The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1920-06-18
Our Group of Bosses.

and many strange sights greet the visitor who goes
there for the first time but perhaps of the most
impressive is the great dignity and authority con
Stantly displayed by the members of the United
States Senate
When you visit the great white marble building
in which the offices of the senator's are located you
apt to assume that the elevators are to be used
freely by the public just as they are in all other pub
lie buildings of the city, but such is not the case 1t
is true you may be permitted to ride on them under
certain conditions, but when you enter one on the
main floor and desire go up to the third floor you
must not express surprise or Indignation if you are
taken first to the subway thence to the fourth floor
and back and forth to all the other floors several
times before you finally permitted to get off at
the floor you wish.
And the same rule applies to the elevators in the
senate end of the capitol only there are also several
elevators for the exclusive use of senators which are
forbidden to your use The reason for this of course
is that senator's time is supposed to be valuable
and the senatorial signal must be answered at once
If the elevator has started upward, and senator
signals down, why down she goes Immediately
From the perusal of the Congressional Record
you may have formed the private opinion that time
counts for less in the United States Senate than any
where else earth, but do not make the mistake of
getting insthe pathway of senator at least not in
Washington
Back at home the senator may have been very
small "pewee a "jackleg'' or an ordinary sort
OF individual but the atmosphere and association of
Washington and the United States Senate quickly
changes all that He at once becomes overwhelmed
with sense of his superiority over all other men.
and IN thousand ways finds opportunities TO i'm
press the fact upon the rest of mankind Some of
these ways are little ways just as the one we have
mentioned but they convey the impression all right,
and few people who have ever had occasion to visit
our national capitol without receiving it.
We wish it plainly understood that we are not
speaking of the members of the House of Represent
atlves our congressman are no more than anv other
ordinary man in the sight of senator. and about
the most embarrassed congressman we ever saw in
cur experience there was one who had entered one
OF the senate elevators with some ladies whom he
was showing the capitol, and the elevator carried
them up and down past their floor half dozen or
more times before landing them at the one they had
asked Off. Only in the senate do they become super
men, and that possibly accounts for the great and
growing friendship certain senator's have displayed
Tor the Germans who also claim to be super-men.
This reminds of another point we wish to get
to the attention of the reader 1t is known and has
long been conceded that the senate is the least ss
eeptlble of all governing bodies to public opinion.
During the last few years there has been built up in
that body group OF men who are mostly Republi-
cans with some Democratic assistants who have alb
solute domination that body and they now con
troll every governmental function of our nation ex-
ceptng the office of President and they now pro-
pose to take charge of that
In the convention at Chicago last week this lit
tie group of senator's in complete control and
1t not necessary for the chief of the group
Penrose OF Pennsylvania to go to the convention to
get the nominations he wanted he simply phoned
the others what to do and they did it. They named
one of their own number whom they thought to be
The least offensive to the people and yet who could
be relied upon to do their will in every possible emer-
gency that might arise
/, The leaders of the group could under no circum-
stances hope to attain the office of president for
themselves Where is the who dreamed
that Boise Penrose could ever be elected president
Mr. Penrose knows this and he is content to own the
president rather than be the president.
So bold has this group become that they are even
proposing to name the cabinet for Mr. Harding
and names already being published as the men
whom they have selected for these places Openly
they announcing that they believe in the
group government" rather than by a separate ex
ecutive and law making body, and of course they
expect to be the group. If Mr.. Harding should b,
elected this fall about the only person that he vii
be permitted to select, without domination from tn,
group will be cook for the White House Of course
i L. e IL.