The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-11-05

teuuS W lAtTOuuCt do d ocpdidI VIA
q plan of cooperation between the
federal government and the States
whereby military instruction in the
public schools would be established.
Borah, Consistency, and Geography.
1t is not quite fair to horn off the
Hon. William Edgar Borah from the
G. o. p trough because hevoted for
william ]. Bryan for President in
1896. He was young then, and 16
to / was very popular cry in his
neck of the woods. Let us remember
that both John A, Logan and Daniel
e. Sickles were "Copperheads" until
the big war of 1861-65 was well on
foot-vide their speeches in the
Ehirty-sixth Congress. 1t was said
OF Martin Van Buren, that he was
"a Northern man of Southern princi-
ples,' and it may be said that Mr..
Borah is standpatter with progress
sive principles If Mr.. Bryan could
forgive Woodrow Wilson for his gold
bug vote, why should not Mr.. Pen
rose excuse William E. Borah for his
free silver vote? In the Garden of
Gethsemane Peter denied his Master
thrice, but he gave an excellent ac-
count of himself on the Day of Pen
tecost.
Mr.. Borah is not alone in his early
heresy In his prentice days Gen.
jackson was for the bank, which
he smote with the club Of Hercules
long time after. Henry Clay start
ed out an enemy Of the bank and
got to be its strongest champion.
Daniel Webster, as late as 1924, was
the ablest free trader our country
has produced, and soon thereafter
he was the strongest champion of a
protective tariff. John G. Calhoun
began protectionist, and in 1882
he was ready to dissolve the Union,
or nullify its laws, which was the
same thing, because of the protec-
tion in the Tariff of Abominations"
of 1928.
Consistency is the bugaboo of lit
tie minds, we are told by Thomas
Carlyle, and politics, domestic and
foreign, furnish thousand illustra
tions to establish the fact. In 1852
Oliver P, Morton was "dough-face,
championing all the South contended
for on the slavery question, yet he
became the most distinguished of
the Northern war governors" when
the slavery question was appealed to
the sword Justice would uphold
plea of infancy on the part of Bo-
rah if the charge of Bryanism shall
be lodged against him.
In the matter of brains, though
somewhat suggestive of the sopho-
moric, the Hon. Borah is in the class
of Root and Burton, a long way
ahead of Fairbanks, of Weeks, of
Cummins, of Alden Smith, of Willis,
and of some half a dozen other
mediocrities who have their light
ming rods hoist. With the possible
exception of Cabot Lodge, Mr.. Borah
is the ablest man on the Republican
side of the Senate as that body will
be constituted when the Senate of
the Sixty-fourth Congress shall be
convened. l don't think him as
strong a man as his late colleague,
Mr.. Hepburn, but he has taken a
higher rank as Senator than that
exceptionally able man ever attain
cd. AS debater he is not in the
class of John Sharp Williams, and 1
do not believe he could long stand
before Furnifold M. Simmons. His
reputation is chiefly founded on the
fancy that his is better brand of
politics than that Root stood for, or
that Lodge stands for. In the Re
publican national convention of 1912
he championed Roosevelt. but re-
fused to become Bull Moose. and