Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-12
Men and Affairs
BY WILLIAM HARD.

A woman and a man and a direct
primary law and other fancy, modern
! extra fresh election devices are today
giving this country just about the finest
ten or twenty act political melodrama
now on the national stage.
The woman Is Ruth Mccormick. The
man is Charles s. Deneen. Mr.. Deneen
Is United States Senator from Illinois
Mrs. Mccormick doesn't want him to
be. She wants to be United States
Senator from Illinois herself.
The people will make their first move
in the matter at an election in Illinois
in April of next year. They will make
their final move in 1t at an election in
November Of next year. You might
think, accordingly, that Mrs. McCor-
mick and Mr.. Deneen would now be
merely glaring at each other and hold
Ing their hands in their laps, waiting
YEARLY for the sounding of a distant
gong that would some day start the
fight.
That is because you perhaps do not
fully understand the high and beauti-
full BENEFITS which our American elec-
ton reformers have conferred upon us.
In backward Britain the prime minis
ter suddenly says. II shall appeal to
the country: Wen have general
thirty days Us all over, including the
preliminary ballyhooing and the post
mortem shouting.
In this country. where we are so
busy and time Is so valuable. all is
different. Every American. 1t would
seem, who couldn't get the United
States Patent once to let him claim to
have invented a perpetual motion ma
chine, started in about thirty years ago
to devise direct primary laws and other
election laws Of type which would
make politics perpetual. The move
ment has been a dazzling success.
Either Charles s. Deneen or Ruth Nc
Cor1nick or Democrat will be elected
United States Senator from Illinois in
November Of next year; and Charley"
and "Ruthie" are battling each other
through their allies and agents all over
Illinois at full speed right this minute
and have been doing so for the past
two months.
All the machinery Of come on letters
and pledge cards is in tumultuous and
stupendous operation. Thousands upon
thousands of county committeeman and
committeeWomen and precinct COM
mitteemen and committeewomen are
being addressed by mail and addressed
in person. Representatives Of the
candidates are threading the State to
sew together competitive patchwork
quilts which will cutely combine an
aspiration to the United States Senate
with aspirations to being county COM
missioner, probate Judge, drainage
board trustee, sheriff, governor, States
attorney State senator Gfafa'c
attorney general, justice Of the peace.
mayor and each and every other sort
of elective Office that the people of
Illinois in their majesty and ambition
insist upon directly electing and also
upon directly nominating.
All these candidates., amounting for
the whole State of Illinois to numerous
thousands. must be encountered, sifted,
harmonized, aligned, arrayed, thrown
into camps, supported attacked, coun-
ter-attacked, organized, disciplined and
led to the fray in two vast final battle
lines.
The primary election comes in April
of next year. There is no time to be
lost. The people and the reformers
wanted all candidates for the United
States Senate to stop being covered up
in conventions and State legislatures
and appeal openly TO the voters at the
polls. Done! Mr.. Deneen and Mrs.
Mccormick by the time next April rolls
around will have been appealing to the
people against each other for ten
in April will appeal to the people
against Democrat for six months
more.
Mrs. Mccormick Is undoubtedly the
only woman in the country with the
political capacity and sagacity and en-
durance for such fight. She Is the
only woman in the country with the
skill and the nerve to make q State
wide political organization" of her
own. She has lived down a great deal
OF the prejudice against her sex, the
prejudice against her wealth and preju-
dice against her family. Daughter Of
the money baron" Mark Hanna, she
Is the special friend, and so recognized,
Of the aggrieved farmers and the dis
treSSed coal miners. She could make
a campaign simply on good causes"
but under the Illinois political election
system she must do much more. She
must spend day after day, night after
night. month after month. making that
organization"
Mr.. Deneen. meanwhile, must behave
precisely similarly. He is helping In
the United States Senate to frame the
tariff bill, but nobody need expect him
to do any great Respondent feats as a
tariff statesman. It will be impossible
for him. He cannot give himself to the
full task Of serving the people. He has
to give himself to the life and death
task Of saving his political skin by "or-
ganizing" the people Of Illinois for the
next primary and the next election.
Mrs. Mccormick and Mr.. Deneen are,
both of them, equipped with first-rate
brains. They are both Of them giving
those brains today to q second-rate
political task which is thrust upon
them unavoidably by a complicated and
cumbersome election system once
thought-and still called-"reform."
(Copyright, 1929