But Mr. Mellon does not make a good impression on the witness stand. If he were unjustly accused of a crime he would hang himself by appearing in his own defense, unless the jury sensed in his stammering hesitancy not guilt but an honest inability to express himself. Mr. Mellon is the shyest and most awkward man who ever rose to power. He is unhappy before Congressional committees, before reporters in the dreadful conferences which are the outward and visible evidence of our democracy, at Cabinet meetings, where the fluent Mr. Hughes casts him terribly in the shade. At one such meeting the President dragged him forth from silence by turning to him and asking him, "What has the Sphinx here got to say on the subject." Thus impelled, the Secretary of the Treasury replied, unconsciously in the words of Sir Roger de Coverley, "Well, Mr. President, I think there is a good deal to be said on both sides." If we may believe the psychologists, the great object of acquiring wealth and power is the achievement of self-complacency. If it is, Mr. Mellon has somehow missed it. You can not imagine him writing himself down beside the others in the great American copy book and saying seriously to the youth of the land, "Look at me, I worked always fifteen minutes after the whistle blew and behold the result. Follow my footsteps." No golden words issue from his mouth. Some unforgetable personal measure of his own deserts, some standard peculiar to himself, perhaps, refuses to be buried under the vast accumulations. Were ever great abilities so tongue-tied as this? I ask this question not to answer it. I merely hold Mr. Mellon up as the usually insoluble riddle, the why of great business success. But granting that the real Mr. Mellon is shown in the enormous fortune and not in the timid asking of a subordinate, "Did I make a good impression?" does such shrinking, such ill adaptation, on the stage of public life make a contribution to the unending drama of self-government? [Illustration: ANDREW W. MELLON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY] I take it that behind these footlights which we call Washington, just as behind the literal footlights, the actors, if there is to be any lifting of us up, must play a part with which we can identify ourselves in our imagination. He must be articulate. He must get across. Mr. Harding does it admirably. You watch him and you realize that he is the oldest of stage heroes, Everyman. You say to yourself unconsciously, "Only the accident of seven million majority separates him from me." You are lifted up. Ordinary flesh and blood can do this great thing. Based on this desire to identify ourselves with greatness is our familiar aphorism, "The office makes the man." All that is necessary is the office to "make" the least of us.