Evening star., 1923-03-11

would have to take his political life
in his hands. And he would have to
get substantial results to pay him.
To draw La Toilette in the cabal it
would have to be practical. No
democratic promise Of support for
legislation will fool La Toilette. He
is an old stager. He knows that it is
committees that count, and he knows
that mere chairYnanships are sound
ing brass. La Toilette would never
tie up with any crowd that could not
force the control of certain big COM
mittees out of the hands of the con-
servatives and into the hands of the
dependable liberals-commonly called
the Senate radicals.
Being a Mississippi valley rebellion.
probably the first committee that
would fall to the lot Of the rebels, If
they joined with the democrats, would
be the committee on transportation
SO they would dominate the thought
of the Senate on railroad legislation.
After that the rebels would demand
finance, SO they could frame up a tax
bill that would meet the views of
their farmers who wanted to see the
railroad wreck. And third, the revo-
luton would take the judiciary COM
mittee. which would force out
number of radical amendments to
the Constitution that are sleeping in
the judiciary committee.
* X * *
They don't want much-these insur-
gents! All they ask is the control
of the railroads. the taxes and the
Constitution of the country.
To get the control they need only
six senators, and they have five
five just elected upon revolutionary
platforms - La Toilette, Shipstead
Brookhart. Frazier and Norris One
more and they are ready to 60
Surely from Ladd, Capper, Borah,
Howell, Couzens, Mccormick, Nor
beck, Lenroot and Nicholson they can
get one more senator: And when
they get him the United States SEN
ate will be under the control in it's
important committees, not of the re-
publicans, not Of the democrats, but
of the liberals of the middle west.
But what of Senator Hiram John
son? Surely in any progressive
movement he must be considered. A
strange thing has happened. Hiram
Johnson has become identified, not
with the economic liberals of the mid
die west, but with the isolationists,
who are more conservative than lib
eral. Senator Johnson in any re-
organization of the Senate would
stress the committee on foreign rela-
tions. Brookhart, Shipstead, Norris,
La Toilette, Lad6 and Frazier con-
slider foreign affairs secondary to
home affairs. They are interested
in railroad rates, heavy inheritance
and income taxes and a lot of consti-
tutional amendments more than they
are interested in the league of ma
tions, and they are SO deeply inter-
ested in home affairs that they will
not let foreign affairs divide their
group. They are last-ditchers, for
lorn-hopers and mullocksi And If
the democrats Will have traffic with
these six single-mind senators they
will check up to the Senate for
record vote such~a lot of advanced
legislation as will make the con-
servatives gasp.
If the democrats care to vote for it
to tempt presidential vote, well and
good. If the democrats do not care
to vote for it. the six senators of the
suicide club, will go out into the
states OF other senator's, chiefly of
their beloved republican colleagues in
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