The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1922-02-02
WESTWARD THE STAR"

Ten years more and the seats OF
power in the Senate and in the Re-
publican Party will have passed from
the old East to the newer West. An
other decade and the men from the
Mississippi Basin and the slopes of
the Cordilleras will hold the Senate
in the hollow Of their hands and will
be the elder statesmen Of the new Re-
publican councils. New England and
the Middle Atlantic will bow to a new
brand, breed and trend of leadership.
It has been coming long time. The
signs of the change are now written
large.
There is. for example, farm bloc
in the present Congress, an all-West-
ern group that has bent, hammered
and twisted several of the pet poll
cies Of the Harding Administration.
Western Republicans have grown
weary and uneasy under Eastern, lead
ership. They are preparing to as
sert themselves. 1t is an open secret
that the farm bloc hopes to ride
the Republican councils Of 1924 with
spurs foot long. Senator Kenyon
and others are now being tested for
their powers and qualifications as
chieftain.
The National Farm Conference to
deal with agricultural depression will
emphasize the trend. Western inter-
ests refuse to be denied. The beef and
pork, wheat and corn Of the plains
and the corn belt are talking back to
the banks, and the steel and the tex
tiles of the East.
The political center Of gravity is
changing, and following the westerly
drift of populations center. In 1916,
in Kansas and California, it exercised
the balance of national power. I'm
less the signs fail, it will be across
the Mississippi in 1880.
The death of Senator Penrose has
tens an inevitable trend. With him
departs from Pennsylvania and the
East the headship of the powerful
Senate Committee on Finance, 1t
passes to McCumber, of North Dako-
ia, also second from the top on it's
Foreign Relations Committee, with
Senator Borah, Of Idaho, now just
two places below Lodge of Massachu-
sets. The overlordship on tariff and
revenue moves from Pennsylvania,
old, staid and conservative, to the
windy plains of North Dakota, where
flourishes the Nonpartisan League Of
Townleyites.
If seniority is maintained, Borah
and La Toilette may be leading great
committees soon. The conservatives
in the East is about to bow to the
more radical West; the East is slip
ping out of the saddle as the West
gets foot in the stirrup.
No sudden break with the past is
likely. Under McCumber the tariff
will move along much as it did under
Penrose. The North Dakotan may
think oftener of wheat, hogs, corn
and beef than of steel and textiles,
but he is nobody's radical, although
accused of social affiliation with
Townleyism.
There will be, however, a struggle
for party control and national power.
The Republican Party has drifted in
to the thin edge of this crisis. Since
the Civil War the East has colored
party policies and given orders. The
West expects to take over the job.
; A challenge has come to the strong
towers of Republicanism and the old
seats of strength. If Western Re-
publicans gain control they can keep
it only as the East has kept it, by
virtue of leadership.
There is no cause for alarm in the
Western domination. Things will 60
along. There is less radicalism in
the West than the East likes to be-
lieve. The West will demand Ger
tain matters, but in general the diff
ferences that do exist are more in
methods and in language than of
aims. The McCumber, Kenyons, Nor
rises and Borahs may dream some
what of social evolution but not of
political Observation-Disclosures, Pa.
Public-Ledger.