Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-01

We refer to the Hon. Ollie
Merle James, the new Sen
ator from Kentucky, a
State famous for many
things in general, but par --
ticularlv for lngual actlvi- f"0'0 ~ ..ne'n's
tv, oratorical plnwheels, e IVA
and men full of bullets. He ===
began to make political
speeches at the mature age of eighteen: but
when he was sixteen he knew all the politics.
current and past, of Kentucky, the United
States. and Rumania. Only once did any
body ever get the better of him in a debate.
Brandishing his arms, wagging his head.
which is as bald as a new-laid egg, and not
stirring up his legs much, it is an ana
tomical fact that the brandshing of legs that
would do credit to an elephant or a baby
grand piano dissipates strength and vitiatcs
energy, he was laying down the law to the
Republicans. His discontinue came when
one of the opposite party rose and remarked
in suave but irritating tones:
"Shake not thy CORY locks at me"
With this exception, the career of Ollie
Merle has been along a road on which spar
killed. the silver miestOnes of oratorical su-
premacv, the supernal sweetness of clo-
quence, and the lowered garlands OF victory.
He was a page in the Kentucky Legislature
in 1887, was an attorney for Governor GOe-
bel in his famous and Caloric contest for the
governOrship of Kentucky, and has served as
delegate to the Democratic National Con
ventiOns every time there has been one since
he reached the age of discretion He made
one speech seconding the nomination of Will
lam J. BRYAN for President, and at the Balti-
more convention last summer he was the per
manent chairman, preserving order and
fighting off chaos with a pair of lungs that
sounded as if they had been made in one of
our leading tanneries and guaranteed never
to weaken or fragile at the ends.
But Ollie cannot break himself of his lead
ing vice,-the n-faced-hack habit All
through the summer late into the fall, and
early in the spring he drives through POto-
mac Park with Handsome" Heflin. who
halls from Alabama and is another bright
star in the galaxy of CUFF artists. He and
Handsome are inseparable companions.
Moreover, one is nearly as sebaceous as the
other. and, when they fling their graceful but
balloon-like figures into the open-faCed hack
and have themselves hauled round by one
horse YOU can safely make bet that heavy
matters hang in the balance.
Ollie is one of the plain people. Not
built for the airs and graces of a carpet
knight nor fashioned along the lines of
Apollo greeting the sunrise, he dresses for
comfort, for comfort alone; thereby serving
Ills OWL convenience anu COllN llClIlS Tic
masses of the people that he is the man to
represent them in the Senate. When it
comes to making speeches, he is human
multiplication table. Aroused from deep
slumber, heavy in the eyes. slightly muddled
in the brain, and scarcely knowing where he
is he can spring to his feet, unbutton his
vest and vocabulary, and turn loose unhesi-
tatingly an Grafton on the heroes of democ-
racy or the rights of the laboring classes.
He may be fat throughout most of his anat-
orny; but as a fathead he does not shine
Only one deep sorrow one sepulchral
shadow, has fallen upon his career. When
the deadlock was broken in Baltimore, Oh
lies heart-his political heart-was broken
with it. He had been a strenuous Champ
Clark man, and when Wilson won the fight
Ollie pulled out handkerchief that looked
like a tablecloth, and in few moments
dropped it, sodden and crumpled. to the
floor with sickening thump But. being a
party man, he's on the job for all the Dem