The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-30
SENATE LESS AUGUST
Individual Membership Is Below That
 of Fifty Years Ago

David s. Barry, in the Providence Jour
 Eal
 If is not altogether surprising that Sen- ator OGorman of New York should be- gin to feel that he gave up the substance for the shadow in resIgnng his long term. high-salared judicial office of dignity and power for seat in the United States Senate.
 The genial and brilliant Irishman who did this to become the colleague of Elihu Root is not the first man to find out after it is too late that political office, even of the exalted character of a United States senatorship, is not always, to put 1t plainly. what it is cracked up to be. Thomas B. Reed is reputed to have said once that no man ought to come to Con gress unless he were so able or so rich or so conspicuously both that he would stand out above his fellows as a power either in the halls of legislation or in the no less attractive social world of the cap- ital
 Although Judge O'Gorman has had no opportunity to demonstrate his ability since he came to Washington, it is gen. erally believed that he possesses it in q very high degree. That is his reputation in New York, and he looks like a man intellectually above his fellows. What. apparently, has disturbed his peace of mind and caused him to doubt whether he did not make a poor exchange in leaving the bench for the Senate is that he has found out what has long been the belief of those who have had occasion to know that while the United State Senate as a legislative body has perhaps maintained it's exclusively high standard, It's membership, considered individually, does not measure up to the standard ot np has been in the Senate less than five months, and already the bloom is off the peach.
 It was Jim" Nesmith, the illiterats miner and stage driver who came to the United States Senate from Oregon soon after that territory was admitted to tho union, who was responsible for the fa- nous story that has been attached to the personality of a thousand public men since that time. When Senator-elect Ne- smith came to Washington he was so modest and had such a poor opinion of his own merits that. he was actually afraid to appear in the Senate chamber. So for day or two he sat up in the ga allery with his wife. After looking the statesmen over he said to her again and again, "When I think of my limitations and of the august character of this body, cannot for the life of me understand how I got here.'
 4 month of two later Nesnfth, who was personally a very popular man. good story teller, and mixer from Mixer vile, said to his wife after he had be- come acquainted with his colleagues and swapping stories with them in the cloak rooms. dined with them in the Senate restaurant, and associated with them on | the floor, "Now, l wonder how In h-i 1 they got here.'' l It is true that the high standard o' | United States senators, estimated as in ] dividuals, has deterorated, 1t is alst | true that the manners and customs O | doing business in Congress and of livint l in Washington have changed so material
 ly in the past quarter of a century tha 1 it does not mean the same thing to p'
 a senator of the United States now al | then. Numerically larger. the small mer l are lost in the shuffle, as 1t were, anc l the rich ones are so rich that the mar
 of moderate means can make no show l at all.