Evening star., 1925-06-19
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE

1t would be difficult to think of any
body who could leave a greater void
in the public life of Washington than
Robert Marion La Toilette. For full
40 years his impress was upon ma
tional affairs. Congress first knew
him when he came to the House as a
young Hotspur of 80 in 1885. In the
succeeding six years he was factor
on the ways and means committee
and one of the trainers of the cele-
brated Mckinley bill. There was a
lapse of IA years between his service
in the House and his first election to
the United States Senate, where Wis
consin was destined to keep him unin-
terruptly for 90 years. History will
place him among the immortals of
American politics, though his supreme
ambition was doomed to Illustration.
x
La Follette'S passing removes the
keystone of the arch of Western radi-
calsm. OF that church he was the
pillar beyond all compare. There is
none to take his place. In political
skill. ripeness of experience, bulldog
courage and personal magnetism.
Fighting Bob" stood alone among his
cohorts. The elections of 1924 dealt
the radical organization. of which La
Toilette was the incarnation, all but a
knockout blow. He was the sole sur
vivor of the holocaust that purged the
Northwest country of ultra progress
sive politics and recaptured it for the
Republicanism against which La Fol
lette so long and so bitterly waged his
vendetta. Now that their Napoleon
has met the eternal Waterloo, it will
be a miracle if the radical old guard
pulls itself together to continue the
fight. Beaten and baff1ed. under its
noblest captain. there is probably none
in the whole bereaved host optimistic
enough to imagine that 1t can march
to new victories under other leader
ship.
X X
Is it more Coolidge luck" that takes
from the arena the field marshal of
Western radicaliSm at the very mo-
ment that the President, by common
consent. has established his political
supremacy in the great open spaces?
1t is at least a significant coincidence.
Within the same fortnight that marks
the disappearance of La Toilette, Cal
vim Coolidge swung across the region
that the departed leader in recent
times ruled with almost autocratic
power-Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Every assurance awaited the Presi-
dent that those ancient citadels of
Republican strength have at length
been weaned from their devotion to
the things La Toilette stood for.
There was always the danger that the
pendulum might turn again in his d.
rection before swinging definitely to
regular Republicanism. La Toilette,
often down, was never out. Now the
old warrior has stacked arms for
keeps. No longer the menace of his
indomitable personality is athwart the
Republican path. 1t. is as if the po-
litical stars had suddenly changed
their course.
v X
William Z. Borah comes nearer be-
ing La Folle:te's heir than anybody
else. Hiram Johnson might have as
pired to that distinction except for the
reputation he has suffered In his own
State and his personal unpopularity
among Progressive leaders. Burton
X. Wheeler has certain residuary
claims to La Follette's crown. Henrik
Shipstead. young, forceful, ambitious,
has the makings of leader. Smith
w. Brookhart might be possibility as
radicalism's commander-in-chief, but
he lacks political experience. George
w. Norris, IL he longed for general
ship. would be a logical candidate for