Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1915-12-11
SAYS bob" Is A HAS REEN.
Milwaukee Writer Says La Toilette
Has 0utlived His Generation.
BY Ellis b. Usher.


been reported as having opened his
campaign for the presidential nomi-
nation in his old congressional dis
trict and some of the newspapers re-
/ port his speeches as very reminiscent
Ex-senator Isaac Stephenson has al
so been getting reminiscent of late.
So have other politicians. A good
many of us who in boyhOod attended
district school, remember the bare
/ footed boy who unwrapped his lame
foot to exhibit his painful stone
! bruise. If Senator La Toilette and
ex-senator Stephenson are not care
full they will not get into the stone
bruise class, and stone bruse, how
ever sore, is really not a great politi-
cal issue. Nothing. however, better
| illustrates that both are living in the
past than the autobiography with its
woeful talk of Bob" and the senat-
or's reminiscent speeches with his
face to the past and his future behind
him. Senator La Follette's report
ers seem still to be under some in
fluence of personal character but
the average of them suggests that his
! speeches this week have awakened
few echoes. That was to be antici-
pated. Bob" has already outlived
his generation. He is sixty. Sixty
is recognized as dangerous age for
most men. Even the youngest boys
who started with him eighteen or
more years ago, are past forty, with
children as old as they were then, aud
the voter, now as then averages TWEEN
! ty-seven years of age, and has no ac-
| quaintance with the Senator, or
knowledge of his great achievements,
except by hearsay. bob" forgets
that it is ten years since his last state
activities as governor, and he has
not been here much meanwhile.
Only the distant Chautauquas have
known him since these boys became
voters. 1t is too late for him to win
them. The truth has gone by. This
mind you, is not politics. l agree,
generally, with La Toilette, that tax
es and state income, and the cost of
running the state are not going to be
less but more. The well worn Thin
ble-rig about Estate taxes" is not go
ing to affect the broad proposition,
while continuing appropriations
still exist, and corporation taxes, in
come taxes, and all other special tax
es continue to mount higher. | agree
generally, as l have said, to that pro-
position, and the blame for all this
extravaganza rests mainly upon La
! Toilette. He started the avalanche
that, as he now says, nobody can
stop, or at least nobody will stop it
until the taxpayers get a belly-full.
LINCOLN WAS CRITICISED ALSO.
The observing person who hears
the babel of tongues in this country
just now, especially from Mr.. Ford
and his aggregation, ringing changes
on every shade of war and peace talk,
will notice likeness to the days of
1860 to 1852. The north resounded
I fer year and more with the SWIVEL
ling of peaceat-any-p price advocates,
and with the backcapping, hypocriti
cal fire in the rear" of the copper
/ head" so termed because he was lit
orally "snake in the grass There
were ministers and women, then as
I A. nd
/ Fords, who were so Mortified by war
/ that peace was of more value to them
/ than national honor. We ran the
whole gamut then, from patriotic,
loyal support of the government, to
/ the conspiracies of arch traitors. We
seem to be doing something very 81 |
milar just now. When people, as all
sorts of people now do, refer to Lin
coin as if he were the worshipped and
accepted leader of that time, they for
get its history. 1t is worth recalling
now, TO some who seem to think they
are pioneers in the field of unenvia-
Bile criticism of our president, that in
IincOln's home, Springfield, Illinois, /
20 of IS ministers of Christian chur-
ches voted against him for president
/ in 1860. More than half of the state
of Illinois, speaking territoriallY, OPP
/ posed him. His majority in his own /
state, was only 1929, and change of /
one vote in twenty, but per cent, in
the states west of the Alleghanies I
and north of the Ohio river, would 1
/ have changed the result, and the his +
tory of this country. But the day I
came when all the noise ceased. The /
man who was not for his government /
and for the Union, was treated as I
openly against both, The American
people are patient and long suffering +
! but it is well enough to remember +
that they are neither poltroons nor /