Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-09-24
MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT IN
THE SENATE SlUSH PROBE
Cox 10 Becoming Too Much Like
an Ancient Melodrama


There is an infinite fund Of suggestion in
the sessions of the slush committee for an
eye familiar with the needs Of the modern
stage. And the senator's have all the quail
ties usually essential to success in that field
They disclose nothing new In the way Of
ideas. They do not take your mind into
new fields and they are no rootcrs for the
arts OF realism. They aim to please and to
entertain. Give them the good old virtues
In picturesque guisc--could anything be more
moving than Mr.. Reeds presentation OF the
Democratic party in the role of friendlcss
and desolatcd Little Eva?-and the words
that mean little but carry poignant sound
Mr.. Barnes, Of New York, as the Villain
Who Was Not Half Bad Mr.. Dcpcw, jcrkcd
from his retirement for a revival Of the re-
fined comedy Of the eighties; few southern
vote brokers for the npte Of broad farce
these are characters supposed to represent
real life in the drama of the day In Wash
ington.
The Senate loves its old ways Its in
quiries proceed as evenly az 1 running brook,
and they are no more sensational. Can any
one remember when the slush inquiry began?
Already 1t seems to have been going on since
the beginning Of the world. 80 familiar, 80
monotonous are the tones and moods Of the
probers. Like things heard in childhood or
remembered from past existences are the
questions OF these solemn gentlemen, who do
not seem to know what they want to know.
Senators like Mr.. Reed and Mr.. Kenyon
appear to have neatly tabulated list of
questions which they dust off and toss at
witnesses in every inquiry, whether It relates
to coal or Doodle, foreign affairs or the rela-
ton OF the boil weevil to physical inertia in
the muffin. wclders' union.
You voted for Roosevelt in 1912, did you,
and for Wilson In 1915? Aha! You did?
Then what right have you to testify as a
Republican or as Democrat? II you never
used money in politics how can you be sure
that what you believe to be money in politics
is not something else? Mr.. Reed can talk
In that fashion for months at time and he
can be as humorous about the badness Of
witness as he can be about men killed in the
war, and 80 divert inquisitive minds from
the pursuit Of a fact.
1t Is never easy to tell whether Senate
committee Of inquiry is trying to kid itself
or kid the country. And it is no wonder,
therefore, that the current investigation into
the finances of the campaign is a thing of
vagaries that has failed wretchedly to ac-
complish the one end which the country had
a right TO expect.
The committee knows that Mr.. Cox was
guilty Of ugly and dangerous misrepresenta
tion. Why Mr.. Cox and his friends are not
made TO bear the full responsibility for their
sins Is not apparent.
A man who has most of the world for an
audience said that the rich men in the
United States were plotting to buy the presi-
dency and to put down the decent aspirations
Of workingmen with bayonets.
Now, coming from Mr.. Debs or from Mr..
Foster, such a statement would be rela-
lively harmless. The people know that Mr..
Dets and Mr.. Foster resort deliberately to
overstatement and overemphasis. But Mr..
Cox Is a man with a reputation for integrity
and temperate utterance. When he talked
Of the millions and the bayonets of his
Imagination he startled even those people
who are prepared to see the ordinary limits
Of folly and nonsense reached and passed In
the heat Of national campaign.
II what the Democratic candidate said
was half true, violent reprisals of one class
against smother would be inevitable and even
justifabll. Here certainly was Indictment
to radicalism and riot. Every man in the
Senate, every man on the slush committee,
every witness summoned to testify knows that
national elections cannot be bought. Every
man. rich and poor, outside the insane
asylums longs to forget bayoncts and knows
that his own welfare depends upon the
peaceful reconciliation Of group interests in
this country.
The Senate has not shown the country
how false and shameful the charges Of Mr..
Cox were. 1t has not dspellcd the ugly
rumors that its own sessions have turned up.
1t has not revealed the simple and under
standable truth about money in the cam
paign. A Senate committee can be more
prudish than a Victorian dame in the pres
ence Of any slightly unpleasant fact 1t may
be wholly sophisticated, but it will stick to
the gesture of almost uncarthly chastity to
the bitter end.
So we have Senator Reed making puns
and Senator Kenyon doing Hamlet when
straight talk and direct questions are needed
| Upon one memorable session the curtain rose
at Mr.. Reed s command to show the Demo
cratic party tottcring on the stage in rags,
the saddest of all the disconsolate of the
period, with only $4,000, 900 between it and
the poorhouse, yet spurning every contribu-
ton Of more-or was It less?-than $4,000.
Members on the Republican side can
dream, too. Their party, as they would
make 1t appear, Is too, too good for this
wicked world. The auguished exclamatio
Of Mr.. Barnes, Of New York, when Doodle
was mentioned to him by the pitiless Demo y.
Gratis would seem unreal even In melodrama. a.
| Only In a Senate committee room are such
pretensions Of heaveplncss supposed to be
convincing. There they are a vogue, a de-
pendence, n refuge in every crucial instance.
Mr.. Kenyon and Mr.. Reed could writs
masterly volumes about the Care and Feed
hing Of Political Parties. But they hate to