The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1919-05-18
Right!''
OUR NEXT SENATOR

candidate for the United States senator
shin in succession to Senator Gore AS a
matter of fact the campaign really VIII not
open until about nine months from thls daIe
For the time being anybody Is potentlal can
ddate. This is a free country, so to speak
and since the election of United States SEN
ators was taken out of the state legislatures
and became a matter of popular vote, any
person endowed with the electoral franch'se
and who has passed the age of thirty years
is entitled to become candidate Tor that
high office. Now that Oklahoma women have
the vote anv woman who is courageous
enough to admit that she is thirty years OF
age (not necessarily more) is fully entitled
to the privilege of announcing herself tor the
senatorial candidacy.
In the constitution of the United States it
is provided that senator must be at least
thirty years of age This, of course, prevents
bows and girls saf too tender age from gong
to Washington and passing by the doorkeeper
into the sacred chamber of the toga-wearers.
Of course as all of us know, there are school
boys and perhaps schoolgirls who would make
senators as efficient as some Of the old boys
who sit in the chamber, but for all that we
must adhere to the belief that our forefathers
were wise in putting the minimum age limit for
qualification at thirty years.
So under the federal constitution, the can
didatorial field is narrowed to citizens-mean-
ing in Oklahoma, men and women-who have
seen thirty more summers and winters and
still feel ambitious to represent the common
wealth. Senatorial timber, so to term it. is eX-
ceedingly abundant in every state. Many a
United States senator rises to his elevation
through political exigency or intrigue, who is
Inefficient. incompetent and ineXcusable. At
a., hn of hon h1n 1rpdS
perhaps thousands--of men who would make
better senator's.
The ambition to be senator of the United
States is audable ambition. There can be no
doubt that thousands of men cherish such an
ambition secretly, but through modesty or self
respect refrain from putting themselves for
ward as candidates. In the present status
of so-called civilization man of high ideals.
Of unbuyable integrity, of supreme and serene
self-respect, hesitates long before he dives into
the whirligig torrent of partisan politics in the
hope of swimming ashore with his clutch upon
a chair in the senate chamber, If he gets the
clutch upon the chair he wants to maintain his
elfrespect his dignity, his integrity, his high
ideals; and if he be of intelligence sufficient to
make his candidacy anything other than bur-
lesque he knows that in order to achieve the
chair he must undergo perils to his pride and
his good standing with himeslf to which Ger !
man gas-shells are but as the masma of a
frog pond.
This, of course, should not be so. but it is
so, and everybody knows that it is so. Perhaps |
in the better years to come it will not be so. Let
us hope But for the present we must deal .
with the situation which exists. We have a
dozen or 50 OF men who have been men |
toned" as senatorial possibilities. We have /
one, Mr.. E. G.. McAdams of Oklahoma City, |
who has announced his candidacy eighteen
months in advance Of the election and fifteen
months in advance of the primary. 1t is taken
for granted that Senator Gore will be a can
didate to succeed himself Congressman Scott .
Ferris Of Lawton, it is understood generally,
will run against his fellow townsman, Mr..
Gore, unless the candidatorial field is to be so
with aspirants as to make the race
y walk-away for the incumbent.
At present it is any man's-or any woman's
race. The men or women who come into
the field early are Of an assurance most cour-
ageous, for they put themselves into the posi-
ton of being contestants in an elimination
race, pre- preliminary as it were; and it will