The Washington times., 1913-06-27

procity ana one or TWO Other very I'M
portant measures passed. and between
times had occasion to get into toucn
with governmental business Of the Dis
trict from the newspaper mans point OF
view. Then came the misfortune that
proved his chief piece Of highly disguised
luck. His health broke down.
Without the least notion OF giving
Up the ghost, Newman decided to fool
the doctors. He went out to New Mex
leo, and got a job inspecting work on
some Government works In progress
there. He became a specialist in the
not over-robust. He learned all the
doctors knew about it, and lot that
they hadn't then by any means agreed
on.
He undertook the task Of doctoring
himself, using plenty of sunshine, fresh
air, and the right kind of food, and
allopathic prescriptions Of horse sense
There isn't a layman in America, L
venture, who knows more about how
not to die of bad lungs, and how to
make good lungs out OF poor ones,
than Oliver P. Newman.
- He began to get we'll about the time
the undertakers would have got an
other man, and before long was strong
enough to get back to the smell Of
ink and the interests Of the print shop.
At San Antonio.
The San Antonio Express discovered
the Newman talents. and with the
promise that San Antonios climate
would prove ideal for the purposes
then at the top of his mind, induced
him to Join its staff The Express was
one Of the important figures In two big
fights that were then on in the Lone
Star State.
One WAS the big struggle which re-
suited in the passage, In Texas, OF the
first Senatorial preference primary law
in the Union. The other was an effort
10 reorganize the railroad taxation laws
by requiring that Intangible values in
railroad property should be taxed
Newman was wise to all that sort of
reform doings. for he had been learning
about them during the beginnings OF
the old Iowa fight, In which the same
things had been among the issues. So
the Express, figuring, Just as Woodrow
Wilson more recently did, that 1t had
discovered just the right man to do
the thing with intelligence, sent New
ture at Austin.
Passed Both.
The legislature passed both laws. and
Newman was In the business Of doing
1t clear UP to his ears.
He had become a progressive Of the
sort that recognized no particular diff
ference between an overwhelmingly Re
publican legislature in Iowa and a
unanimously Democratic one in Texas.
His own politics were progressive all
the time. As. he understood IT. the
thing to be accomplished was to get the
legislature. regardless Of politics, to do
the thing the State needed and the peo-
pie wanted. In Iowa. In the old days
Of the fighting there, they tried to rouse
prejudice against that sort Of people by
calHng them Democrats, mugwumps,
and disorganizers. In Texas the Tories
were no more friendly.
Convinced that his health was now
safe, Newman went back to Des
Moines to write politics for the Des
Moines News. He landed in the thick
of the hottest fight the State had ever
known. Cummins had twice been
elected governor, and each time the
recaicitrancy Of legislature had
made IL impossible to get all the re-
form legislation he wanted.
So he had become a candidate FOR
third term, something unheard of in
the States affairs and quite impossible
under the old rules of the game. New
man and the News espoused the Cum
minis cause, and Cummins won his
nomination in a finish that was almost
as hot as the election campaign which
followed, wherein Cummins was elect
ed with a greatly decreased majority,
because the conservative Republicans