AMERICA'S MINISTER FOR WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 117, 4 February 1918, Page 6

AMERICA'S MINISTER FOR WAR

"ANOTHER LAWYER" MR. NEWTON D. BAKER INTERVIEWED (By Hamilton Pyfe, in the "Daily Mail.") "You were a lawyer before you entered politics, Mr. Secretary?" 1 said. "Yes," he replied, .and then added with a tight-lipped smile, "Another lawyer, you fjoe!" His manner is legal. I was taken into his room in the War Office by Dr. Kepper, of Columbia University, who is lending his services as principal private secretary. He said, "Take a seat"; then he looked at me steadily through large round eye-glasses. I began to explain why I bad come. He still gazed. I felt he was sizing me np.' ' ...

I went on with my explanation. At the end of it he nodded his head, took off his eye-glasses and wiped them, threw himself back in his chair, curled his legs up, and said, "Well, now, I'm glad to see you." I felt that he meant it, which I should not have done if he had said it as soon as he saw ma in a merely complimentary way. Tho Hon. Newton D. Raker is a small man, compact,,wiry, like a lightweight boxer. He was not thought much of when he became Secretary for War, but people have gone on thinking better and bettor of him ever since. He was a pacifist then—that i s to sav, he was opposed to; taking up arms for any cause and believed "that mankind bad , readied a stage in which war on a great scale had become impossible." He soon came to an understanding of tho truth that the way towards making it impossible is not to fold our ar;r ■ and repeat moral maxims, but to give those who start war such a taste of it as will teach them to prefer peace. While I talked to Mr. Baker in his sunny room —the usual Cabinet Minister's room, discreetly sumptuous'—l thought of a speech I had heard him make at Cleveland a few weeks before. It was a speech about the causes and tho objects of the war; as he explained them his whole body was shaken by the emotion that overcame him. His voice had a passionate ring in it when he told his hearers his'belief that the oi come would be a finer sense of justice, a firmer foundation for the reign of righteousness on earth. He is a sincere man, a religious man, an idealist, andjjhe is putting all the force of his convictions, all the passion of his ideilism, into the equipping of tho ■American armies for the destruction of tho common foe.

In Clevelarid ho was among his own people. Twice he served as Mayor of tho city. Thoy would have elected him for a third term, but he said "No." He intended then to go back to. private life. But the President had marked him as one who had influence with the Middle Western Democrats and who was at the same time a man of character and capacity. Hence his appointment to succeed Mr. Garrison, whose eagerness that his country should bo prepared beforehand for a possible entry into war went beyond what were then tho President's plans. It was an appointment which met with hostile criticism. Not only was the new War Minister a pacifist. He was, outsirle of Cleveland, very little known. A Discouraging Start. Qnly a dozen years or so had passed since bo left his home-town in Virginia to join a firm of lawyers-in the Middle Western city. His partner, a much older man, warned him, of course, that he had better stay whore ho was. He pvoved his ahility in the wider sphere, and after some years began to think about city politics. One night his partner, again a man considerably older, with a. reputation as a speaker, asked Mr. Baker to take his place at some meeting. The chairman was disappointed when lip saw the substitute. He . introduced him in a slighting tone. Mr. Baker declares that ho said: "Judge Foran is unable to come and has sent his boy. Boy, let us hear what you have to sav." It was probably not put quite so bluntly as that, but it was not encouraging to an untried man. However, he let tho audience hear what ho had to say and thpy were pleased with it. From that day his reputation was sure.. He became in time Cleveland's most active citizen.

But, as I have said, outside Cleveland, be was scarcely even a name when the call came for him to enter the Cabinet. He had to conquer public opinion in fnoe of obstacles. This bo has done swiftly and in a most satisfactory way. Ht> has not talked, he has worked. He is believed to be proving himself equal to the heavy task laid upon him. the task of organising his country's fighting strength. As for 'the mon<w placed at Mr. Baker's disposal by Congress, it has reached a total of sixteen hundred million pounds sterling, and this is only a beginning. Yet there ia a general confidence that Mr. Baker can be trusted to look after the interests of the men and wisely spend the money. He has won that confidence. He looks like keeping it. • He works hard. He is painstaking and thorough. Ho has. a legal quickness of penetration and an habit of making up his mind quickly? He keeps his balance amid the play of cast forces and can tell a story with dry humour even in the midst of weighty deliberations;. Thus he told, to illustrate the rapid headway that discipline is making, of a private in a railway car who was Bidden by a sergeant to button his unbuttoned tunic. "According to regulations," the sergeant said. At that moment a paesenger rose and addressed the sergeant. "You have a pipe in your mouth," he observed. "You should not give orders in that fashion. lam Major Blank. Go homo and read paragraph 174, Section M." "If Major Blank," said a voice coldly from the other side of the car, "will himself read Section K, he will see that no officer should reprimand a sergeant in the presence of a private. I am General Dash." • , President Wilson appreciated that story. He and Mr. Ba'kerare friends as well as colleagues. They have sympathies and tastes in common. It is characteristic of the Secretary for War that when ho is downhearted, as every man burdened with responsibility tor the waging of the war must be now ana then, he speaks of his fear that destruction and wastage may leavo the world so engrossed in the struggle for a bare living that the "higher things of life may be for a time forgotten. That is a thought, however, which increases instead of weakening his energy. He hopes to turn aside this danger by bringing the American effort to bear as rapidly as possible and so to prevont the higher things from being engulfed.