The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-12

litiral-the making of slates. No sooner is one President inaugurated than the national capital sets about the selection of his successor. No sooner is one Con sress organized than we set about fixing the complexion of the next. Everybody is now predicting the renomination of MT. Taft by the regular republican convention in 1912 but nobody other than the most bigoted cuckoo is predicting his election. The standpatters and the Hitchcock ma chine will bring the steam roller into the convention and crush all opposition. but the insurgents are not going to submit tamely, and if the democrats do not offer a candidate they can support we may be sure that the insurgents will put out a ticket after the order of Palmer and
 Buckner in 1896.
 On the democratic side of the hedge the situation is by no means clear. Woodrow
 Wilson is certainly in the lead, mainly
 for the enemies he has made. Had he
 been little less ralical he would have
 the nomination nailed down, and he will
 get it anyhow if the south shall rally to him. Ohio sent a batch of fried meat democrats to Congress last year and they have done Harmon no good. If Harmon shall discipline them as Wilson did Jim Smith he will be the stronger for it.
 Champ Clark's boom is like that of other speakers before him. Randall and Car lisle. Reed and Cannon all had their booms. manufactured in the House of to mt Bryan and Bailey in the Clark basket It was argued that Bryan was bound to support the speaker because Wilson and
 Harmon were both Palmer and Buckner
 men in 1896. Thus they supposed they had "the Matchless" nailed down. What
 next? Why, nothing simpler. All they had to do was to annex the protection democrats of the south-Bailey. the two Alabama senators, the two North Caro- lima senators, the two Virginia senators, the two West Virginia senators, the two Louisiana senators, the two Florida sen- ators. one Maryland senator, and all the southern Randall democrats.
 That was why taxed wool was choked out of a free wool ways and means com mittee. It was the slickest piece of work
 YOU ever saw, and it showed that not wthstanding the spectacular extirpatlon of Cannonsm, the speaker and the chair man of ways and means can put Con
 gress in a basket when they pull. to- gether. It worked beautifully and suc- cessfully, but it ran against snag The chairman got to be bigger man than the speaker MT. Clark has been guilty Of some extravagant things. For while 1t looked like very imprudent utteranee of his in debate on the measure had par alyzed Canadian reciprocity. Some years ago he had proclaimed on the same thea
 ire that the second election of Grover Cleveland was the greatest calamity that had overtaken mankind since the fall of
 Adam. And 1t was but natural that many
 of the Clark boomers should switch off and become Underwood boomers and sub
 seouent events disclosed that the chair
 man of ways and means was bigger
 man in democratic congressional councils than the speaker.
 Both Clark and Underwood were born in Kentucky, the former in 1850 and the latter in 1862. Underwood is of whig and anti-slayery antecedents. His grand
 father, a near kinsman of George Rogers Clark, was one of the most distinguished
 men of his day. personal friend and a loyal follower of Henry Clay. He was a
 great lawyer and once chief justice of the
 Kentucky supreme bench. He was sol dier of 1S12 and having been taken pris- oner in one Of the campaigns for the
 Northwest Territory, he was given to the Indians and ransomed his life by run hing the gantlet," and the scars evidenc- ing the exploit he carried to the grave. He was repeatedly a member of the na- tional House of Representatives, once de- feating the redoubtabe Elijah Hise, the terror of the whigs.
 He was a senator In Congress, and a "conscience" whig. supporting the Wilmot proviso AS much as any other, man he prevented the secession of Kentucky in 1861. He was the author of the Crittenden resolutions which passed Congress the day after the first battle of Bull Run, He was a very great man and from the whiu standpoint he would have been q great President. All his political life he was in relentless warfare against the democratic party. He was for the bank, for internal improvements, for protec- tive tariff, for the distribution of the pro- ceeds from the sale of public lands among the states He was against the annex aton of Texas and the Mexican war He was for gradual emancipation of the slaves, for the Wilmot proviso. and If he voted for the compromise of 1S50-and l
 doubt if he did--he did it because both Clay and Webster favored it. He was then senator in Congress
 Joseph R. Underwood was a very old
 man, nearly four score. when first knew
 him. But he was in the active practice of his profession. and the head of the southern Kentucky bar. He was emphat-
 ically distinguished looking man, and in
 his youth he must have been regular
 Apollo. He was urbane to degree and the most courteous man I ever saw. He
 was dignhed and courtly always. The
 first time l ever met hing though. had
 seen him frequently, was struck with the beautiful serenity with which he con- templated every move that was measur-
 ably dlsconcerting. How I envied him