The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-12-10

THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS

THE MATTER WITH CONGRESS
That there is something seriously
the matter with congress appears to be
the general opinion. Of course, the
trouble Is not really so much with
congress as with congressman. They
seem somehow, and to be sure there
are worthy exceptions, to have lost
their ideals. There are two general
classes of congressman, to one or the
other of which the majority belong.
The first is perhaps the smaller group
who have sought election with the
fixed purpose of serving some special
or corporate interest which is in some
particular in conflict with the public
interest. 1t Is in this way that special
privilege becomes entrenched and in
visible government exerts its influ-
ence. By gaining strategic positions
on pivotal committees these members
discharge those private and secret OBJ
legations to which they are more loyal
than to the majority which elevated
them to office.
The other group is composed of
those whose intentions may be good,
but whose purpose Is vacillating with
every passing breeze of public favor
or disfavor. They are the politicians
with their ears to the ground, who
hope to be the first to detect the trend
of popular sentiment in order that
they may straighway leap into the
van and herald themselves as the
champions of the temporary object of
real or fancied public desire. They
say they are there to do the will Of
the people. To be sure they are, but
who can tell what is the will of the
people and what merely a passing
fancy? The statesmen only, and not
the mere politician, can tell that. The
statesman is he who accepts his cleo
ton as a commission charging him to
study government and to give the peo-
pie such laws, not as they may for the
moment fancy, but as will make for
the general public betterment. The
politician wants his reward at once in
terms Of continued favor, whereas the
statesman is content, if necessary, to
wait for his reward, confident that it
will come, even If only in the judgment
of history. Our congress has in it
too many politicians and too few
statesmen.
What, then, Is to be done about it?
Can the leopard change his spots? Or
can the politician become states
man? The leopard may have to re-
main as nature made him, but the pol
itician, we are afraid, is more often
than not the changeling. The more
natural one Of the two is the states
man, because he is true to his con-
science, to his ideals and to his intel
ligence-in a word, he is true to him
self. Whereas, on the other hand, it
is the politician who is not genuine,
and who continually seeks to alter his
pattern to suit the shifting taste of
the populace. The politician is the
leopard who keeps changing his spots,
and thus ferfeits whatever satisfaction
nature has ordained for that creature
that Is true to its own instincts and
nature. 1t is more than likely that
many a flourishing politician is but a
deliberately self-stunted edition of the
stalwart growth that might otherwise
have been his, if he had only allowed
himself to grow naturally.
There is only one thing that can
change our congress, and that is for
it's members to be honest with them
selves. If they will but do that, there
is no fear that they will not then also
be honest with the people. What
congress needs is a purging of the sin
of sham and pretense in order that
truth, intelligence and uprightness of
purpose may have their legitimate op-
portunity.