The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-11
JUDGE DAY
May Succeed Him.
Snecial to the Glnhe

months term of office deals with so
many questions in which the nation
takes an interest as have fallen to
the lot of Joseph McKenna. For
three things his name will remain in
the popular memory; his opinion on the
celebrated section 30" of the Dingley
act, his closing up of the Union Pa
cific cases, and his opinion against
granting to the Roman Catholics the
privilege of erecting chapel on the
military reservation at West Point.
This last was regarded as the more re-
markable because of Mr.. McKenna's
own affiliation with the Roman Catho-
lie church, and has brought down upon
him no little bitter criticism in some
of the church journals BY an odd CO.
incidence, after Secretary Lamont, a
Presbyterian, had decided that the
Roman Catholics might have their
chapel at the military academy, it fell
to an attorney general of Roman
Catholic sympathies to uncover law
in conflict with the privilege. This
may have helped to drive the A. P. A.
temporarily out of public view.
In regard to section 22,'' the critics
who hold that Mr.. McKenna's opinion
was bad law, are generally compelled to
admit that it was good public policy.
Perhaps he had an undercurrent con-
sciousness of something of the sort
himself. He has been accused even Of
changing his mind while considering
the subject Whether the question did
present two phases to him at different
times or not, he undoubtedly perceived
that the discriminating duties would
lead to endless complications, and
would involve risks which the govern
ment and the party in power could
hardly afford to take. He also realized,
as did everybody else, that this section
had been introduced and adopted by
stealth, and possibly an element of
satisfaction in rebuking such methods
entered into his final conclusion. Many
an attorney general in his place, being
only human, would have stretched a
point of law to upset a plot which the
best friends of the administration de-
plored.
On the Union Pacific settlement, Mr..
McKenna, as the responsible champion
of the administrations case, certainly
achieved famous victory. After Ill
the experts had declared for weeks
that the government could do no bet
ter than accept the syndicate bid, and
that he ought to make haste to take
it up, Mr.. McKenna turned about, and
by the threat of postponement of sale,
brought down principal and interest of
the governments claim, in the shape
of new bid from the same syndicate.
Personally, Mr.. McKenna is one of
the men on whom public office sits
gracefully. He combines a self-re-
specting dignity with courtesy of man
ner, and is never afraid to discuss af-
fairs of state with anyone who is en-
titled to knowledge of them. While
he was a member of congress he made
a number of especially warm friends
among the better class of newspaper
workers, who always felt sure, in 60
ing to him with an intelligent question,
of getting a prompt and straightfor-
ward answer.
1t is noticeable that President Nc
Kinley likes to gather about him in
cabinet places the friends who served
with him in congress- Messrs. Long,
McKenna and Wilson sat in the house
when he did So did Judge Golf, of
West Virginia, who was offered, but
did not accept, a cabinet portfolio.
Sherman was in the senate during most
of McKinley's career in congress. One
amusing circumstance, however, must
not be overlooked in this connection
Judge McKenna was the only member
of the present cabinet who was on the
notable committee on ways and means
in the Fifty-first congress, where the
president laid the foundation of his
fame as the champion of Protection
and Prosperity" He was also the only
Republican on the committee to take
issue publicly with his chief and write
a minority report dissenting from the
views of his party associates. This
furnished a text for many jests among
the friends of the president and the at
torney general when the abinet ap-
pOintments were gazetted last spring.
The animuS in part at least. of the
recent protesting memorial from the
Pacific coast may be guessed from the
fact that leading signature is that OF
George H. Williams, familiarly known
during the Grant regime as Landau
let" Williams, whose own transfer from
the attorney generalship to the SUI
preme court was made impossible by
the firm stand taken by the senate
of that day. Whatever may have been
his right as citizen to unite in any
memorial he chose, the indelicacy of
his conspicuous joinder in just such an
one as this had not passed unnoticed
here. Judge McKenna, of course, does
not discuss these matters, publicly or
privately, so that all the inner springs
of the movement cannot be definitely
ascertained; but it is we'll understood
elsewhere in the cabinet circle that
the Pacific railroad contingent who OBJ
ject to the attorney generals opinion
on section %" are behind the Whole
business, and that Western coast pol
iticians generally feel that they ought
to have been further recognized" by
the presidents leaving a Californian
in the cabinet and appointing the new
associate justice from the Oregon
Washington seaboard. This will ac-
count for an announcement made last
week, based on authority which would
not be disputed, that the Pacific coast
was out of the race for any of the
honors involved in the reorganization.
The party workers criticise the
cabinet; as it will be constituted pres
emily on geographical grounds Foalr