The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1909-11-17
SENATOR ALDRICH.
He Believes in the Divine Right of
the Dollar to Rule.

The divine right Of the dollar to
rule is the political creed of Senator
Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich Of Rhode
Island, dictator of the United States
Senate. Senator Aldrich is a tory, but
no fool. He is no messenger boy for
Wall Street spirit. He Is just as sim
cere about the divine right Of the dol
lar to rule as was Louis XIV over alb
solutism. The French King made a
prosperity issue of the divine right
OF kings. Touch the dollar, such is
the Aldrich attitude, and you have a
Roosevelt panic.
The man, at sixty-eight shows a
strong face. ruddy with health, above
big frame, we'll padded with muscle.
active middle age. Working over the
tariff in the stoke-hole heat of
Washington summer, Aldrich wore
out his colleagues. from the young
est Republican insurgent to the re-
cord holding long distance orator on
the Democratic side. When his lim-
CUISINE stalled in the mud Of a coun-
try road last spring. the Senator
swung a shovel like boy and laugh
ed like a boy.
The senate boss will bully a fellow
senator. a cabinet officer, or even a
president. but he is always courteous
to senate page. One Of his col
leagues may hesitate to question him.
but the youngest reporter never does.
He talks at all times with amazing
frankness. Stormy and domineering
on the floor. reading Republican in
surgents out Of the party with every
appearance Of intense anger. Aldrich
does not make public business a per-
sonal matter. as does Speaker Cam
non. OF his feet he Is ready to joke
or gossip with the rebels. Declining
all formal functions, Aldrich keenly
enjoys the society Of his friends. He
Is an entertaining talker, and he has
the advantage Of every ruler who un-
bends. that his unbending in this wise
cannot but flatter the most sophisti-
Gated. The personality of Aldrich is
| another of his assets.
The operation Of the Darwinian
law made him senate dictator. He
| came to the senate twenty eight years
ago, grounded in the game through
experience in a city council, a State
legislature. and the house of repre-
sentatives. Were he merely mediocre.
the senate system and its traditions
of seniority would make him an in
f1uencial figure now. The system is
log rolling buttressed by party regu-
| larity. The veteran senator's, who are
mostly New England senator's, control
| the committee assignments. When it
comes to legislation, a tariff bill for
| instance, the control gives them the
initiative and direction Of it. They de-
eide on what New England must have
and they count the number of votes
they need, added to their own, to
form majority. Those votes are Sc
cured by giving enough senator's what
they want out of the bill. Republican
senator's left out in the cold must go
along or be guilty of party disloyalty
Aldrich is the greatest expert at this
system that congress has seen.
| His present danger, and the sys-
TENS danger, lies in the example Of
rebellion Set last spring by Beveridge,
of Indiana, and the Mississippi Valley
senators. They bolted the Aldrich
tariff. If such rebellion is not only
to go unpunished but even to pros
per, the Aldrich control and the old
senate system will totter. Last spring
the absence of effective Democratic
opposition offset, to a large degree,
the Republican detection. Aldrich
himself has never furnished a more
interesting study than now, when at
the height Of his power is so seriously
threatened. Stand or fall, he will not
compromise. He was never so arbi-
trary as last spring-American Mag
azir