The Winslow mail., 1923-10-26

Gus one, and one to which consider
able honor attaches. but the Iowa SEN
ator is chairman of a powerful COM
| mittee, and it is said he does not care
! for presiding hOnOrs, if they are TO
Interfere with his duties as commit
tee chairman. He may not take the
high chair in the senate if by the
transfer he has to lose the head chair
| at the committee table.
The presiding officer of the senate,
whether he is the vice president or
merely a president pro TEN, does not
have much to do but sit and look
fairly wise. Occasionally he gets tired
Of sitting and wanders out, but for
most of the time he is compelled TO
| stick in his place and listen to dreary
debates or to repeat time after time
as bills reach a certain stage the
word calendar" or else to confine his
vocal exercises to giving verbal ex-
preston to the fact that the SEN
ator from New York or some other
state has been recognized. Neverthe-
less the office of president pro tenn OF
the senate is not to be despised. II
has been held by several men who be-
came great in the country's history.
Frye in Chair Many Years.
Senator William 2. Frye of Maine
was presiding officer of the senare
for a great many years. He managed
to perform the duties Of head officer
and at the same time carry on the
work attached to the office of chair
man of the great senate committee
on commerce. Senator Frye was an
indefatigable worker, and he was not
in his latter years a strong man phys
ically. He died at his home in Maine
II years ago, just after he had closed
his work at a senate session OF un'
usual interest and strenuous activity.
There is rather an interesting story
connected with the time of Senator
Frye's occupancy of the office of pres
ident pro TEN of the senate. He was
chosen to the place Immediately after
the election of Mckinley and Hobart,
in 1896. Mr.. Hobart became vice
president and Senator Frye used to
take his place in the chair on the
occasion of Mr.. Hobart'S absence.
They became strong personal friends
Vice President Hobart died in office
and then Senator Frye became the
actual presiding officer of the senate.
His friendship with Vice President
Hobart had brought the families of
the two men into social relations. A
daughter of Senator Frye, president
pro tenn of the senate, married a son
of Garret A. Hobart, vice president of
the United States and presiding officer
of the senate.
There are several Hobart-Frye
grandchildren who can claim the hon
or of being descendants of two men
who at the same time were presiding
officers of the United States.
Plenty of Candidates.
If Senator Cummins shall decline
the honor of preferment for the posi-
tion of president pro tenn of the SEN
ate, there will be no difficulty in Sc
lecting a man for the place because of
lack of candidates. Of course, the
next presiding officer will be a Re-
publican, because the Republicans
have control of the senate. The only
senators who will not aspire to the
honor are those whose committees
are important enough to lead them to
believe that their work as committee
chairmen is of greater Importance
than the work of presiding over the
senate, which in effect is not much
work, but largely place of honor.
Presiding officers of the senate fire.
quently, to put it slangily, are bored
stiff. They are compelled by sheer
sense of duty to listen to all the
speeches which senators seem desir-
Gus to deliver. They are many times
in the United States senate when the
only listeners to some senator's ad-
dress are the presiding officer, the
leader of each political party in the
senate, and a handful of persons in
the gallery.