent! You will be remembered when more boastful mortals, laying claim to greater intellectual achievements or bookish scholarship, will be unheard of in the schoolroom and cottage, where tradition embalms the memory of the good and the true; because, let it be known, "The heart has reasons of which the reason itself knows nothing."

NDIFFERENT to danger, he scarcely had noticed his route for the

picked his way at a leisurely trot. On the knolls and summits of the cedar-clad, stony hills he had not tried to conceal himself or to look back or in front along the tortuous road. He sat with eyes fixed on the white dust and hands folded over the pommel as if his safety did not depend upon his getting out of the district very quickly.

Without urging the pony faster he thoughtfully considered the results of his carelessness. A large posse must have been organized within an hour after he had galloped out of Rockland. This, broken up into small parties, was gaining distance rapidly and perhaps some of the riders were ahead of him now. Also it was likely the sheriff had telephoned several of the counties south of Rockland to look out for him.

There were moments when he was tempted to stop and make a stand against the posse, fighting till they had killed him; for this morning, despite his escape, he had sunk deeper than ever into despondency. For many months bitter, self-contempt had grown steadily within him. He hated himself; he had been a coward, a cheat who had stolen, killed, run away and hidden-a man opposed to everything decent and worthy. He never played a fair game; he had held up unarmed men, shot at his enemies from the dark and concealed himself among doubtful suspicious friends. He had taken advantage of other men's weaknesses; he himself had done nothing that was not mean and cowardly. For three years he had lived in this way; he had lost even the pretense of selfrespect that the worst criminals have, and he had no hope whatever of changing. He had searched his motives carefully again and again, and he found that they were always evil. He believed he had been born the exact negative of a strong honest man.

It hurt him to see little acts of kindness and charity by others, for he never considered anyone but himself. He thought constantly of food and danger.

He would make a stand now and let the posse shoot him but for one thing: he must kill Jim Coltrane. The thought of the man who had had much to do with his evil part in life gave him new determined energy. He must keep out of the posse's hands if only until he reached Coltrane's cabin.

Certain portentous events of the past unfolded before him with the sharpness

By PAUL ADAMS

of scenes in a moving picture reel. He saw his father slumped helplessly in his big arm-chair, gasping to his death from wrath and disappointment because Jim Coltrane, in a fraudulent suit, had won the two hundred-acre strip between the Elm Creek and Diamond Bar ranches. Again from a shelter of Spanish oaks on old Baldy mountain, he watched Coltrane's rustlers steal his fine Herefords. Another day he surrendered himself silently to the sheriff for the killing of one of these same rustlers. He recalled the densely packed, stuffy little courtroom as if the trial were only a few hours past. He heard Coltrane droning solemnly, his testimony-like that of his hirelings-a shrewd network of lies. Then the ride to the penitentiary. Then his escape.

He remembered poignantly how his freedom had mocked him. A dozen times he had nearly starved. Once he had risked his life to steal a drink of water from a herder's cabin. The long days and long nights of profound loneliness. The mean, cowardly subterfuges! He had seen his own mind and soul rotting gradually. He had wanted to shriek forth his anguish to the silent hills. At last, fearful of the approaching insanity, he had dragged himself in, beaten and helpless, to the authorities. They gave him five years—an eternity in hell. All the world had been pressed down into a few feet, imprisoned by four grim, gray walls. At first they regarded him coldly-then they began to torment him. Dark, grotesque, horrible shapes came forth from them and bedeviled and bewildered him. He fought desperately. He worked simple problems in arithmetic, wrote long letters to an imaginary sweetheart, prayed, exercised. At times he gave up wearily, lay on his rough bunk and cursed his tormentors for long hours. But one thing saved him. Occasionally he saw the coarse face of Coltrane. This roused him to a bitter fury, instantly cleared his faculties, steeled his determination. He waited with an unsteady but dogged faith that at last his moment would

come.

Suddenly he sat erect in the saddle and scanned the neighborhood. He knew a road a short distance away that the posse almost certainly would miss; this way offered the only escape open now. The road led to within four miles of Rockland and then followed a northerly direction.

