Title: Topic 32 PLAYING THE GAME
Author: Robrt Kuniegel
Last saved by: Robert Kuniegel
Company: Hair at 731

Topic 32 
PLAYING THE GAME

JULIUS KAHN, Member of Congress from California, did yeoman work in forcing through the draft and other war measures, when Mr.  Wilson's party leaders in the House chose to refuse their aid.  None were more appreciative of this work than Colonel Roosevelt.  In private and in public he extolled the Californian as typical of those of German blood and birth in the United States to whom their naturalization decrees were more than "scraps of paper."

Imagine, therefore, my surprise when early in April, 1918, Colonel Roosevelt refused point blank to take part in the "Julius Kahn day" celebration arranged for April 30 by St.  Cecile, New York's far famed "actors'" lodge of Masons.  The surprise was the more complete because I was sure the Colonel approved of the demonstration for the effect it might have in rousing the spirit that demanded "peace through overwhelming victory."

"No," said he, after I had repeated the message given me by R.  W.  George Loesh, who was in charge of the affair, " I will not take part in the celebration, though I wish you’d thank the boys for remembering me.  It is out of the question.  On that I am as adamant."

"Colonel," I asked, "will you come if I make it a personal matter? This is the first thing St.  Cecile has ever asked me to do, and I’d like to do it.  They do wish you would come.  Now, won't you?"

"Jack," said he, "I am surprised that you do not see how impossible it is for me to do as you ask.  I really am.  I am surprised that Bro.  Loesh or any one else should ask it.  For me to attend would be absolutely unfair to Kahn.  Can't you see that?"

I confessed that I could not.

"I cannot," said I, "conceive how it would be unfair to any man in the world for you to attend a celebration in his honor.  Why, at this stage, it's the greatest honor any American could have paid him!"

"Jack, your loyalty to me, your affection for me if I may so term it, has destroyed for the moment your perspective.  You know I like Kahn, that I have a very high regard for him as a man and as a citizen.  I’d do anything to help Kahn.  I won't hurt him.  You don't see it now.  Let me explain it for you.

"On your own statement, Kahn was raised in St.  Cecile thirty odd years ago when, to use your own words, he was a ' ham actor,' and wholly unknown to fame.  As such he went West, took up law, and finally landed in Congress.  All this time, as you say, he retained his membership in his mother lodge.  And how a dozen or so years ago, when he happened in town on a lodge day, he almost had to work his way in, so few of the active members knew him.

"Now he is about to visit it again, not as an humble, almost unknown member, but, if you please, almost as a hero, as a type of hero, to be received by all of the big men in the Craft, with all the honors the Craft may bestow on a member who's made good in an extraordinary way.  That is as it should be.  The dramatic values of the contrast will not escape your associates, I 'm sure.  It should be a splendid affair with Kahn in the centre of the stage all the time.  That is as it should be, for it is his day.

"It would not be that way were I to attend.  I know what would happen.  So do you.  I 'm not immodest when I say it would be a Kahn Roosevelt day, or more likely a Roosevelt Kahn day, with Kahn playing second fiddle part of the time at least.

" Don't you see how unfair that would be to Kahn? It would not be square; it would n't be playing the game.  It's to be his day, and he's entitled to the whole of it.  Furthermore, so far as the effect on the outside public is concerned, there'll be more inspiration to intensive war work if it is what you have planned — a demonstration in honor of an humble Congressman of German birth, but a real American who did his full duty with no truculent ex-President cluttering up the stage.  It would be wrong from every angle.  You see it now, I know."

"However, Colonel," I said, "you won't mind sending a letter of declination in which you record some of the nice things you've been saying.  Kahn, I'm sure, would like that?"

"Certainly," he replied, "I'm glad to do that.  That won't interfere with the fitness of things; at least it should not detract anything from what should be a great day."

In his talk with me Colonel Roosevelt spoke of the values of contrasts, and as I write I cannot but record, for like reason, the excuse given by a public official, then suffering from the sting of the Presidential Bee, for not appearing at the celebration after promising to do so.

"Why," he asked, "should I do anything to help boom a man who may be one of my rivals for the Presidential nomination?"

The man to whom the explanation was made missed the unconscious jest in the answer.  Like the man who made it, he had forgotten Section 5, of Article 2, of the Constitution.  This reads:

"No person except a natural born citizen .  .  .  shall be eligible to the office of President."