Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-05-01
YOUNGER MEN REBEL
President Enlists Support of
Young Senators in His Fight
For New Laws
VETERANS CAN NOT DOMINATE
Disposition to Give Roosevelt Only
Such Concessions as Are Necessary
Receives jolt = Two BattIeships
Per Year Now Settled Policy Be-
cause of Presidents Fight.

cause of Presidents Fight.
Especial Washington Correspondence
Washington. May 1.-The highly
significant feature of the presidents
fight for the construction of four bat
tleships as feature of this years nav
al program, has been the manifest dis
position of the younger senators to
their veteran colleagues and to do as
they pleased This discussion. even
more than that on the currency bill,
has shown how strong is the tendency
among the new senator's to insist on
their own views, and to object to the
rule of the elder statesmen.
Ii is only few years since it was
rather an accepted rule of senatorial
conduct that the new member must sit
tight and say nothing for several years.
The new senator, anxious to make a
record in his first term that would AT
tuency to return him, had a hard time
He might have head full of good
ideas; but he mustn't say anything
about them in public. His conduct was
to be guided by the ancient adage that
children are to be seen. not heard
But latteriy this theory has been eX-
ploded. Beveridge has not been but a
short time in the senate till he In
sisted on being heard. Dolliver was
still a new man when he proposed to
manage the legislature for amend
ment of the interstate commerce law.
The elders took the bill away from
him, and gave it to Tillman, republi-
can votes turning the trick. LaFollette
came along. and declined most emphat-
ically to go thru the long period of
infantile probation. He broke into the
senate's business without any conces-
sion whatever to the ancient proprie-
ties
Such men as Owen. Burkett, Borah
and various Others have taken their
cue from these pioneers. and it may
fairly be said that a new order of
things has been introduced. Jeff Davis
made an antitrust speech before he
had had time to warm his senatorial
chair Borah stepped out as an OPP
ponent of the redoubtable Foraker.
William Alden Smith of Michigan did
not hesitate to project into the cur
rency debate a speech which became
the sensation of the discussion up to
that time. He took issue squarely with
Aldrich and presented case which
was generally regarded as really OPEN
ing the way for the series of assaults
which finally left the Aldrich bill
stranded-not in the senate, it is true,
but in the house when the bill got to
that body.
There is strong suspicion that the
president has done good deal to en-
courage this revolt of the younger
senators. The veterans as rule have
little friendship for him and his poll
cies. They make such concession to
him as is unavoidable consistent with
continuous service. No more. 1t was
but natural that the president, himself
a young man. should turn to those
of his own age and undertake to in
terest them in his policies: and he
has succeeded in a fashion which few
wears ago would have been regarded as
utterly impossible The senate has
come to have large and fast-growing
element, which is looked upon as rep
resenting revolt against tradition. and
ambition for a new order of things.
This was made especially manifest
during the discussion of the naval pro-
gram. 1t is months since Senator Hale
has called at the White House. He is
the fine type of the old-style senator,
which is growing more and more rare.
1t is freely predicted that when few
more changes shall have been made in
the upper chamber, a new set of ira
ditons Will assume sway there, and
the game of politics will be moro open,
popular and democratic in the cham
Der than ever before.
The president probably had no
chance at any time to win his fight for
at once. But the idea is strong that
one of his reasons for making that
light was to try cut the group of young
senator's who have shown disposition to
line up With him and his policies
That it will hereafter be the recog-
nized policy of this country to build
two battleships per annum, of the best
current type constructed by any ma
ton in the world is likely to be one
result of the stiff fight the president
has made for four battleships at this
session.
Advocates of naval expansion point
cut that this is worth vastly more. in
the long run. than to have squeezed
out of congress four ships at this time,
with the serious possibility that year
hence congress would have built but
one. or perhaps none. To take on a
regular program of adding two great
monsters a year, along with the neces-