He read his address in that effective voice of his which seems to get everywhere without an effort. I listened attentively to every sentence of it, although I knew that upstairs there would be a printed copy of it for me as soon as the delivery was over. Yet, although I was listening closely, I also found I was thinking a great deal about this most potent gathering, for potent it is, which has been raised up now to a position of quite cardinal importance in human affairs. President Harding is on what are nowadays for a President exceptionally good terms with Congress. He means to keep so. In his address he reiterated his point that even the full constitutional powers of the President are too great and that he has no intention to use them, much less to strain them. Nevertheless, or even in consequence of that, he is very manifestly the leader of his Legislature. The atmosphere was non-contentious. He was not like a party leader speaking to his supporters and the opposition. He was much more like America soliloquizing. His address was a statement of intentions. I think the President feels that officially he is not so much the elect of America as the voice of America, and instead of wanting to make that voice say characteristic and epoch-making things, he tries to get as close as he can to the national thought and will. What President Harding says today America will do tomorrow. One human and amusing thing he did—he was careful to drag in that much-disputed word of his, “normalcy,” which he has resolved, apparently, shall oust out “normality” from current English. And from the point of view of those who are concerned about the dark troubles of the world outside America it was, I think, a very hopeful address. It reinforced the impression I had already received of President Harding as of a man feeling his way carefully but steadily towards great ends. America’s growing recognition of her “inescapable relationship to world finance and trade” came early and his little lecture on the need to give and take in foreign trade was a lecture that is being repeated in every main street in America. He spoke of Russia and returned to that topic. “We do not forget the tradition of Russian friendship” was a good sentence that some countries in Europe may well mark. The growing belief in America of the possibility of going into Russia through the agency of the American Relief Administration and of getting to dealing with the revived co-operative organizations of Russia is very notable. And though there was no mention of the Association of Nations as such, there were allusions to the “world hope centered upon this capital city” and to the universal desire for permanent peace.