The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-23
LODGE DEFENDS THE SENATE
REPLIES 70 PUBLIC ATTACKS
UPON ITS INTEGRITY.

ing fires of indignation and resentment
over the attacks upon the integrity OF the
Senate in ma ga zines and periodicals broke
forth into flames to-day. II WAS Senator
Lodge Of Massa chusetts who blew upon the
b OF the Senat e's anger, and from now
on the blaze will probably be kept going.
The Senate has been restless under what
many of its members have declared to be a
wanton attempt Of irresponsible persons
to discredit it before the country and there
has been talk among Senator'S Of having
one or two of their number answer the
critics. Mr.. Lodge, however, spoke OF his
own accord, without instigation from his
colleagues. His remarks were listened to
attentively by most Of the Senate and by
crowded galleries.
1T is the fashion at this moment in GER
tain quarters, he aid, "to indulge In furious
attacks, and with utter disregard Of truth,
not only upon all our u ions of govern,
ment, but upon our character as a people
and the conduct Of both our public and our
private affairs. Concocting ISLANDERS and
heaping together falsehoods for the purpose
of selling them IL not a pleasing trade.
and when carried on in the name of virtue
and reform it is a peculiarly repulsive one.
~ OWN ~ WING - ~ biNN
which is unfortunate ely not
in human nature, or thus to take advantage,
for hire and salary, of popular passions or
of righteous popular indignation at proved
wrong doing is a miserable calling and
morally on a very low level.
Islander and misrepres e~ntation directed
against individuals are not of much i'm
portance. If a man. whether engaged in
D.,hIia ~ Nr,,-ata b.taipaaa ia mt ahla nv
his character and his honesty to Withstand
such assaults he Is of little worth, As DR..
johnson wisely said, no man was ever
written down except by himself. Men,
moreover, are evanescent. Slanderer and
slandered soon fade away and disappear.
We strut and fret our hour on the stage,
and then are heard no more. But wise
institutions and free systems OF govern
ment' painfully wrought, tried in the fires OF
sacrifice and suffering. should endure, and
if they fall bring countless miseries in their
ruin.
yet the most serious quality of these
attacks does not reside in these directed
against the Senate. Every branch OF the
executive and legislative department Of the
Government has been at one time and
another in our history subjected to these
indiscriminate assaults. No President was
ever so maligned as Lincoln. and have
lived to gee his fame rise up, as world wide
as it ia pure and unsullied unframed by
the abuse Of the forgotten creatures who
thought to blacken his character and thwart
his purpose. Within my own brief ex-
perience | nave seen the House held up to
public scorn and its Speaker denounced
with unbridled ~ferocity on account Of re-
forms which all men and all parties accept
to-day, and which rescued that great body
from a condition OF inanition and contempt
The Executive. the Senate and the House
could answer these assailants, said Mr.
Lodge, but the courts could not. They
could make no popular appeal, enter no
defence, secure M verdict at the ballot
box. 1t was. therefore. the law OF politics
not to assail the courts. Mr.. Lodge then
read an interview with Eugene Debs, in
which he said that the courts belonged to
the plutocracy, and he was opposed to
spending our means going up against a
braced game iudicially." He read also an
interview with Interstate Commerce Com
missioner Prouty, and continuing said:
Now, Mr.. President. there is a man OF
high character holding a high public posi-
ton deliberately stating to the people OF
this country that the courts and other
public bodies are owned by the railroads.
He says they own them by ~electing them
United States Judges are appointed. They
are not elected. They are appointed by the
President. That implication Ia that the
President appointed men owned by the
IF this were the utterance of some OF
our irresponsible magazine writer's whose
only thought was to turn a penny by meet
ing what seemed a momentary demand for
a sensational statement it would be bad
enough, but very far from fatal. Writers
that type come and 60. They seize upon
the excitement Of the moment and pres
emily rise like a lock of shore birds and !
whirl away to another spot where they
think they can find a fresh feeding ground.
These modern imitators of Titus Oates
will pass away as he passed away. They
will bring no innocent heads to the block !
he did, although they may here and
there cause distress. They will not end in
the pillory as he did, because the pillory !
has been abolished. but they will go out Of
fashion Just as he did into silence and oon-
tempt.
at is when a man of ability and character, !
holding high Government position like that
of an Interstate commissioner,
uses the language which l have quoted that
the matter becomes deeply serious. 1t is
when doubts and suspicious as to our courts
are suggested by the words Of men eminent
in public office, az has been the case in the
months during the discussion Of this
question:; IL is when every effort is made to
shut the courts out from all consideration
the momentous questions raised by this
bill that the matter grows grave indeed,
for it is in this waytthat the distrust is bred
which the Senator from Texas spoke and
which every rejecting man must believe to
an inestimable il not an irreparable
injury to the country. !
AN Europe turned from the tyranny
OF the individual feudal lord and gave
itself up to the tyranny of the one mar
whom it made the king, 1t was better than
the tyranny Of many. And, Mr. President,
with disorder you may have license. you
may have anarchy, bue you will have no
liberty. When you get to anarchy and
disorder then you go over the dreary
round Of the old vicious circle and land in
the reaction and the savior OF society
I'VE want neither socialism. which would
reduce all things to a dead EVE and put all
power into the hands OF the Government,
nor do we want anarchy, which represents
-L@~o .