Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1899-03-30
CHAMP CLARK : LETTER
Senators Who Have Laid
Aside the Toga.
SOME WHO WILL BE MISSED.
Unusually Large Number Retire
to Private Life.
MEN OF 4 HIGH ORDER OF ABILITY.

Among Them Arthur r. Gorman Is
the Historic Parsonage "A Great
parliamentary Leader-His superb
Fight Against the Force BiII-Wby
Senators should ne Elected by DI-
rect Vote of the PeopIe--Tvo Leg
inIatiye Branches Retter Than One,
Especial Washington letter.
March 4 in odd years is the date for
congressional bousecleaning. That is
the time when the personnel of house
and senate undergoes its great biennial
change Old members go out; new ones
enter. On the 4th Of March this year
an unusually large number of conspicu-
pus senators, and inconspicuous ones,
too, retired to private life-it may be
for years, and II may be forever, Sew
eral of them are men Of high order of
ability. notably Arthur p German of
Maryland, George Gray of Delaware.
Roger @. Mills of Texas, William Vim
cent Allen of Nebraska, Frank J. Cam
non of Utah and Charles J. Faulkner Of
West Virginia.
Among these was one great historic
parsonage Arthur Pue German. His
name leads all the rest in the company
of distinguished statesmen now quitting
the field Of their glory. have not al
ways agreed with his policies or indorsed
his actions. | do not now agree with
or indorse them all am free trader /;
he is not ] am for free silver; he is not.
Since the great tariff fight in 1894, I
have in the heat Of debate said some un-
kind things about him. all of which
bothered him not even a little bit,
suppose. Perhaps it would have been
better to have left them unsaid, for, aft
er all, Senator German had as good a
right to his opinion as had to mine.
vas in favor Of radical scaling down
of tariff rates; the great Marylander
chose the middle course '.In medias
res appears TO be his motto. / believed
then and believe now that even as a
matter Of policy, 10 say nothing of
principle, it would have been better to
have carried out the tariff plank of the
Chicago platform to the extreme limit,
but others-chief among whom was
Senator German Thought otherwise,
and they had their way. The result was
the Wilson German bill, which sti1l left
the average tariff rate at about 40 per
cent on about 4, 900 articles Of everyday
consumption. and which satisfied nc
body that / ever saw or heard Of
A Man OF Brzsfnss
But, however much ! may differ with
Senator German on tariff and finance,
since first laid eyes upon him | have
never doubted his wondrous intellectual
force. Ny father was an enthusiastic
believer in phrenology and physiog-
nomy. When I was a child, he sub
scribed for The journal of Fowler and
Wells, the organ of bumpology. and
made pe read it. In addition then to
the hest common school teacher that
ever taugh me was a professional phre-
pologist named Charles R, WAittern. !
naturally imbihed the theory Of my IA
fher and Of my fayorite teacher, While
I have long since ceased to believe that
you can tell what is inside human
skull by feeling the bumps on the out
side of it, have an abiding faith that
there is something in phrenolagy and
great deal mere in physiagnomy: | am
firmly Of the opinion that God writes
legible hand and that he writes every
mans character and capacity in his
face.
No one with two good eyes ever looked
at Senator German without realizing
instantly that he was man Of brains
brains in vast quantity, brains of the
most exquisite quality. He has the
ideal Greek head and face. His iptellect
possesses all the subtlety Of the most
intellectual Grecian in the palmy days
III Greece.
As parliamentary leader doubt if
he has had a peer in this generation,
and he has rendered his party and CON
his country great service, es-
pecially in killing the force bill. for
which we are all largely his debtors.
His leadership In his memorable fight
against the force bill was superb. His
victory was one of the most astounding
in legislative annals. Had it pot been
for the insane and calamitous theory,
SO long entertained by Democrats. that
we had to go to New York for q presi
Dental candidate that matchless per-
formance would have made Arthur P.
German chief magistrate of the re-
public,
When remember that achievement
of the illustrious senator and others like
unto it, Notwithstanding differences of
opinion on certain subjects, from the
bottom of my heart wish for him hap
piness, prosperity and length Of days.
ETectioM 0f Senator'S.
Tho failure Of the legislatures of Del
aware. Utah and California to elect
of the United States and the
that Pennsylvania will follow
suit must once more call the attention
of the country to the fact that the
mode Of electing senators should be
changed. They ought to be elected by
q direct vote of the people No valid
reason can be urged against that plan.
No honest man is afraid of the great
body of the people, tthe plain people, =
as Abraham Lincoln loved to call them
--s'the common people, as William
Jennings Bryan denominates them.
The closer we keep to the masses of
American citizenship the better we win
be off and the safer our institutions
will be.
That the fathers who formed the con-
stitution wrought with wonderful wis
dom we all freely confess and gratefully
remember Bat in large measure they
were working without models and with
out light from those who had gone be
fore We have learned something from
experience. and can learn much more
It il no discredit 10 the fathers that In
some respects we have found that then
plans did not work we'll After the
dangers developed in the Jefferson Burr
election we changed the method Of se-
lecting president and vice president
and unquestionably improved ON the
original scheme.
In practice the plan Of impeachment