and Mrs. Coolidge he showed two films, one an intensely dramatic German film called the "Palatine Barrage," made from a German "pill-box" perhaps the most sensational film ever made of real war; the other, one of "Our Gang" series. The President enjoyed the pictures and prolonged his stay much beyond his accustomed hour for leaving.

2

Among the many well-balanced interests of General Dawes is an intense fondness for music. He plays the piano and flute excellently, and I have seen him lead an orchestra with professional skill. One of his compositions has been played by no less a "fiddler" than Fritz Kreisler and is obtainable for the phonograph. It is one of the trials of the general's life that when he enters a restaurant where he is known the orchestra at once bursts into this selection. It pursues him as persistently as Eugene Field used to be pursued by his famous "Little Boy Blue."

The Civic Opera in Chicago, one of the best in the world, was largely promoted and financed by General Dawes. He is a firm believer in the obligation of a citizen to do what he can for his city. Once, in a reflective mood, he said to me, "Civic service provides the only reputation that is enduring." And he also believes a man should give to charity and other unselfish objects in proportion to his means. I heard his disgusted comment about a certain man, "Why, that fellow doesn't give more than $200 a year to charity and his income is $30,000."

He himself gives very largely of his time and money. The number of young men who owe to him their

start in life is large. The amount he devotes to casual and unregulated giving is considerable. No applicant with any real claim to sympathy leaves his office empty handed.

One man to whom misfortune was chronic, was so effusive in his gratitude that the general made a compact with him whereby he should come to the office when in need, but should never utter a word. I have often seen this man standing in the anteroom awaiting his benefactor's appearance. At sight of him, the general would silently hand him a dollar bill, and the recipient would bow his gratitude and depart. Not a word was uttered.

Dawes has successfully run a great bank without becoming "hardboiled," though it is said banking more than any other profession tends to congeal the milk of human kindness. An hour or so in the general's office, whether in the Central Trust Company of Illinois, in Chicago or in the Vice-President's chambers at Washington, is illuminating. Access to the office is easy. Old friends, applicants for aid, musicians and what not, arrive and enter with little formality. There is nearly always a small delegation inviting him to make a speech somewhere. Frequently there is a prominent visitor from abroad, a banker from Germany, an old army friend from France, a cabinet officer from Belgium, an economist from England-the gathering is always interesting. To General Dawes, being Chicago's most prominent citizen, falls the frequent duty of entertaining exalted foreigners who visit the city.

When lunch-time comes he invites those who are there to join him and,

if in Chicago, he takes them to the restaurant where he can hear the best music.

2N

During those stirring days in France when he was thrown into close official and social contact with men in the French and British services, he came to be regarded as the typical American. Some of his American associates said he capitalized his American eccentricities; certainly it was strikingly true that he never became an imitator of foreign manners and customs. Many Americans abroad confess inferiority by attempting to imitate the British; but General Dawes was all American at all times, and being so, won a respect which an imitator could never gain. That he was natural and himself was a point the foreigners quickly recognized, and they liked and respected him all the more for it.

In the Ritz, where he lived while in Paris, he speedily became a marked man. Instead of being awed by selfimportant head waiters, he soon had them rushing to him, beaming and bowing, when he came into the restaurant. A table was always held for him; and it was the usual thing for him to appear at luncheon or dinner with several guests whom he had picked up in the course of the day. A diversified group generally— a friend from Evanston, an American officer or two, sometimes a noncommissioned officer-friend or a private, a welfare worker, a British peer, a correspondent-the range was wide and all were treated alike. Perhaps he joshed the peer, who grinned and seemed to like it. The Earl of P, responding to an inquiry as to the health of "Mrs."

P

P—, would beam expansively. His vocabulary, when dealing with his British friends, was largely Wodehousian. "Toodle oo" and "Pip pip" became the established terms of greeting and leave-taking in these international interchanges, although most of the British officers had never before heard the expressions.