As the morning hours passed the sun mounted into a hard, bright sky, turning a merciless current of fire upon him. The country was lonely, barren and so dry that the dust flying up from the pony's hoofs covered his trousers with a white, soft coating. There were no houses in sight, but once he disturbed a herd of thin goats. His despondency deepened.

In the early afternoon a brittle incline and a short curve through a patch of keen-scented cedar brought him abruptly upon a view of Oak City. Two miles down the vivid green, cliff-lined valley beside the Angeles River—a broad, shimmering stroke of silver-lay the dusty little village like a panting white lizard on some hot hill rock.

He felt instantly a desire for liquor and with it the impulse to brave danger. There was a chance, of course, that the sheriff had not telephoned to Oak City because the posse had gone in another direction.

He nudged the pony gently with his heels, gave the reins a shake and started down the hill towards Oak City.

The small, unpainted two- and threeroom houses on the outskirt of the town were enveloped in an atmosphere of perfect quiet; even the lean, coal-black hounds asleep on the flimsy porches took no notice of the stranger. Thin, brilliant-featured chickens stood in the rich shade of the oaks, panting from the heat. The yards were dry and scrawny and the bumpy street was four inches deep with white limestone dust.

re

Suddenly from the center of the town he heard three or four shouts, followed by two swift reports from a high-power rifle or revolver. Three blocks away a man in shirt-sleeves dashed across corners, running rapidly towards the west. He was followed shortly by others, who appeared very excited. There were several faint screams and two more ports. A barelegged boy wearing an immense straw hat vaulted out of a shabby bakery shop and sped off remarkably fast. A woman grasping a faded blue cooking apron stood on her front porch, gazing curiously. A nervous buzz came from the center of the village now as if many persons were talking rapidly in high-pitched voices.

He rode on, vaguely interested. Reaching the main street, he swung the pony to the right towards the west.

He approached fifteen or twenty persons gathered in a tight excited knot. A thin young girl was wringing her hands in anguish while her yellow pig

tails danced hysterically. Two small boys stood staring open-mouthed. Four or five men of nondescript appearance were talking gravely, trying vainly to seem cool. Several women were chattering. All were gazing up the street.

He dismounted quietly and dropped the reins over a hitching post in front of the barber shop as a fat man wearing

a

comically solemn expression stole across the street, clutching a short-barreled shotgun.

When he came up, a woman described the trouble to him. That afternoon a Mexican (called Crazy Pedro because of his constant drunkenness) had overcome the jailor and escaped. He had gone straightway to a saloon and drunk heavily of the cheap, poisonous whiskey sold to men of his race. An hour later the deputy sheriff had come to the saloon. The Mexican, flashing forth a revolver, had put up a fight. He was driven to a small shed on the opposite side of the street, where he continued to fire at intervals, The saloon's inmates had sought shelter elsewhere and the deputy sheriff, unable to take the Mexican by himself, had ridden to Pecan Grove, six miles distant, for help. Nearly everybody in the town was attending the barbecue at Pecan Grove. The sheriff had gone to Viva for a prisoner.

When the trouble began a spring wagon containing two women and a child was nearing the saloon. They had jumped from the wagon and had run to the porch of a confectionery store. The door was locked, the proprietor having gone to the barbecue; and the women and the child had only the scant shelter of several sacks of corn and boxes

of canned goods piled on a small platform that projected beyond the store's porch. If they tried to escape in either direction along the street they immediately would invite the fire of the whiskey-crazed Mexican.

The woman finished her story, began to sniffle and turned away.

He saw about one hundred yards from him the two women and the child crouching beside the stack of grain bags and the boxes. The face of the younger woman, the blonde, frail mother, was curd-white with terror. The gray features of the old woman beside her, apparently the grandmother, wore a strange, stoical scowl. Crying and twisting, a little boy of four or five years was held down tightly between them. On the steps of the porch lay the mother's shiny green hat and below in the dust were several sticks of candy and the broken candy bag.

