The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-01-31
1 MILAN NEW | U. s. SENATOR

in Connecticut = Mclean,
 As Governor, Worked to
 Bring About Constitution
 al Reform = Brandegee
 and Bulkeley's Exit.
 Especial Correspondence of The
 Evening Post.)
 New Haven, Jan. 31.-For sixteen years the Republican party in Con- necticut has been split over two ap- ples of discord-the United States Senatorship and the Governorship. This condition of affairs dates back with almost mathematical precise ness to the wreck of the Democratic party the rock of Bryanism in 1896, when the 53,000 plurality for Mo- Kinley extinguished strong and re- spectable opposition and heralded the long Republican dominance which was to remain unbroken until the election of ex-Judge Baldwin last November.
 That dominance, in the evil logic of politics, also shifted the forces of corruption in the State. Before 1S96 party and personal funds went large ly to buy voters on election day. This election-day corruption dated far back to the Congressional contest of the two Barnums''-one of them the famous showman-in the late sixties; but it came down in a putrid flood. partly modified by new ballot law, purchase of Republican nominations anad of the factional control of Re- publican party patronage. What need to waste money at elections when nomination meant election?
 Such situation naturally created genesis of two United States Sena- tors, Brandegee and Mclean. One faction was the Hartford Group headed by the shrewd and tireless Boss" Fyler, with which Senator Bulkeley was in those days allied: Fessenden of Stamford, member of the Republican National Commit tee and for ten years an ardent but unsuccessful seeker of the United States Senatorship. r
 The picturesque features of that ups and downs, would fill a book, but only a few salient points in it's his- torical evolution can be noted. Sen- ator O. H. Platt-described at Wash ington as Judas not Iscariot" to dis tinguish him from the New York Platt-and outside of party and tar if matters an ideal Senator whose like Connecticut will probably never see again, was too strongly intrench- ed to be attacked by Fessenden. Sem ator Hawley's seat was Fessenden's s mark.
 Mclean Nominated for Governor.
 The long struggle for it and for ~l~s s-I . ( did not end until 1905. But it reach ed its real climax in 1900, when Fes- senden, in the spring of that year, working in alliance with Brandegee, failed, after rancorous fight. to get control of the State committed; and failed again in the autumn, after an- other bitter struggle, to secure the nomination of his candidate for Governor. Donald J. Warner. The same convention that threw down Warner by g small ma jorfty nomin- ated, as candidate sof the Fyler fac tion, George P. Mclean. the new United States Senator.
 It was bold step and a challenge to defeat. McLean's reputation was none of the best. He had been for years active in the lobby, and his name associated with lobby scan- polls, he pulled through at the elec- ton.
 As Governor, although he has been over-praised, he is to be credited with one act of unqualified coura age, the forcing through the Legislature convention. to reform the States fos- silized organic law. The proposed new Constitution failed of ratifica- tion by the people, but MT. Mclean is to be credited with his courageous reformative effort-doubly brave, as f0 e which, in Connecticut, make Sena- tors.
 Three Later Senatorial Contests.
 History brings down to us three later battles for the United States Senatorship. excluding that just end Tn 1905. Senator Hawley. for some years broken in health, died. al d Fessenden again leaped into the Sem atorial arena, with Bulkeley as his opponent. It was another savage fight, made dramatic for one thing by the moral crusade on Bulkeley led by Dr. Newman Smythe of New Ha- ven, who assailed Bulkeley at many points, civic and personal, not omit ting reference to the State lawsuit against Bulkefey's Insurance Com pany. the Aetna Life of Hartford, forced by the suit to shift a large fund from it's stock to it's mutual de- partment. But Bulkeley, free then as ever in the use of funds, in the phrase of the time. "had the goods" in the Legislature and won.
 A few weeks later, Senator o. H. Platt died. Fessenden pulled out of his long Senatorial scrimmage, and Brandegee's innings came. There were many ballots in caucus, with Mclean candidate of the Fyler fac tion against Brandegee, but the To- cality idea and the Hartford hog gishness" cry-both Bulkley and Mo Lean being identified as Hartford men-prevailed, and Brandegee went in, aided by the secession to him of an old anti-Fessenden group of leg islators headed by A. w. Paige of Bridgeport whose act led to mutual ly recriminative charges of broken faith.
 The third contest came two years ago, Brandegee had seemingly a clear track to reelection. But still-hunt by Connecticut's new head of the lobby" J. Henry Roraback, working for Representative E.. J. Hill, actually got a small caucus ma- jority, which was only turned at the eleventh hour by the return to Hart ford of Senator Bulkeley just in time 10 save his colleague. It left be-