In the evening, after the pressure of a hard day, he frequently attended a revue, usually "Zig Zag," playing at the Folies Bergère, and was accompanied by those who had dined with him. Here they could smoke and relax. The play was sprightly, a knowledge of French was not necessary and there was good music. It is due to this ability to relax and play that he can concentrate and work as intensively as he does.

These were the ante-pipe days. He smoked a long Garcia Invincible in a long cigar-holder. Later by actual tests, he found that he smoked less tobacco in a pipe than in a cigar, and he switched over to the now famous underslung pipe, with which he spends ten minutes in relighting to one of actual smoking.

It is a curious fact that General Dawes, in spite of a wide reputation to the contrary, is not a profane man. In many years of acquaintance, I have rarely heard him swear and never have heard him use vulgar expressions. By this I do not mean that he never explodes profanely. In times of great provocation or to emphasize a point, he can effectively use forceful words somewhat blue in color; but he reserves them for real emergencies and not for embellishment in casual small talk.

He gained the national reputation for being profane when he used the

expression "Hell-maria!" (not Hell and Maria) in his testimony before a Congressional committee that was trying to find something to kick about in our conduct of the

war.

As an orator, or rather, as a public speaker, for he is not an orator in the accepted sense of the word, he owes his effectiveness to a magnetic personality and a profound earnestness and sincerity in what he says. He has none of the studied tricks of the finished orator which so often lead one to doubt the sincerity of what is said. Emphatic gestures are characteristic of the general's delivery and sometimes, in his vehemence, there is an unpleasant rasping of the voice which lessens its radio clarity. But when he has finished a speech, it is certain that he has driven his message home and that his audience has been deeply impressed.

As a friendly bystander in Chicago I have watched the steadily ascending advance of General Dawes to the heights. Each step forward, apparently without especial significance at the time, now appears, in review, to be part of a plan wherein there is a well-defined and predestined interrelation of events. Some of these which may have seemed to be handicaps are now revealed as essential parts in the upbuilding process.

His birth and boyhood in a small Ohio college town is to-day a powerful asset. In those early Marietta days he studied to be a civil engineer and graduated at nineteen. He then attended law school in Cincinnati, and before finishing his two years' course he was made chief engineer in charge of construction on the Mari

etta, Columbus and Northern Ohio Railway.

Observe now the relation of these early events with his later life. The engineering knowledge gained as a young man enabled him, years later, to win a commission as lieutenantcolonel in the Seventeenth Railway Engineers which landed in France in July, 1917. He was fifty-two and could easily have remained in the comfortably profitable security of home if he had preferred.

It probably seemed a handicap at the time he left Marietta, to be obliged to borrow the money necessary to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, to start the practice of law; but now, as seen in retrospect, it was a most important step with untold consequences in the development of his career.

In Lincoln he became the friend of a young army lieutenant instructing cadets at the University of Nebraska, Lieutenant John J. Pershing. Together they patronized the same modest eating-place, and in those lean and hopeful days they became devoted friends, little dreaming of a future when they should be brought together on a vastly greater field of action.

To this early friendship with the young lieutenant was due the appointment, nearly thirty years later, of Lieutenant-Colonel Dawes General Purchasing Agent in France of the A. E. F., the duties of which difficult and important post he discharged with such success that General Harbord, Chief of Staff and Commanding General of the Service of Supplies, was moved to write in his report:

"To it [Presidency of the General Purchasing Board and incidentally,

of the Interallied Board of Military Supplies] General Dawes brought not only his unrivaled business capacity but that splendid magnetic personality which enabled him to direct such far-flung activities without friction. It is doubtful if any other nation could have presented a man whose mind and character could have so successfully dominated transactions of such magnitude.'

Again illustrative of the relation of early to later events in the shaping of a career, is the fact that through his father-General Rufus R. Dawes, one of the commanders of the famous "Iron Brigade" of the Civil Warwho was serving in Congress, the youthful Dawes met Congressman McKinley. As a result of this friendship, Dawes, then only twenty-nine, was chosen by Mark Hanna to organize the State of Illinois. This he did with such success that the Illinois delegation was pledged to William McKinley, which doubtless contributed greatly to his nomination and election.

