The Average Man has risen up and by seven million majority elected
an Average Man President. His defects were his virtues. He was
chosen rather for what he wasn't than for what he was,--the
inconspicuousness of his achievements. The "just folks" level of
his mind, his small town man's caution, his sense of the security
of the past, his average hopes and fears and practicality, his
standardized Americanism which would enable a people who wanted for
a season to do so to take themselves politically for granted.

The country was tired of the high thinking and rather plain
spiritual living of Woodrow Wilson. It desired the man in the White
House to cause it no more moral overstrain than does the man you
meet in the Pullman smoking compartment or the man who writes the
captions for the movies who employs a sort of Inaugural style,
freed from the inhibitions of statesmanship. It was in a mood
similar to that of Mr. Harding himself when after his election he
took Senators Freylinghuysen, Hale, and Elkins with him on his trip
to Texas. Senator Knox observing his choice is reported to have
said, "I think he is taking those three along because he wanted
complete mental relaxation." All his life Mr. Harding has shown a
predilection for companions who give him complete mental
relaxation, though duty compels him to associate with the Hughes
and the Hoovers. The conflict between duty and complete mental
relaxation establishes a strong bond of sympathy between him and
the average American.

The "why" of Harding is the democratic passion for equality. We are
standardized, turned out like Fords by the hundred million, and we
cannot endure for long anyone who is not standardized. Such an one