The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-01-10
WALL ST.FEARS
M'CUMBER AS
FINANCE CHIEF

Especial to The Argus.)

Especial to The Argus.)
Washington. Jan. 10.-A farmer
boy from the northwest.
A man whose personal financial
interests lie wholly in farm invest
ments.
A United States senator whose
constituents are 80 per cent farm
ers with interests exclusively agr1-
cultural.
Such is Porter j. McCumber of
North Dakota, who yesterday WIS
elected chairman of the senate
finance committee to succeed the
late Senator Boies Penrose.
Wherefore there is a great TODD
in eastern banking. business and
political circles. The horrible pos
sibility OF a government dominated
by friends of the farmer is discuss
ed 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, ford
and wind-beaten of face with sparse
tawny hair and a high-pitched nasal
drawl suggestive of his Scotch
forebears.
A man who, despite his % years
in the senate, still bears the car
marks of the country school teach
ef and small town lawyer.
Careful above the average in his
dress. slow and deliberate IN
speech, verbose in debate.
Born ga years ago near Crete, I'LL,
he moved as child with his par
ents to a homestead near Roches-
ter high school. Then he taught
school winters, working on the
farm during vacations, until he had
money enough to enter the Uni
versity of Michigan
Starts Law Practice.
Out of college, he set up in the
practice of law at Rochester, but
the Red River Valley country was
just opening up and he saw pros
poets of better opportunities there.
So he hung out his single first at
Lisbon, N. D., but soon transferred
it to Wahpeton.
In 1885 he became a member of
the territorial house of representa-
tiyes, then states attorney. In 1899
he won election to the United
States senate and has served coz
tinuously since.
McCumber scored his first kill
ing as a senator by getting through
the pure food and drugs act.
AS a new senator, he was shelly
ed on the inconspicuous commit
tee on manufactures. The food and
drug bill was referred to this COM
mnittee 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 moth
1 ing to do but pass it.
McCumber also scored with the
first prohibition legislation to pass
the federal congress. He introduced
the bill prohibiting the sale of Ii
quoT in the capitol and on govern
ment reservations. In passing that.
congress took its first real step
toward national prohibition.
McCumber has one dissipation
fishing. Saturday afternoons he will
HE to southern Maryland. There
he fishes as long as he can see &c
haul them in.
Next to fishing, motoring is his
favorite recreation-and he always
is his own chauffeur,
He doesn't like poker plays an
Indifferent hand at bridge and
thinks of golf as cow-pasture pool.
Just why there should be alarm
among high-protectionists at Ne:
Cumber's elevation may not be
plain. For he is an open and avow-
ed protectionist.
But McCumber wants protection
afforded equally to agriculture and
industry. Captains of industry who
have sought protection for their |
products have opposed tariffs on
farm products because they desired
low foodstuffs for their workers So
wages could be kept low.
1.-THE American market" says Nc |
Cumber, belongs OF right to the |
American farmer, TO the exclusion |
OF every other farmer on earth, pn- i
til farming. taken one year with !
another, is made just as profitable, |
measured by the labor expended, as |
any other great industry of the |
country"
There is the foundation stone !
upon which his leadership of the |
finance committee will rest
Prosperous farmers, he contends,
are just as essential as prosper
Gus steel barons or motor mag
mates.
Favors Soldier Bonus.
The fight for a soldiers bonus
takes on renewed interest because
of McCumber's elevation.
In the last session he was the
leading advocate of substantial aid
through a bonus to veterans of the
World war.
AS chairman of the finance COM
mittee McCumber will be able to
urge with greater power his pro-
posals for soldier relief and for the
financial arrangements to provide
the funds.