In 1898 President McKinley appointed Dawes, then thirty-one, Comptroller of the Currency, where he instituted reforms of great public value.

Observe how these various events dovetail, each dropping into its destined place and preparing the way for later events. At thirty-one he was mastering the involved problems of national finance, a knowledge that marked him, many years later, as the logical man to organize the National Budget bureau which has systematized our national spending and has saved the country hundreds of millions of dollars.

And his striking success in the

accomplishment of of this this service moved him forward to where he was the logical selection as Chairman. of the Allied Reparations Commission, which restored order out of chaos in European affairs.

The committee's report, known as the "Dawes Plan," was subsequently ratified and accepted by all the powers concerned. Of the report, Owen D. Young, associated with General Dawes as United States member of the Committee of Experts and himself a great factor in its success, wrote in a biography of General Dawes which appears in the thirteenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica: "The Plan provided a non-political and automatic means for determining Germany's ability to pay and so withdrew this vexed question from international controversy and paved the way for the later agreements entered into at Locarno."

The success of this Plan with its tremendously far-reaching results, was due to the work of many experts from the different nations. The name "Dawes" was attached to it, although he is the last to claim a dominating part in the formation of it. That part he has often assigned to Mr. Young. But there were vital elements necessary to the success and adoption of the Plan and these were supplied by Dawes. He had the ability to dramatize it, to make the nations sit up and take notice, to harmonize conflicting views, to break down, when necessary, the barriers of obstructive opinion, and to him, more than to any other, is due the credit for "selling" the Plan to the nations involved.

The identification of his name

with this Plan made him a world figure, known by name wherever newspapers are printed. His name became synonymous with success.

In three grinding tests of character and ability he has come through with flying colors. Interallied supplies, budget bureau, reparations—each a task of immense importance. Had not Coolidge been the logical one to succeed himself in 1924, General Dawes would probably have been the nominee. As it was, he was given the second place on the ticket, being nominated on the third ballot by a vote of 6821⁄2 against 3341⁄2 for Hoover and 75 for Kenyon; and the ticket became Coolidge and Dawes.

It is a curious coincidence that in the town of Worcester, Massachusetts, one hundred and forty-seven years ago, the firm of Dawes and Coolidge owned a store. They were brothers-in-law, the sister of William Dawes of the firm, being the wife of John Coolidge, the other member.

This William Dawes was the greatgreat-grandfather of General Charles G. Dawes, and was the man who rode with Paul Revere on that memorable night in April, 1775.

22

As his first act as Vice-President, he flung down the gauntlet to a startled Senate, and in a sensational inaugural address delivered before an august assemblage which included the President, the Supreme Court, and exalted personages in the Diplomatic Service, he assailed the rules of pro

cedure in the Senate and demanded a revision whereby a majority vote could apply the clôture to debate. He denounced a system where a one man filibuster can hold up and kill important necessary legislation.

By this dramatic challenge, he proclaimed to the world that he did not propose to be the colorless automaton which precedent has led us to expect in the Vice-Presidential chair.

The Senate, thus assailed exploded in wrath, yet to-day, it is doubtful if any previous Vice-President ever wielded so much influence in the Senate or had so many devoted friends among its members. His fairness of decision and his striking ability has won, first a grudging respect, and later a genuine admiration from the Senate as a whole, irrespective of party.

Where does he stand to-day?

When the name "Dawes" is mentioned, what picture leaps up in the mind of the general newspaper reader?

A striking personality as Vice-President with a background of very great and successful public achievements in peace and war-a world figure, a courageous fighter, a dramatic, many-sided character somewhat identified with those appealing nonessentials, so dear to the American heart, as an underslung pipe, a pungent vocabulary and a joyous lack of deference for the sacrosanct fogyisms of the United States Senate. And lastly, a "pinch-hitter" who can be depended upon in a critical moment to save a bad situation.