The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-09-03
PAT HARRISON
LEADING FIGHT
FOR PUBLICITY
Party Issues Are His Specially
Likes to Attack Lodge
Stand on Open Disarma-
ment Sessions.
LODGE PROVES UNEASY
ny MARK SULLIVAN


is the Democrat who is going to lead
the fight. so far as his party is con-
cerned, for public sessions of the COM
ing conference for the limitation OF
armaments. Senator Harrison is the I
light horse cavalry of the Democrats |
in the senate He plays Stonewall |
Jackson TO Senator Underwood's Rob /
ert +. Lee, in an rather unusually
serious senate. !
There is nothing more entertaining
than the smiling and ingratiatins ur'
banity with which Senator Harrison
rises to every opportunity to make
guerilla raid across the aisle into the
Republican lines and TO make a little
ammunition store away in the con. !
gressional record against the time.
Wants Party Issues.
Next summer, when his party will
be fighting TO regain control OF con- |
gress. once in a while something the
senate is doing reaches down TO some
deep conviction in Senator Harrlsons 5
breast.
on such occasion he will fight with |
as much carnestness as Il Mississippi
bearcat But for the most part he
waits for time when Senator Lodge
or some other Republican leader has
his back TO the wall on a party issue
or something that can be made a par
~ issue.
Then Senator Harrison unfolds the
length OF his lean figure from the
depths of his senate chair, and. with
a smile that is like ripping wave on
his agreeable countenance. proceeds
TO throw knives that almost trim the
whiskers of his pinioned victim.
He does it all with gentle irony.
with mock sympathy and an elabor-
ateness of consideration for his op-
ponent. such that the gallery has
come to smile in pleased expectation
whenever the Mississippi senator
arises.
OF course, Senator Lodge might
have made safe escape from Senator
Harrison's making a Democratic issue
of publicity for the coming conference
by saying he could not tell yet just
what degree of openness it would be
possible to achieve. He could under
take to guarantee that it would be
more open than Mr.. Wilson's Paris
conference.
Lodge Takes it Seriously.
But Senator Lodge is not the kind
of man who makes that kind of ans.
wer If he were, Senator Harrison
wouldn't seek so many occasions to
have fun with him. Senator Lodge
made an elaborate and serious reply,
and to a large extent a good reply.
He said, in the first place, that the
method of procedure is for the confer
ence itself to determine after it as
sembles, and that it isn't courteous for
the United States senate to try to
forestall it.
In the second place, he said that a
senate appropriation bill, providing
for the expenses of the conference.
ought to be unconditional and that
Senator Harrison's amendment call
ing for secrecy was bad form or worse.
Finally, Senator Lodge made a re-
ply that was specious. II was the sort
of argument that Senator Harrison il
his slangy way might effectively have
called "old stuff" 1t was the familiar
debating revice of stating, as your op-
ponents case, what really is not your
opponents case at all, and then tri-
umphing over the man of straw.
Uses Plausible Argument.
Senator Lodge said: ITO say that
the conference shall never meet in
committee; that they shall never hole
Conversations that one man or one
delegation shall rot talk with another
man or another delegation; to say that
some agreement cannot be reached
without being printed verbatim in the
newspapers, is. of course, 10 propose
system which everybody knows is
impracticable."
Now, Senator Harrison is not saying
that the delegates TO the disarmament
conference shall not meet in commit
tee He is not saying that they shall
never hold conversations" He is not
saying that "one man shall not tall
with another man" He is not saying
any OF the things Senator Lodge says
he is saying.
Senator Harrison is not saying these
things and nobody else is saying these
things. Nobody is demanding that til,
disarmament conference shall be an,
more open, for example, than the Unit
ed States senate.
And in tho United States senate al
tho things that Senator Lodge pic
lures as necessary are done ever
day. They are properly done and i'll
evitably done.
Might Adopt Senate Practice.
II the disarmament conferenc,
should decide to have its session "a
open as those of the United State
senate. they should adopt the senat
procedure as their procedure. Their
that would satisfy, and more than sat
isfy, everybody who is arguing 70
publicity, and still the conferenc
would have, as the senate has, execu
tive meetings which are secret; con
mittee meetings which are secret
caucuses of half or more of the bod,
which are secret, and agreements bt
tween the two parties which ar
secret; all these things happen i
the United States senate.
They happen in every other bod
where men come together. They ar
proper and desirable. If any one d;
nies that they are proper and desi
able he must at least admit they ar
unpreyentable.
Some Exrene Demands Made.
There are some who demand thl
q the sessions of the disarmament col
ference shall be as open as the Sc
sions of the United States senate
There are few who demand tha
Continued on Page Nine)