He stared gravely at this picture, hardly thinking, growing quickly unconscious of the group of excited men and women. Inside of him an odd im

pulse was stirring. As the impulse grew stronger he had not the slightest thought of himself.

He took his heavy revolver from its holster, slipped some cartridges from the belt and drawing open the cylinder, slid them into the chambers. He was aware that the excited men and women were staring at him with much interest. The fat man with the shotgun, who a few moments before had crept across the street, returned and gazed at him with a curious expression of apathy.

Before the last building near the end of the street he climbed into the littered

yard of a blacksmith shop. Stooping low behind a rear corner of the shop, he saw the shed about seventy-five yards on a southwest line from him. Nearly forty yards on the opposite side of the shed, a short distance from the river bank, stood an immense oak, the only place within shooting distance that offered concealment. The saloon was fifty yards beyond the oak. To shoot at any distance greater than fifty yards would be useless, he knew. Therefore, he must manage to get behind the broad trunk of the oak.

He went back over the route he had followed, and hurried to the rear of the small houses across the street. He ran as rapidly as he could, leaping through fences and dodging piles or rubbish, fearing that at any moment the Mexican might turn his fire directly on the two women and the child. Every little while there was a report or two swift reports, almost together.

A high, closely boarded fence, once used for breaking ponies, bounded the west side of the saloon. He pulled himself up over the rails, drew his muscles taut, and then, compact as a ball, rolled quickly over, dropped, picked himself out of the dust and sprinted for the tree. A bullet whined past his head and cracked into one of the fence rails behind him. Another went wildly to his right. An instant later he lay panting against the broad trunk. As soon as he regained his breath he crouched as low as possible and peeped around the tree. He saw a small window in the front of the shed, but no sign of Crazy Pedro.

Five minutes went by without a shot. He was racking his brain for a plan when Crazy Pedro began firing, but not at him. The Mexican had discovered the partially concealed figures behind the grain sacks and the boxes, and his shots were directed at them.

There was only one thing for him to do now; to rush the shed. There was surely an entrance to the shack; he had seen none on the other side and there was no opening on the side towards him, so it must be in the back.

He stooped low and ran swiftly in a straight line south of the tree. As he neared the shed he saw an open doorway

and the unsteady figure of Crazy Pedro, who had incautiously revealed himself. He jerked his revolver forward as a swift current of cold air stung his cheek. Another bullet sent up a little spurt of dust beside his right foot. He succeeded in getting in three shots, one finding its target with the soft, full thud of lead striking flesh. Crazy Pedro dropped his revolver and sank back deliberately as wounded men fall.

Twenty minutes later in the center of a gaping circle, he was helping a garrulous old man lift the bandaged Mexican -the shot had broken his shoulder blade

into a wagon. His ear caught expressions of awed praise.

He felt a strong desire to get away from these people because their compliments embarrassed him; he remembered he had left the pony before a barber shop not far away, and turning he passed the group and left it.

He filled his canteen from a tap at the side of the barber shop, carefully examined his saddle blanket and girth and prepared to mount when he felt a hand touch his shoulder.

A well-knit young man of his own size, somewhat older than himself, with brilliant brown eyes that burned with a strong magnetism, faced him. Instantly he liked this man; his clear-cut features, his pleasant, forceful voice and his modest manner were stamped with absolute sincerity. The young man explained that he was a preacher, and had just returned from a visit in the country. He wanted "to thank a man for a real man's work." He would like to have such men-"men who were glad to brave nine chances to one to do a man's work"-for his particular friends. He said something very earnestly about "Men of God."

His speech, almost as simple as a child's, ended as abruptly as it began, and they shook hands and parted.

Five miles from Oak City on the lonely hill road that led into Mason County, the rider noticed that his hand clasping the bridle reins was trembling as in a fit of ague. He had been sitting rigidly although the pony had given no sign of bucking or running away. And his heart was beating like that of a child who has just passed through some intense excitement.

His brain was whirling. "To thank a man for a real man's work." "Men who were glad to brave nine chances to one to do a man's work." "Men of God."