The Penn's Grove record., 1911-03-24

progressives felt ~serenely confident
that the Roosevelt policies would be
safe in his hands. In less than a
year he had lost the following OF
both factions. He was bitterly de-
nounced by the progressives. and re-
garded with suspicion by the con
s%ervatives. AS for the people at large
the chilling reception given to Pres
ident Taft during his political trip
throughout the middle west last ran
showed clearly enough that the man
whom everybody liked had come te
be one whose political sagacity hard
ly anyone admired.
The tide began to turn shortly AFTER
the congressional session began, and
politicians began to speculate as to
who turned 1t. The ill-advised boy
colt of the insurgents, the refusal to
them Of any participation in patron
age was set aside and they were ge-
nially invited to the pie counter. The
earlier policy was that Of Postmaster
General Hitchcock who holds to the
use of the ungloved iron hand; the
later is believed to have signalized
the beginning Of the primacy of Sen
ator Murray Crane who is much for
the velvet glove and p~ussy-footed
progress.
Crane occupies a curious position
in the senate. AS reactionary as Al
drich or Lodge he has escaped the
enmities which those gentlemen have
so plentifully acquired. A great pa
per manufacturer, doing business
largely with the government, he yet
avoids the criticisms so often heaped
on Senator Du Pont whose powder
thunders from the guns of our war
ships. He can talk to an interviewer
in such a way as to make that con-
fding journalist think he is securing
most confidential information, with
out saying one word imperiling his
political plans. While he fought Taft
in his nominating convention he a
grown visibly closer to him in the
last year and is regarded as the pres
ident's political mentor. The m1ldest
hammered man that ever cam out CT
| Massachusetts, he Is still every inch
a politician.
Is Crane responsible for this war
scare? That is what the politicians
at the capital are asking.
New Blood In Senate.
1t is not quite certain whether the
new blood" of congress or the old
blood of which we are to get rid is
the more interesting.
OF the senatorial vote which gave
Lorimer his coat of whitewash these
are now set aside. repudiated by their
constituencies: Buckley, Burrows,
Carter, Depew, Dick, Hale, Flint,
Kean, Piles and Scott.
OF the ten only three came to the
| senate without some note of scandal
being raised againt them.
That the outcome will be good for
the people of the United States is
generally believed in that it will do
more to advance the cause of the
/ direct election of United States sena-
tors than anything which has hap
pened in the congress of the United
States in the last ten years. The sue
cess OF Standard Oil in Montana in
keeping Thomas J.. Walsh out of the
senate helps in the same direction;
also the deadlocks in Iowa and New
York. The time has about come when
the people Of this country are to be
allowed to elect their own representa-
tives in both houses of congress.
With. direct elections there would
have been no deadlocks, no Lorimers,
no time wasted in discussing the title
of a senator to his seat, and no money
wasted on investigating committees.
Not All congressionalIy New.
Not all the new blood in the senate
is congressionally new. That is to
ay, out of the lower house have come
some men who have won their spurs
there and who are well known In
Washington. Probably the most prom
inent of these is John Sharp Will
liams. Senator-elect Poindexter of
| Washington has also made his mark
in the house. He is a worker, ora
torical by habit, a man of fine pres
ence and a resonant voice, but none
of these qualities rank with the fact
that he is a true Progressive. Town
send of Michigan, who succeeds Bur
| rows, knows the congressional game
from start to finish and is as keen a
politician as Burrows himself. The
successors of Carter, Depew and
| Piles have not at this moment been
| chosen. The successor to Dick Of
| Ohio is a new man. Atlee Pomerene,
| who will perhaps come with less ex-
perience of national legislation than
any man who lately came to the Unit
ed States senate. He has been a we'll
known country lawyer in Ohio, was
elected last year lieutenant-goyernor
of that state, and elected as United
States senator before he had time to
find out exactly what the duties of
the lieutenant-governor were. At the
same time he is a man of >-pacity
and integrity, not in n way involved
with what have come to be called
"the interests" MARITIME, the success
sor to Kean of New Jersey, is a man
very much of the type have just de,
scribed. To what extent he is going
to be the prepayment of a Wilson boom
here interests people in politics. But
in the meantime we know that he is
not tied up with public service cor
porations and can be relied upon to
serve the people first, last and all OF
the time.
One of the strong forces in the
senate, one of the p~ostgraduates OF
the house will be Gilbert M. Hitch
cock. Probably nobody in the upper
house has a better literary or pc
litical training than he. For his po'
litical training It is perhaps enough
to say that he has made Nebraska
a Democratic state after nearly wen
ty years of earnest work with his ex
cellent newspaper, the Omaha World
Herald: for his intellectual training
ono NOV cite the fact that besides