Lost-A Great Leader

By Jack Dionne

Let us forget politics-forget partisanship-forget pasrion, and prejudice ruch as our lafter-day politics have ro tmfortunately developedlet ur be jurt plain, honert, American citizenr for a moment-and bow our headr in Eotrow and regret for the loss of a God-given gentleman whose loss every fair-minded man will alwayr keenly de, plore-Warren Harding.

Just the other dey I saw the regirter in the Country Club at Vancouver, British Columbia, and there-with a spdce erorurd to mark it-war a rignature to which those Canadianr now point with afiection and unafiected regret. The rignature read' just this:

WARREN HARDING, W^ASHINGTON.

That signature illustratec well tihe simplicity of our Late President-one of his mort admirable characterirtics.

"WARREN HARDING-WASHINGTON,' is gone from us; but tte page ttat he wrote into the hietory of thir land ir bright-very, very bright today, and will grow brighter in retrorpect.

For in t'he dayr and years to come the American people will come to know full well the finenesr of th6 leadership that Warren Harding gave u!. Follpruing years of sadneu and turmoil and strife and pasrionl he etepped into the Preridential chair in a ve4r vital moment in Americ"o iri"tory, and he gave us the exact rort of an adminirtration that we radly 6seded-$'hether we realized it at that time or not.

Ask the boys in t'he Rotary Club in San Antonio, Texar, where Warren Harding used to respond to roll call very frequently in the winters when he used to visit ttere, and they will tell you of the sarne rimple, kindly, lovable, genid, sweet-souled gentlemen whom the people of the United States learned to love in the character of their President. Neithcr time, nor politics, nor lucceEE, nor title changed him in the least.

He loved his neighbor, and strove to serve him. "I want to be a good neighborr" raid Wanen Harding when asked what he wanted to do as President. And he gave to us much the same sort of leadership that McKinley did'. There war friendliness, goodwill, good fellowrhip, charity, and breadth of human under*anding in all of hig looks and actr. He'poosesred-who can doubt-an honert, cincere purpote to renre }ris nation, and to serve hurnanig, to make the world a little brighter and better for people to live in, and to thir end he atrove.

Ana hthad a fine typc of moral courage at the seme time. An uprtanding, fearlecs manner of doing his duty when he raw it that showed through dl hir gentleness and kindliners, that "the velvet scabbard held a lword of steel."

A bright, glorious page in American birtory belongs to Warren Harding, and the American people, looking backward over hir life as public rervant trhrough tearr of regret, can be depended on to do him full justice.