There is something inscrutably ludicrous in the anxiety, bordering
upon consternation, that lurks in the elongated and grotesque
shadow that George Harvey casts upon Washington. The Republican
fathers, who now feel a sense of responsibility, after a lapse of
many years, for the future of party and country, do not yet know
how to take him.
As a campaign asset his value could be expressed in intelligible
terms. But as a party liability, or asset,--many a good Republican
wishes he knew which,--he remains an enigma. There is not one of
the array of elders of either political persuasion who, while
laughing at his satirical sword-play, does not watch him covertly
out of the corner of the eye, trembling at the potential ruin they
consider him capable of accomplishing.
With all his weaknesses,--principally an almost hilarious political
irregularity,--but two Republican hands were raised against him in
the Senate when he was nominated for the Court of Saint James. When
he rather unbecomingly filliped John Bull on the nose in his maiden
speech as the premier ambassador, incidentally ridiculing some of
his own countrymen's war ideals, President Harding and Secretary
Hughes, gravely and with rather obvious emphasis, tried to set the
matter aright as best they could. But there was no hint of
reprimand; only a fervent hope that the mercurial Harvey would
remain quiescent until the memory of the episode passed.
The quondam editor, now the representative of his country on the
Supreme Council, in which capacity he is even more important than
as Ambassador, represents a new strain in American politics. His
mental habits bewilder the President, shock the proper and somewhat
conventional Secretary of State, and throw such repositories of
national divinity as Senators Lodge and Knox into utter confusion.
Harvey plays the game of politics according to his own rules, the
underlying principle of which is audacity. He knows very well that
the weak spot in the armor of nearly all politicians of the old
school is their assumption of superiority, a sort of mask of
benignant political venerability. They dread satire. They shrink
from ridicule. A well-directed critical outburst freezes them.
Such has been the Harvey method of approach. Having reduced his
subjects to a state of terror, he flatters them, cajoles them, and
finally makes terms with them; but he always remains a more or less
unstable and uncertain quantity, potentially explosive.
There is not much of the present Harvey to be gleaned from his
earlier experiences, except the pertinacity that has had much to do
with his irregular climb up the ladder. He was born in Peacham,
Vermont, where as a boy after school hours he mounted a stool in
his father's general store and kept books. At the end of the year
his accounts were short a penny. Because of this he received no
Christmas gift not, as he has said, because his father begrudged
the copper more than any other Vermont storekeeper, but because he
was meticulously careful himself and expected the younger
generation to be likewise.
This experience must have been etched upon Harvey's memory; no one
can be more meticulous when his interest is aroused. To money he is
indifferent, but a misplaced word makes him shudder. Writing with
him is an exhausting process, which probably accounts for the fact
that his literary output has been small. But the same power of
analysis and attention to detail have been most effective in his
political activities. In these his divination has been prophetic
and in his manipulation of contending elements he shows a dexterity
that has baffled even the professional politicians.
Harvey began his journalistic career upon the Peacham Patriot.
Thence, with a borrowed ten dollar bill, he went to Springfield,
serving his apprenticeship on the Republican, the best school of
journalism in the country at that time. Later, on the Chicago
Evening News, on the staff of which were Victor Lawson, Eugene
Field, and Melville Stone, he completed his training.
When he joined the staff of the New York World at the age of
twenty-one he was a competent, if not a brilliant newspaper man.
His first important billet was the New Jersey editorship. This
assignment across the river might very easily have been the first
step toward a journalistic sepulcher, but not for Harvey. He made
use of the post to garner an experience and knowledge of New Jersey
politics that were to have an important bearing upon the career of
Woodrow Wilson later. At the same time he attracted the attention
of Joseph Pulitzer who appointed him managing editor of the World
before he was thirty.
While directing the World's policy during the second Cleveland
campaign, Harvey met Thomas F. Ryan and William C. Whitney, the
financial backers of the Democratic party. This prepared the way
for his step from Park Row to Wall Street after his break with
Pulitzer.
But the ways of Wall Street were not for Harvey. Nevertheless he
was cautious enough to help himself to some of the profits that
were forthcoming in those days of great amalgamations. With
commendable foresight, however much he might have despised the
methods then prevalent in the fields of high finance, he acquired
enough to make him independent, to follow his own bent, and
strangely enough, in the acquiring he came to the conclusion that
the Republic could not survive if the plundering of the people by
the "interests" continued as it was proceeding at that time.
He withdrew from the Street and eventually purchased The North
American Review. In the meantime J. P. Morgan and Company had
underwritten the bonds of the Harper publishing house and the elder
Morgan asked Harvey to take charge of the institution. This he
agreed to do with the understanding that he should be permitted to
direct the policy of Harper's Weekly, one of the assets of the
firm, without interference from the bankers.
With his peculiar faculty for detecting the weaknesses of
financiers and politicians, Harvey now had before him an
opportunity which was not afforded by the sedate old North American
Review and he promptly took advantage of it. He had seen enough of
the union of finance and politics to place little faith in either
of the old parties. One was corrupt and powerful; the other was
weak and parasitical. In both organizations money was a compelling
consideration. Not being accustomed to think in terms of party
allegiance Harvey decided that the only remedy for a very bad
situation was a militant Democracy. He had the organ; next he
needed the leader.
About this time, quite accidentally, he was present at Woodrow
Wilson's inauguration as president of Princeton University. The
professor appealed to the editor,--why, one can only conjecture.
Perhaps it was a common abhorrence of machine politics, a passion
for phrase turning, for there is a similarity in the methods of the
two which separates them from the rank and file of ordinary
politicians. Harvey scrutinized Wilson more carefully, making a
political diagnosis by a careful examination of his works, and
decided that he was the man to turn the trick.
But the gap between the presidency of Princeton and the Presidency
of the United States was too wide to be taken at one leap. Harvey
concluded that the governorship of New Jersey must be the
intermediate step. The Democratic year of 1910 provided the
opportunity.
The New Jersey politicians did not care about the college
professor. They had already chosen a candidate, but Harvey induced
them to change their minds. How this was accomplished is an
absorbing political tale, too long to be narrated here. The New
Jersey political leaders of that period will tell you that if Mr.
Wilson's "forward-looking" men had controlled the convention he
never would have been nominated. They will also tell you how Joseph
Patrick Tumulty opposed the nomination. They will even whisper that
the contests were settled rather rapidly that memorable evening.
After the nomination was announced, Mr. Wilson's managers escorted
him to the convention hall where he addressed a group of delegates
who were none too enthusiastic.
As they motored back to the hotel Mr. Wilson is reported to have
asked: "By the way, gentleman, what was my majority?"