Evening star., 1925-07-22
WESTERN OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM EILE

Westerners are gratifed that so
many members OF the cabinet have
followed Horace Greeley's advice and
this Summer. Secretaries Kellogg,
Hoover. Work and Jardine have all
taken occa sion 20 see and hear things
for themselves in a variety of direc
tions. There is general expectation
that concrete good will result from
the Investigations they have made.
That is particularly SO in the case Of
the Secretary of Agriculture. DIR.
Jardine has concluded the most ex-
tensive swing around the rural circle
that any occupant of his Office has at
tempted in a long time. If agricul-
tural policy at Washington hence
forward is not modelled on what the
Western farmer needs and wants, it
will not be because Secretary Jardine
didn't hear about il. Everywhere
he's been selling the Coolidge program
of seif-help as the farmers surest road
to economic salvation. This observer
ran across the Jardine trail in Mon
tana. Minnesota and North Dakota
ated the impression of being the right
man In the right place.
X
Although Porter J. McCumber now
floats serenely in the lame duck pond.
there is still a so-calied McCumber
1action in North Dakota Republican
politics. 1t is represented by an or
ganization popularity known as the
Il. V. A." which means Independent
Voters Association. Some North
Dakotans think the former Senator
cherishes an ambition to re-establish
himself and might. under conceivable
circumstances. attempt to secure the
Republican nomination for the United
States senatorship in 1926. AS it was
the Non-Partisan League which rele-
gated him to private life, McCumber
would no doubt look upon it as poetic
justice if he could capture the seat
vacated by the passing of Senator
Ladd.
1t is within the range of possibili-
ties that Senator Lynn j. F'razier's s
next colleague may be one of the Non
Partisan officials whom North Dakota
disciplined when it recalled Frazier
from the governorship two or three
wears ago. Two active candidates for
the Ladd seat are William Lemke,
who was attorney general, and John
NJ. Hagen, who was insurance COM
missioner dnder the Frazier admins
tration. All three were removed under
the recall law at the same time. A
rough gh-and-tumble fighting lawyer,
with only one eye, Lemke is one of
Senator FraZier's principal political
lieutenants. His NonPartisan League
stalwartism is not tempered with any
heretical conservatism. If he should
be appointed to fill Ladd's unexpired
term, or elected to the Senate in 1926,
l. -
resented by brace of radical regu-
lars.
II Gov. Nellie Ross of Wyoming has
her way, succeeding conferences Of
governors will take place out where
the West begins. She has the cordial
support of her male colleagues on
both sides of the Continental Divide
in urging their region as a suitable
conference locale. Hitherto Western
attendance at the gubernatorial con-
claves, especially from the mountain
and coast country, has not been par
ticuiarly large. Western interests
have had correspondingly inadequate
attention. If the rulers of the States,
or a considerable number of them,
could be brought to some point beyond
the Mississippi for their anual pow
WOW, the shrinking violets called
Minnesota, Montana, the Dakotas.
Wyoming. Oregon, Washington and
California think they would flourish
to better advantage in the national
flower garden.
X X X
One of the most picturesque new
figures in Western politics is Gov.
John Z. Erickson of Montana. Like
Christia nson of Minnesota, and Sorlie
of North Dakota, Erickson Is a Morse
man, though a native-born American
of all-Western breeding, having been
born in Wisconsin, reared in Kansas
and recognizeA n Aontana. Tail and