The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1922-01-11
Harry Hunt of Newspaper En-
terprise Says Wall Street
Fears Senior Senator of
North Dakota
FAvoRs SOLDIER BONUS
Leadership of Finance Commit.
tee Says Writer Bound to Aid
Farmers of Northwest in
Present Crisis
By HARRY HUNT.

/
Washington, Jan IA farmer
boy from the northwest
A man whose personal financial in
terests lie wholly i'll farm invest
ments.
a United States senator whose con-
stituents are. so per cent farmers with
interests exclusively agricultural.
Such is Porter ]. McCumber OF
North Dakota, who, by the death OF
Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsyl-
vania, moves into the chairnlanship
of the powerful Senate Finance Com
mittee.
Wherefore there is a great to-do in
eastern banking, business and pcliti-
cal circles. The horrible possibility
of a government dominated by friends
Of the farmer is discussed on every
side.
Just what sort Of individual, then.
is this man from the west who
causes such chills OF apprehension
along the spine of Wall street.
Earmarks OF West.
A tall. angular westerner, tlcrld and
wind-beaten of face with sparse
tawny hair and high pitched nasal
drawl suggestive of his Scotch fore
bears.
Born 64 years ago near Crete. ILL.,,
he moved as child with his parents
to a homestead near Rochester, Minn
He went to the country school and
later to the Rochester high school.
Then he taught school winters, work
ing on the farm during vacations, un-
til he had money enough to enter the
University OF Michigan.
Starts Law Practice.
Out Of college, he set up in the
practice OF law at Rochester, but the
LED river Valley country was just
opening up and he saw prospects OF
ue.ler opportunities there. SO, he
Jung out ms sningie hrst al, Lsbon,
N. D., but soon transferred II TO
uahpeton.
In 1885 he became member Of the
territorial house Of representatives,
then states attorney. In 1899 he won
e,ection to the United States Senate
ana has served continuously since.
McCumber scored his first killing
as senator by getting through the
pure food and drugs act.
AS a new senator, he was shelved
on the inconspicuous committee on
manufacturers. The fool and drug
till was referred to this committee
with the idea of shelving it, too.
McCumber took his committee work
and the bill seriously. He got SO
much general support for the bill
stirred up, that there was nothing
10 do but pass it.
McCumber also scored with the
first prohibition legislation to pass
,he federal Congress. He introduced
the bill prohibiting the sale OF liquor
in the capitol and on government
reservations. In passing that, Con.
gress took its first real step. toward
national prohibition.
McCumber has one dissipation
fishing. Saturday afternoons he will
HE to southern Maryland. There ne
fishes as long as he can see to maui
them in.
Next to fishing, motoring is his
fayorte recreation-and he always Is
his own chauffeur.
He doesn't like poker, plays an in
different hand at bridge and thinks
of golf as cow-pasture pool.
Why He's Feared.
Just why there should be alarm
among high-protectionists at McCum-
ber's elevation may not be plain. For
he is an open and avowed high-pro
rectionist
But McCumber wants protection
afforded equally to agriculture and
industry. Captains CT industry who
have sought protection for their
products have opposed tariffs en-
farm products because they desired
low foodstuffs for their workers so
wages could be kept low.
"The American market says Nc
Cumber, "belongs of right to the
American farmer, to the. exclusion OF
every other farmer on earth, until
farming, taken one year with an
other, is made just as profitable:
measured by the labor expended, as
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