-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
Mellon's Millions
Harvey O'Conner©1933
Blue Ribbon Books
New York, N.Y.
--[16]--
16
The Crash
DID Andrew W. Mellon aspire to the Presidency? Did the adulation heaped upon
the sponsor of the Mellon Plan by grateful business men and their press in
1927 awaken in him a desire to step from the exchequer into the White House?
If so, it was an audacious dream, but not so fantastic as it seemed later.
Why should not the dominant classes, which worshiped at the Stock Exchange
and believed that the dollar was the touchstone of all human virtue, seek to
elevate to the Presidency the most successful practitioner of the art of
acquisition?
Certainly the Mellon Machine in Pennsylvania did not view the proposal as
either an idle or a futile gesture. Its leaders proceeded methodically to
prepare the ground for the nomination of their chief. The trial balloon was
sent up August 13, 1927, by Samuel S. Lewis, State Treasurer of Pennsylvania.
The Secretary, he declared, was the only person with the necessary
"experience, acumen, self-control, breadth of view and other manifold
qualities of mind" for the post of Chief Executive. He was responsible for
Coolidge's popularity and the success of his Administration. "A safe, sane
and conservative man endowed with special equipment and experience along
financial and economic lines is needed," Lewis summed up.
Two days later, Governor John S. Fisher, just returned from a seance with the
inscrutable Coolidge in the Black Hills, seconded the nomination. Mellon he
felt was the "ideal man to manage the great business operations of the
Government."
The boom grew. Old Guardists hailed with delight the pros pect that the
Secretary of the Treasury might head openly the Government he had guided. The
Hearst papers spoke out for his candidacy. John Garner, Democratic leader,
agreed that Mellon "is the most powerful man in the world today. . . . He has
dominated the financial, economic and fiscal relations of the United States
for the past five years. If the Republicans are looking for a strong
candidate, they should name Mellon. I doubt very much whether the Democrats
could beat him. He believes in the moneyed interests, and they would support
him."
The pre-nomination campaign got under way with the "thoroughness
characteristic of the Mellons," said press dispatches from Pittsburgh. A book
was to recount the Secretary's achievements. James Francis Burke, Republican
National Committee counsel and Mellon lawyer, was to aid in preparing
"educational material." The writers had been promised big money. Approached
for comment, State Chairman W. L. Mellon said that "the Secretary would have
to make any announcement of that kind when he was ready to do so."
Eastern financial and political leaders read the news joyfully. If Calvin
Coolidge did "not choose to run" in 1928, then Mellon was certainly the man.
They liked Coolidge, not only for his abhorrence of rocking the ship of
state, but because of his intimate rapport with Andrew Mellon. Certainly this
master of finance, whose steadfastness had been proved by seven years under
fire, was preferable to Herbert Hoover, officious, egotistic, shifty
Secretary of Commerce who was pulling all wires that would lead him to the
White House.
Charley Schwab even thought that Mellon would be a better vote-getter than
Hoover, whose chances he doubted against Al Smith. "I think," he confided to,
Barron, the financial journalist, "that Mellon-may be the next President. I
don't think he is too old. The people have been educated to see how he has
reduced expenses, handled national finances, and what a success he has made."
Whether he would be next President or not, the Secretary was regarded as the
dictator of Republicanism and the Warwick of the party. If he rejected the
crown himself, it was his prerogative to choose Coolidge's successor. The
Chicago Tribune professed to know that he really favored Chief justice
Hughes. Acknowledging him as the "big chief of the Eastern G. 0. P. and the
spokesman for big business," the Tribune declared his choice was decisive.
But Mellon denied the Hughes report.
His own candidacy left the more judicious conservatives agape, It fell
afoul deep-seated political prejudices, the lag in the public mind which now
accepted plutocracy but shied at a plutocrat in the White House. The
wealthiest American aspiring openly to the Presidency, what a target he would
be for the Democratic and Progressive rabble-rousers to shoot at!
Moderates felt that industry and finance assured themselves advantage enough
in picking and training the players and giving them the general line of
strategy. For the appearance of things, it would be better for the magnates
to stay on the sidelines, confident that the game was in the bag. The New
York Times viewed Mellon's nomination as "absurd to the point of
impossibility." The Secretary himself denied that he was a candidate, and W.
L. Mellon hastily retreated from
