The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-05-08

J Ia II not partly because we are confront
ed with problems that are mainly ma
terial, while the great men Of lsia9 I'D
were concerned with ethical aud fnndh'
mental problems, that greater men were
developed then than now2 Mere material
ism dwarfs the intellect. business and
oratory are strangers. Taxation hhd elo1
ouence do not go hand in hand, tufren-
cy questions, except when mntlefn Of iis-
| tice come in, are not inspiring. Take
| the Senate to-day, aud contrast II, not
with Senate of half u century ngo, but
with the spirit Of the times. IL it us
responsive to the higher impulses OF the
country now as then? Are the individual
Senators as far above the people in learn
| ing and in capacity to govern IN when
John C. Calhoun combattcd the views
of Daniel Webster? If not, is
it not in some part attributable to the
general diffusion of knowledge whereby
the gap between the leaders of thought
and the voters has been narrowed?
Admitting, rs we conceive every candid
man must do, the fact that the Senate has
degenerated. there remains yet the deep
er question as to whether constituencies
are down to the level of some
of the Senators. For example, in
the period between 1913 and 1853, Ohio
was represented by Thomas Corwin. Sol
ONION Il. Chase. Thomas Ewing and Ben
resented by Hanna and Foraker. Has
the public morals in Ohio sunk as low as
would be Indicated by the decline in the
type of it's Senators? An examination
of the results OF the election in 1896
would indicate as much, for though one
vote to five inhabitants is the average
the country over, the vote as returned in
Ohio gave one vote for every three and
fraction of the population. Nobody be-
leyes this was honest voting or
honest counting. A State that
could thus he corrupted by a
man of Mark Hanna's character,
is fifty represented by Hanna and Fora
ker in the Senate. though it is q matter
of shame to the thousands of honorable
men to see this money-bags in the seat
honored fifty years ago by Thomas Ew
ing and twenty years ago by Allen g.
Thurman. and fire-eating Foraker in the
seat OF Corwin and George ii. Pendle-
ton.
The decadence in Pennsylvania is
quite as marked. James Buchanan and
or Calhoun type, were both big-braine
men. They led by their ability. Their
successors never had great thought.
They are creatures of the machine, pure
and simple, and they obey with servility
the commands of the tax-eating protec-
tionists whose agents they are. Have the
people of Pennsylvania let down their po-
litical ideas as much as they have fallen
in their Senatorial representation
The degeneration is even more marked
in New York From John A. Dix, Silas
Wright and William II. Seward, to Ed
ward Murphy and Thomas G. Plat, the
tain top to the clammy dampness of the
haunted cave.
Coming closer home. there is no North
Carolinian who does not hang his head
when the contrast is made between Will
lie T.. Mangum and George e. Badger,
of the 1913 and 1858 period, and Jeter c.
Pritchard and Marion Butler of the pres
ent decade.
cstu in, Of N
Clay III Ben Hills and Bacon in Bob
Toombs's, of Georgia; Martin in r. NJ T.
Hunters, from Virginia; Wellington i'll
Revcrdy Johnson's. form Maryland;
Mason in Douglass, from Illinois; Bur
rows in Lewis Cass's, from Michigan;
Lodge in Daniel Webster's DeBoe in
Henry Clay's, and so on down the line.
In many instances the contrast recalls
Blaines celebrated characterization of
the inappropriatenes of Theodore Til
tons statement that Roscoe Conking
had received the mantle Of Henry Winter
Davis, when the magnetic man from
Maine said it was lige comparing "a dung
hill to a diamond: Hyperion to n Satyr;
IA roaring Bengal tiger to a singed cat
In some States, while there seems to
be a letting down as compared to the
Senators in that golden decade between
40 and 80, the ablest men are still sent
to the Senate. This was true in North
Carolina until fusionism changed it. 1t
is still conspicuously true in Arkansas,
Vermont. Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi.
Iowa, Tennessee and Texas, and was
true in Indiana as long as Voorhees, and
Turpie represented that State; and is true
in part in Virginia. Georgia, Massachu-
sets, Delaware, Rhode Island and per-
haps other States. If Virginia has lost
II. NJ. r. Hunter he is succeeded by John
W. Daniel, the most eloquent living
Southerner, though the curse of corpora
ton Vaccination gave him colleague
who is not Of Senatorial dimensions.
1t is not always true that State has
two big men the equals of the great men
who have gone. 1t is sadly true that
here in North Carolina we have no men
who wear the mantle of Mangum and
Badger, though we have strong men who
might grow under proper stimulus to their
10 hac mo ma m