New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-23
Some Frank "ClOse.
ups" in the Senate

A 8 GOLDEN autumn wears on and
| u Congress still sits, the pen Of the
satirst is turning to Washington
with enthusiastic relish. Last week, in
this column, were printed some comments
, on leading Senator'S by William Marion
Reedy, and this week il is possible TO sub
NIT TO the reader the high lights OF
treatise, interesting though sometimes
strongly partisan, on the same subject by
Henry L. Mencken, which appeared in
"The Evening Mall This virulent humor-
list begins by singing the praises OF the
Congressional Record:
There is scarcely a page without s00s-
! thing amusing on IL, and even astonishing.
"The men who decide how much Of your
money you are TO keep march daily across
those pages-most Of them Quilted with
elaborate false faces, but all of them self
exposed soon or late.
| "I have used the word Astonishing. In II
! I put the assumption that you read the news
| papers every day, and 20 have what you
! regard as a general knowledge OF what goes
! on in Congress- Well, look through the Rec
ord for a month and see how often you are
! in error-how often, that is, the literal re-
mort of a debate differs enormously from
the highly sophisticated newspaper report
of It.
ain your paper, perhaps, you Will read that
Senator So-and-so made an eloquent ana
| overwhelming argument for some inspired
measure that your paper favors land maybe
! inspired But when you read the Record
YOU will probably find that all the honorable
gentleman did was to emit few sickly plat
| itudes to empty benches. In the midst OF his
balderdash, so giovingly reported, you VIII
| encounter this.
"'Mr. Lodge: Mr. President sugrest tho
absence Of q quorum
an. President pro tsmpers' The sscrs-
tary will call the roll
! A ND tAsn yen will read Of . rsllesn an
~ swered By perhaps hftssn or twenty Sen
ators (half Of them arriving from the CLOAK
rooms at q gallop), and Of orders to close
/ the doors and summon the absentees, ana
between the lines you will see the catehpoles
/ humping themselves down the marble cor
ridors, and Senators aroused from comfort
able maps, and the eloquent speaker hating
his geyser Of mush long enough for quiet
| TO be restored.
"a full house In the Senate Is rarity. IL
Is witnessed, dare say, only when they are
| impeaching a President or doing battle over
a pork barrel. On ordinary days, and even
on what may be called ordinary extraordi-
nary days, II Is very unusual FOR a session
| TO be got through without two or three
patrols going out to round M truants.
past and present in this field are one and
| !ndivisible. Congress remains the same. Con-
gressional buncombe remains the same. The
| leading performers, though their names are
changed, pursue the same technic and whoop
the same whoops.
az there is any change II {. In the diree-
ton of q progressive feebleness, an increas-
I ing looseness of mind The direct primary
has emptied the Chautauquas into both
houses; direct elections have cleared all the
old Bourbons out Of the Senate. All, that is,
save . corporal's guard.
Henry Cabot Lodge remains. Knox, after
q vacation In dollar diplomacy, 10 back again.
Penrose remains. A few camp followers re-
main. But Aldrich, Foraker, PLATE. Crane and
the rest Of that fair brotherhood are gone,
and most Of them are dead
TURNING to a consideration Of loren
sizes, Mr.. Mencken says:
"Reed, in fact, is no orator. as oratory goes
in Congress. The principal merchants OF
that sweet commodity-at least on the Senate
side-are Vsrdamsn and James Hamilton
Lewis, the one a vast well Of quotations
from oil the copybook poets and the other
a spinner Of verbal gossamers that caress
the fevered gill like the touch OF lly-white
hands.
"If Vardaman has ever made a speech in
the Senate, even speech OF five minutes,
! without quoting from Longfellow, jean
Ingelow, Thomas Moore or some other Fourth
Reader bard, then TIE record Of it is not
IN type.
! "As for Lewis, he makes his own poetry.
His soberest prose has tafy in It, and may
onnaiss and benedictine and stick Of frank
incense. He is the minnes!nger OF that
august body-ts mould Of form in buccal
blooms as we'll as in habiliment. He sets the
high mark for politesse; no Senator in his
| discourse Is ever less than Eminentissimo.
But, for all these gaudy trapping,, thi, Lewis
Is q man Of sense, and he never speaks with
out saying something.
| "His colleague, Sherman, Is his exact an
t!thesis-a Niagara OF undistinguished words,
a wholesaler Of feebeness. He made end
less speeches on the Liberty Loan legislation
and speeches almost as long on the pork
barrel.
an brief, the obvious rolled out until It
is as thin as a noodle A pint Of mush mixed
with a hogshead Of buttermilk.
Another such burbler is Williams, Of Mis-
sissippi, mentioned before. There exists a
, sort Of conventional belief that he Is able,
but what II is grounded on can't make out.
Surely there are no signs Of unusual capac-
ity, or even Of common capacity, in his
speeches In tho Senate. Like Underwood,
Of Georgia, and James, Of Kentucky, he has
shown but indifferent form since forsaking
the lower house for the upper.
"The big men of the upper house, as they
are revealed in debate on the floor what
goes on in the committee rooms, of course,
| is horse OF another color, are Smoot,
Lodge, Reed, La Toilette, Simmons, Borah,
Hardwick and Hollis.