Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-03


of rapid transit and prompt Thomas Sta
delivery, he hung up
speed record eclpsing the
fall of Lucifer, who did his
headlong stunt without the impending aid
OF balloon, parachute, or umbrella.
This modern demonstrator of high-geared
speed was Thomas Staples Martin, now
leader of the Democrats in the Senate. Be-
fore his election to the upper house he had
never been candidate for any Office, State
or national, elective or appointive; but in the
Old Dominion every gentleman sooner or
later goes into politics, just as every gentle
man goes to church on Sunday morning.
the reason being simply that he is a gentle
an,-and Martin figured that as the scene
for his political career the national Senate
was the most pleasing and best carpeted
place he could find.
He was made Democracy's leader in that
body for three big reasons: his wizardlike
ability as an organizer, his clear and far
seeing judgment in public affairs, his rever-
ence of honor and friendship.
In the art of sizing up men he is even bet
ter than he used to be in Judging the blooded
horses he raised on his farm some years ago.
He can recognize Judas Iscariot five miles
down the road without the aid of field
glasses, lorgnon, or telescope. In his early
youth he grabbed the book of Human Ma
ture and 1aboriously went through it from
A to 4, not forgetting to master the diph-
thongs, Suffixes, prehxes, and triphthongs.
This is why he excels in the role of leader;
for he knows his men and is certain who will
stay put and who will run after strange gods
bearing in mind always that in politics
the pursuit of strange gods is a popular pas
time.
Among Senators, as among Virginians, he
IS reputed to be the originator and exemplar
of that righteous but sometimes rasping old
saw, "Your word should be as good as your
bond After he has once made a promise,
the thing is safe-locked, nailed down, and
clenched, sewed up in sack, and sheltered
from all the winds that blow and all the
thunderbolts that fall
In the matter of friendship he has Damon
and Pythias reduced to the semblance of
pale and Indifferent regard for each other.
When it comes to graphing to a friend with
hooks of steel, he outdoes what was meant
by the great poet when he let loose that par
ticular line of hardware verse. He sticks to
man to the last breath and the last ditch
also, if he loses the last ditch, he hurries out
with big spade and digs another. No poly
chromatic, reversible, sidestepping friend
ships for him.
The senior Senator from Virginia does not
pose as an orator; never gets off any evan
escent illusions; never collects the perfume
of the flowers, the music of the birds, the
glamour of the moon, and the fiery darts of
the dawn for the purpose of phonographing
them to the world in the shape of a speech
He never wasted a minute in his life trying
to translate the song of the babbling brook
into legislative language. When he speaks,
he fills his lungs with a long breath and takes
header into the deep, still sea of facts and
figures, touching bottom and coming to the
surface with both hands full of prime and
puissant elementals and proof.
At work he conveys the impression that
he hired Hercules as his professor and spent
recess-time every day with old man Atlas
He is one of those sef-winding, perpetual
motion, never-lose- a-rninute clocks, and, in
getting away with big bunch of real labor
he is the boy with the boiling brain and con-
juring clutch.
Martin has no form of recreation or