The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-07
4 GREAT PO[ICAL. CAME IN PROGRESS Washington Activities Like
 "Seven-Up" ! NATIONS NOT TO VOTE Ex Governor Hook of Kansas Says It Is Religious Duty-Hark-
 ness Back From
 l. Europe
 
NATIONS NOT TO VOTE
By RALPH M. wHIrEsIDE

| Washington. May 6.--(Special )-It Is &
 great game of politics which is being played in Washington just now. Every
 body is sitting in, and the manner In
 which the players are watching each other and the fall of the card reminds one of the famous old game of seven-up, when the score stood to and Dad had
 the deal.
 Politics was, of course, back of the
 long delay in organizing the Senate. Ger tain committee places in the Senate are of very great importance when that body is so evenly divided politically. It is a. question just where the control of the Senate lies. If the democrats were solid. there is little doubt there would be enough progressive republicans to act with them to control legislation, but there are conservative and progressive democrats as we'll as republicans. The committees on committees of both parties are controlled by the conserva- tives and naturally they desire to so frame the committees that they would have majority.
 All hands realized that this question of committees control would have most important bearing on the presidential campaign of both parties next year. Hence the long drawn out fight.
 The impression is growing in Washing ton that there is likely to be three tickets in the field next year. unless the demo- crats nominate a radical progressive.
 Should the two great parties nominate conservatives, the feeling is that some man like IlaFollette will head a third ticket in the hope of drawing together the radicals of both parties. There seems to be no doubt that President Taft will be renominated. That appears 10 be about as certain as anything can be in Amer ican politics a year ahead of the event, but the democrats representative does not appear to be so clear. Clark, Wilson and Bryan are spoken of as candidates for the progressive wing, with Harmon likely to secure the support of the more conservative element in the party. Some talk is heard of Folk and Marshall Of Indiana, while Mayor Gaynor seems to have dropped entirely out of the presi- dential discussion.
 It is easy to get good odds that there will be no nomination on the first ballot in the next democratic convention.
 If you are qualified to vote and fall to do so, you are neglecting your religious duty, in the eyes of Edward W. Hooh, former governor Of Kansas who was seen at the New Ebbitt.
 Its a mans duty to vote,'' said he. Tt is more a Christian duty to vote as 1t is to attend church or prayer meeting, for you can have 8 prayer meeting in your home at any time, but you can't vote when you feel like it.
 'The ideal citizen must be a politician, but not in the common sense of the word It is shame the way politics has been brought into disrepute. Politics is the science of government, and the elector should have knowledge of it's principals. Ideal citizenship carries with 1t an ex- treme loyalty to law. One of the most astonishing things is the way officials ig- nore laws which it does not please them to enforce. 50 long as the law is law 1t should be enforced. and it is the duty of the official named by. the law or by the courts to carry 1t, out and to see that it is enforced. Anything else is anarchy"
 For many years the Maine elections