PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1635, 9 November 1916, Page 3

PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES.

HUGHES ELECTED. Vancouver, November 7. Judge Charles Evans Hughes has been elected President of the United States. THE PRESIDENT ELECT. Mr Justice Hughes, who received the Republican nomination for the American Presidency, had been marked out for that honour for a good many months, says an exchange. Just how long ago the party managers decided that he was a promising proposition it is impossible to say, but away back in the days when he was Governor of New York he had to he regarded as an obvious possibility. One of the axioms of the politically wise in the United States used to be that no man need be considered as a Presidential proposition unless he stood well in New York; and as Air Hughes had a high place in the esteem of the New Yorkers he had at least one essential qualification for promotion. He was in the running for the Republican nomination as long ago as the campaign of 1008, and might easily have had it hut for the strong opposition of Mr Roosevelt, then President. Air Hughes represented the Conservative wing of the party, and Air Roosevelt, who had never lost control of the machine, was bent on havirig a Radical. Air Hughes’ chance of success really disappeared as early as March of the campaign year, long before the convention met. He had announced a date on which a full statement of his views on current, polities would he given to the public, and, of course, his supporters all over the country were busy doing “press agency” work in anticipation. He expected to get a big hearing, and planned accordingly. But he had counted without the President, who was a wily and pitiless campaigner. On the day of the speech Air Roosevelt sent a big message to Congress. Next, morning (lie newspapers were full of the Presidential message, and Air Hughes' speech was relegated to second place. Everyone

discussed the message; no one the

speech. You have heard of the gentle habit of “jamming” the en-

emy’s wireless calls. Well, Mr Hughes’ speech was jammed.

Since that time conditions have changed. Mr Roosevelt has been forced out of the regular Republican camp and the Conservatives are once more in control of the machine. This is Mr Hughes’ day, and he can be forgiven if he thinks sometimes of the incidents of lt)08. But

happily he is too big a man mentally to he vindictive. There was a very interesting account of the man and his views in an article which appeared in the New York Herald some little time ago. He looks like a happy man and walks like one,

says the writer. His long;, narrow face, made to seem longer and narrower than it is by a short beard, is friendly, so far as it is serutable. His blue eyes gleam with interest as he buoyantly walk's through the streets of Washington. To be cheerful is one of his personal doctrines. To exorcise physically inside his own house —probably in his own bedroom —for fifteen minutes before breakfast, is one of his daily habits. To walk a block, five blocks, dr a mile when he can catch the time, is another. So at fifty-four —and that, will be his age on 11th April —he is as nimble on Jiis feet as an acrobat ami as glad of countenance as a, sound and contented man might to be. One can appear too glad; Mr Justice Hughes, visibly, is just glad enough. Pace and figure make him noticeable. He is tall —sft. llin. —lean, thougli muscular, and erect: as a new corporal in the artillery. His blondish heard is brushed particularly, and so is his hair, or what there is left of it. His clothing, always fresh and seldom wholly black, except on Sundays, fits him perfectly, in short, he is trim and alert, a healthy and a well-sat-isfied man. ‘‘Physical exercise, temperate habits of eating, and sleep,” he says, “will carry almost any man over the weariness and waste of strenuous bodily or mental labour. My rule of work and health includes eight hours of sleep on the average, cai’efulness about, diet, and cheerfulness of mind. No ono should let the small things of the day become an annoyance. The pin-pricks of little worries arc more wearing than hard labour,” But the

Hughes plan of self-conservation

contains another item. ‘Tt is ox- * traordinary how easy things are in this world if a man is willing to do without,” he said, at -a meeting of Baptists not long ago. He left the thought unelahorated. The brethren, he hoped, would take it home and work it out in the light of their own intelligence or experience. To the students of Yale, while he was Governor of New York, he was more exegeticah “The first lesson for a young man who faces the world with his" career in his own hands,” he told them, is that he must be willing to do without. The question for him at the start and ever after must not simply be what

he wants to get but what he is willing to lose. “Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it,” he exclaimed. “is the profoundest lesson in philosophy.” During the interview he gave ten years ago he had been elected Governor, and would take the oath of office in a few days —the same thought was emphasised and carried out with a gieater wealth of detail. The principle of surrender, therefore, is not new with him. He had investigated, as a lawyer of two committees, the gas and

insurant*© companies of New York. The country had read lively accounts of his revolutionary exploits and rejoiced in his victories. Great rewards awaited him in the profession to which he was deeply attached. He could have become a rich man, because he could have been “serviceable” to large corporations and a waiting- list of millionaire clients. One of his own partners turned that very trick himself. But Hughes, possessing- only a niod\ crate fortune, took the Governorship at 10,000 dol. a year and a free house. Before his second term was ended he resigned to be an associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court at a salary of 14,OOOdol. per annum. The Hugheses are Baptists and Welshmen —(he Welshmen are uncommonly active in big affairs just now. David Charles, the father., preached for many years in the State of New York. In Washington, his son, an associate justice, attends Calvary Baptist Church, the pastor of which, the Rev. Dr. Samuel IT. Greene, is a wonderful man. Speaking- to the men of the congregation on a recent oeeasiou, Mr Justice Hughes said: “A going religious enterprise is the most desirable thing on earth.” Then ho gave Ids conception of a Christian. “To have courage without pugnacity," he said, “to have conviction without bigotry, to have charity without condescension, to have faith without, credulity, to have love of humanity without mere sentimentality, to have meekness with power, and emotion with sanity—that is Christianity.”