Evening star., 1925-07-05


car was turned over to John /. Haas,
owner of the car.
thinks, after all. are secondary mat
ters. It's the big idea that counts
just now, in his estimation. The
skilled parliamentarians of the Senate
can wrestle with the verbiage of the
business when that bridge has to be
crossed. Meantime Dawes doesn't
want the forest lost to sight in a con-
fusing jungle of controversial trees.
Relies on Popular Pressure.
The Vice President is relying upon
the irrestible popular pressure TO
which he believes Senators will even
tually be subjected. That's the whole
carry the cause straight to the people
from the hustings. He is srelying,
too, on the completely non-partisan
character of his crusade. He claims
for it, in a phrase of Woodrow
Wilson's, the moral advantage of dis
interestedness.' Dawes is less. con-
cerned, at the present stage of hos
tilities, with what individual Senators
may say, do or think than he is with
the sale" of his program TO the
country at large. It's in the barber
shops and on the sidewalks of the
land that Gen. Dawes desires the
Senate rules freely and fully dis
cussed. The Tennessee evolution
whirlwind started in a corner drug
store. That's precisely the sort of
forum that the Vice President wants
wherever the plain citizens of the
republic foregather to debate the fate
and state of the Union. He seems
sublimely hopeful that from such a
great and solemn referendum there
will sooner or later be an earthquake
of public sentiment that will rock the
Senate out of its reluctance TO facili-
tate constitutional government.
Gen. Dawes had just returned from
New Hampshire when this writer
came to Chicago. The Vice President
was in jubilant mood over the way in
which Senator George II. Moses con-
stituents received the recital of sena-
torial iniquity. Moses, as President
pro tempore of the Senate and a pow
erful member of the rules committee,
has informally assumed the leadership
of the anti-Dawes forces. But the audi
ence that listened TO the Vice Presi-
dent at Manchester on June % left
little doubt in his mind that New
Hampshire is with Dawes, rather
than with Moses, on the burning is
sue. The Senator's neighbors observed
with particular attention the knock
out blow that Dawes handed to one
of Senator Moses favorite arguments:
namely, that non-limitation of debate
in the Senate prevents multiplicity of
laws. When Dawes reeled off figures
showing that f1libustering, far from
preventing excess legislation, seems
to promote it. the New Hampshire
folks sat up and took notice.
Senate Passed More Bills.
The Vice President intends making
increasingly heavy play with these
figures - that in the last five Con-
crosses the Senate, in which alone
filibustering still fingers. put through
more bills and resolutions than the
House. The totals were: Senate,
3,l13; House, 1881. The Senate pass
ed these 3,113 bills and resolutions out
of a total of 1882 introduced. while
the House passed it's smaller number
of 2.931 out of a total OF S2,632. In
other words. the Senate, without eff
fective cloture, passed in proportion
| Q0h per cent? three times as many
| measures as the House with cloture
passed (312 per cent?. Yet, as Dawes
| literally hammered home in New
Hampshire, there are only 90 Sepa-
tors to 435 members of the House
pose effectually of his opposition 3
plea that in ''holdup" parliamentary
| methods lies the country's only bull
| wark against a deluge of unnecessary
laws. These figures, and the CO.
related fact that a minority-some-
times Of only one Senator-can levy
tribute, in the shape Of personally
desired legislation, upon the majority
are going to be the biggest guns in
the artillery the Vice President is 60
ing to train on the Senate trenches
during the next Is months, and till
further notice. Those arguments
and the further fact that single Sen.
ator can on occasion WELD a greater
power over legislation than the Presi-
dent Of the United States, Dawes
counts upon to swing the people in
his direction. He will tell of West
ern Senator, sometimes called the best
legal mind in Congress. who for years
has held up, in committee. codification
of the laws of the United States, for
which the whole bench and bar
clamors.
South Antagonistic.
Southern Democratic Senators are
looked upon as a solid antiDawes
phalanx on the rules proposition
Their antagonism rests on the sacred
and successful filibuster against the
Force Dill IN the preceding century,
In latter day times it's the Dyer anti
lynching bill and the Tinkham re-
apportionment bill that the South has
wanted to kill by filibuster.
At Manchester the Vice President
asked: why do not these Senators
propose some modification of the rules
which, while providing majority clo-
ture on all questions affecting ordi-
nary legislation, will permit unlimited
debate upon those few occasions when
legislation involving alleged encroach-
ments upon the constitutional rights
of the States is under considerations"
The foremost Democratic editor of the
South. Clark Howell of the Atlanta
Constitution, who will be one of the
Vice Presidents hosts in Georgia in
the Autumn, declares that this puts it
up squarely to Southern Senators to
meet Dawes half way. Howell urges
them to modify their program accord
ingly and assure the country majority
government.
Wants Record Vote.
If the vice President can have his
way, the opening session of the Sixty
ninth Congress will see the rules fight
dragged boldly into the open on the
floor of the Senate. with the entire
population of the United States in the