The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1907-02-02

LuGy HdQ lluIllOlOuS!y C1iootiS '" oJ
Of making laws in Wisconsin five years
ago-before Charles Mccarthy, with
All idea and a Ph.p., walked into the
capital. Nobody had ever heard of
him; he had no money; he was only
twenty something; the Ph.D., was q
thing to be forgotten as soon as possi-
BILE; and so he was reduced, at the
start, to his idea. With this idea, u
strain Of fighting blood, and the hint
Of a brogue that honors the sod, Nc
Carthy changed the scheme Of law
making at Madison, in five years, from
a disastrous chaos to a scientific, sys-
TEN. And nobody said anything about
1t. Were it not for prying journalists
nobody would be talking about it to-
day, for Mccarthy isn't advertising. He
seems to be rather old fashioned-be-
Neves in bis country and in his fellow
men; and all that sort Of thing, says
charles Merwin in February Success.
Who and what is Mccarthy? Is, he
q double breasted statesman. with La.
:. Toilette eyes and Bryan mouth? Not
lM all. If any reader Of this attempt at
Characterization CHANGED to- see the
Chicago Nebraska football game last
November, he perhaps observed that
Of the two umpires who lodged about
the field one was compactly built
heet-looking young man with a COM
monplace brown mustaclle and Haps-
burg chin-that was Charles McCar-
thy.
But before we get too deep into the
astonishing career of Mccarthy q
Carthy doesn't care for can't, let us
glance at that Wisconsin legislature
Of five years ago. The subject is not
so dull as it looks. It is even funny
when you get close to it. And it
should interest us very little on general
principles, because the way they used
to make the laws in Wisconsin happens
to be the way they still make laws i'll
some forty-four other states. Some Of
us may thing we have nothing to do
with the legislature question:; we may
brag foolishly that he don't know who
represents the county, and that we
don't propose to vote anyway. But tho
work Of our legislature is a thing we
come into contact with every day-al-
most every moment. We can't walk OH
. sidewalk, or. cross a street, or climb
on a .streetcar and pay S cents for the
privilege, or get married, or be buried,
or buy quart Of milk, or hire an ex-
pressnlen, or pay the gas bill, without
coming into contact with powers or
privileges granted directly or Indirect
ly by the state legislature. And if we
foolishly say that the legislature
doesn't concern us, and think Of it
merely as a. part of that remote thing
called politics. we may feel certain
that we are leaving the direction Of
our most intimate affairs, including the
command Of our pocketbooks, to men
who are smart enough to turn our own
weapons against us.
Here Is the accepted American
method of running a state legislature,
the intrenched, national habit which
young man of twenty-something
overthrew singlehanded in Wisconsin:
First, get your legislature. This pro-
cess consists in sending down to the
capital a hundred or SO of the most
harmless men in the state. They must
be harmless, or the railroad company
and the "puiblic service company and
the big brewers and manufacturers
won't put up the money to elect them.
Vigorous, independent thinkers are not
wanted. They slip in now and then, but
they are not wanted.
Next, with your harmless gentlemen
In session-farmers, merchants, we'll
meaning men for the most part--you
throw two. or three, or four thousand