Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-02-26

Reduces Famed Battalion. -
Young Senator's Career
Always CoIorfuI.
BY ROBERT IT. SMALL.

The death of Senator Medill Nc
Cormick of Illinois marks a further
disintegration of the famous bat
talon of DEATH" which some six
years ago set out to kill the treaty
of Versailles and the League of Ma
lions while those instruments of the
peace were still in their formative
stages.
Within the year Washington has
seen the passing of three of the Ia
nous half dozen. Henry Cabot Lodge,
leader of the battalion by reason of
his position as chairman of the COM
mittee on foreign relations, died last
November. He had been preceded in
October by Senator Frank Brandegee
of Connecticut, who died by his own
hand. And now MediIl Mccormick, in
many ways the most gallant and re-
sourceful fighter of them all, has gone
suddenly to his last reward.
Three of Group Remain
There remain of the outstanding fig
ures in the battalion Borah of Idaho,
who has succeeded Lodge in charge
of foreign relations; Hiram johnson
of California, who has burst forth but
once recently, and Jim" Reed or
Missouri, the Democratic ally OF the
Republican super-isolationists. 1t is
a somewhat motley trio, but the work
of the battalion virtually is complete.
1t Is just a matter today of standing
pat"
Medin Mccormick was far more
interchangeable foe of the League OF
Nations than Cabot Lodge. He had
a far more, intimate first-hand knowl-
edge of Europe. He had always been
an inveterate traveller. Further, he
was a student of the modern Ian
guages and could talk to the peoples
of other countries in their own
tongues He was not at all depend
ent upon the polite English phrases
learned for the edification of visitors
and tourists. Mccormick was one OF
the Senator'S constantly building a
fire under Mr. Lodge. who sometimes
weakened in his resolve against the
treaty, or was reported to be weak
ening.
Was Lively Figure.
Medill Mccormick was one of the
liveliest figures in Washington life.
The Capital had not mourned deeply
his defeat for reelection to the SEN
ate, for it felt the young Chicagoan
was too wealthy, too resourceful, too
neryously energetic to remain long
out of public life, and it was also
known that he planned to spend a
good part of each year in Washington
Medill Mccormick was never dull,
never at loss for excitement of one
sort or another. Once when things
seemed ineffably dull here at the
Capital Medill turned up from some
far corner of the earth wearing a
beard as long as straggly and as fiery
red as any hirsute appendage ever
seen on Pennsylvania avenue. 1t gave
him such a benign expression the re-
port spread that he had been attend
ing the Passion Play at Oberammer-
gau. After shocking and surprising
his friends and being duly photo
graphed for posterity, Mr.. Mccormick
parted with the whiskers and they
were seen no more. After that his
toilet was the most immaculate in the
Senate, not excepting Cabot Lodge or
Tom Helm of Alabama
Always Surprising.
The Capital got another great
laugh when Mccormick arose one
day and solemnly charged that the
American State Department was
honeycombed with '1otophagi." That
was in the pre-cross-w word puzzle
days, but it sent all of official Wash
ington scurrying to the unabridged
dictionaries and the encyclopedias.
The searchers found that the Lotto
phagi were the exact antitheses of
Mccormick, who did anything but live
in dreamy Incidence
Mccormick was always surprising
always delightful. and, while respect
ed as a fighter, he was, none the less.
very universally beloved American
official life is the poorer for his go
ing. Few men of Al have left such an
impression on the Capital.