The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1915-03-25
SENATOR STONE AS PROPHET.

The Republic is glad to have Civ
en- to the American public speech
on the senatorial filibuster which
Senator William Joel Stone prepar.
ed but had no opportunity to deliv.
er in the hurried hours of the demise
of the Sixty-third Congress. Here is
q passage which should burn itself
into the consciousness of every mem.
her of the United States Senate:
'.Mr. President, republicans con-
tend That we cannot close debate and
vote on bill so long as any senator
desires to speak, unless we change the
rules, and when we try, as we have
tried for daysAat a time, to change
the. rules they tell us we cannot vote
to change the rules as long as any
senator desires to speak on that ques.
ton. Thus one filibuster is piled
upon another, and the senate stands
!. before the country in a state of pitt
able helplessness. Here is where
courage-even the very audacity OF
courage-is needed: here we need a
sword to cleave Gordian knot. The
senate can do business if it will, and
do it without violating the spirit OF
it's rules and in strict conformity with
its constitutional rights.
1T looks, however, as if the fest
ering fingers of stale custom are SO
tightly fastened on the senate that
there must be an infusion of new red
blood before the senate will have the
courage or capacity to cope effec-
lively with a filibusteT.'
Youth, after all, is not primarily
q question of the number of mans
years. According to the biographi-
cal dictionaries, Senator Stone is
rounding into his sixty-eighth spring,
but the spirit that inhabits his frail
body is as young as it was a full
half century ago. The secret of SEN
ator Stones leadership in the upper
house of congress does not lie pri-
marily in his vast experience of pub
lie affairs and his wide knowledge of
men and things; it is in the spirit
of the man. 1t is in his courage, his
disgust with outworn presidents and
hampering rules.
Senator Stone carries the weight
of years upon his shoulders; but his
spirit goes out in welcome to the new
men who are coming into the senate
of the United Statesmen whose en-
thusiasns, like his, are constructive,
who will measure their effectiveness
by things accomplished and not by
the hours in which the public bust
ness waits while they stand on their
feet and utter words with the sole
object of preventing action in time
when reasonable men are tired of
talk.
1t is men like Senator Stone who
preserve popular respect for the sen
ate of the United States. The gener-
al public has no respect whatever for
the senate's rules. A body of SO men
whose regard for the value of it's own
time is so slight that any obstructive
half dozen Of reactionaries is permit
ted to hang up it's activities indefin-
itely, even for weeks, cannot COM
mand much respect for it's regula-
tons in an era of time clocks and
efficiency experts.
But such words as these from
veteran legislator, a master OF assem-
blies and commanding figure in the
dominant party, addressed to the
spirit of youth and progress in party
and nation, have in them the promise
OF better things. There is nothing
sacred about traditions that are
wrong. There is nothing sacred
about the action of the democrats
when they go squarely back on demo-
cratic principles and join forces with
reactionaries, as did the senators
whom Senator Stone has condemned.
The older such a tradition as that
OF senatorial courtesy in debate is
the greater need for sweeping 1t
away. A Missouri congressman was
the chief figure in the great change
which democratized the rules of the
house of representatives and made
another Cannon autocracy lmpos-
able. And stranger things have hap
nened than that the transformation
81 tie senate, making impossible for
iii time the building up OF another
Aldrich oligarchy. should come about
tNrough, the courageous and magnet
"a leadership Of Missouri senator,
Wfiiiem Joel Stone. st. Louis Re-
Iphlt. 8