lighted, which detracts considerably from spectacular feats of horsemanship.

Like the colonel, his wide range of devoted friends includes both exalted and humble. Among his intimates are scholars, musicians, aviators, writers, financial giants, heads of nations and thousands of less conspicuous people who might be grouped generally under the head of "home-folks."

One of his most valued friends is General Payot, high in the French service during the war. This general speaks no English and General Dawes speaks no French beyond a few mutilated words. Yet in spite of this, they were much together in France and by some mysterious means had established a perfectly satisfactory communication. Since the war, General Payot has paid a visit of some days to General Dawes in his home in Evanston, and they appeared to exchange their many ideas without any awkward lapses of silence.

Another of General Dawes's wartime friends was Mr. Lloyd George, although their acquaintance had an unpropitious beginning. An important document had to be signed at a time when the most serious problem confronting the Allies was that of supplies. A dangerous state of confusion and inefficiency prevailed. All of the Allies except Great Britain had signed the document, which called for coördination of effort, and Dawes was sent to London to secure, if possible, the signature of Lloyd George.

Arriving in London at the earliest moment, he called 10 Downing Street and got one of Lloyd George's

secretaries on the telephone. When he made known his desire to see the premier at once on a matter of the greatest urgence, the secretary said it was quite impossible and most irregular.

Dawes's response fairly blistered the wires. He slammed down the telephone, rushed to Whitehall and brushing astonished secretaries aside, crashed his way into the premier's presence.

Before General Dawes left, Lloyd George's name was on the document. This was the beginning of a cordial friendship between the two. Later the premier recommended the general for the highest British decoration he received and made a trip to the United States especially to attend a banquet in the general's honor.

23

The surviving child of General and Mrs. Dawes is a daughter, the wife of Captain Melvin Ericson. But soon after the death of Rufus Fearing, the Dawes adopted two children, a boy and a girl. Dana is now at Lawrenceville preparing for Princeton and Virginia is nearly ready for boardingschool.

Very early in the life of his adopted children, the general wrote a book commemorative of the scenic changes that had taken place in the household since the two infants were installed. It was copiously illustrated and only one copy of the book, hand-written and hand-illuminated, ever appeared. Whether it is still in existence is a matter of grave doubt. Later, to enliven a children's party, he wrote a play called "The Monkey Face Child" which was given with a large cast of children on several occasions. It involved a child, the son of re

spected parents, who was abducted by a cruel circus man. This scoundrel dressed the boy up as a sort of "wild boy" and kept him in a cage. Virtue finally triumphed, the boy boy was restored to his family and the villain was given merited punishment.

But such writings were mere recreations. With a more serious intent the general has written books on war supply and finance as well as a collection of articles on economic matters.

Dawes has a youthfully eager and inquiring mind and a memory that enables him to retain the essentials of a very wide range of reading, both light and serious. "Merton of the Movies" and "Ruggles of Red Gap" were favorites. He liked Tarkington's "Plutocrat" and Ade's fables. He quotes "Nize Baby" and "Snowshoe Al." The short stories of Wodehouse have enriched a vocabulary already expansive.

He is at home in Greek and Roman history, and has made an exhaustive study of the literature, from Plato down, bearing upon the Lost Atlantis. The early history of the Mayas in Yucatan is at his fingertips, and he has discovered things in the lore and native art of this vanished civilization which links up with Atlantis and the Cro-Magnons. In this connection he has announced to his friends that he will finance and head an expedition to explore this fascinating buried continent when he retires from office. He would do it intelligently if he ever carries out this plan.

Yet with all the variedness of his intellectual and public life, Dawes has a less complex side. He lives simply, takes a nap in the afternoon

-one of his naps is historic-and now, nearing sixty-three, he has hardly a gray hair, only a suggestion of thinness on his scalp and an overwhelming zest in life. He has none of the showy indulgences which he could easily afford if his tastes were so inclined. His commodious house in Evanston with its splendid library is his only place of residence aside from the one he is obliged to maintain in Washington during his term. of office. He has no country place, no yacht, no fast horses, no fancystock farm and he lives a clean and wholesome life devoid of swank and pretension. He balances his time intelligently between work and play. When he plays, he relaxes wholly. When he works, he focuses all his driving energy and forcefulness toward obtaining the desired result— which he does.

To see him in his hours of relaxation one would appraise him as a man of great charm and magnetism and of invariable of invariable kindliness, buoyant with a keen and mellow humor and gifted as a raconteur. At such times the catholicity of his tastes and interests covers a striking range of subjects. One would not suspect the aggressive force that makes him a dynamo of action when occasion requires.

He entertains extensively but very informally, except when official formality is demanded. In fact, his general lack of formality is the despair of those who are sticklers for smartness and form.

He loves the movies. At his home in Evanston, he has scores of friends in of an evening to see the early runs of popular films. After one of his Washington dinners to the President

and Mrs. Coolidge he showed two films, one an 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.

22

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.

22

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, 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.

23

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 as 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,