Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-10
PRIMARY IN NEBRASKA
THIS WEEKS HICHLICHT
Nomination of Senator George W. Norris
Will Determine His COntinu-
ance in Senate.

The obligation put upon a Senator by
receiving a nomination from a party
may be comparatively slight.
But Norris is indebted to the Repub-
| lican party for much more. Only
through claiming membership in the
Republican party Is Norris enabled to
be chairman CT the Judiciary Committee
| of the Senate, and it is possession OF
that quite important post that gives
| Norris a considerable amount of t.. :
! power he enjoys in the Senate and in
| the country. If Norris should declare
| himself an independent, if he should
| take himself out of the Republican
| party in name, as he has in fact. he
would automatically lose his chairman
ship and descend to the lowest and
most negligible ranks of the committees
upon which he is. If he should declare
himself Democrat, he would similarly,
so long as the Republicans are in power,
lose his Craftsmanship.
Norris in a Class Apart.
Norris is in a class apart from the
remainder of the IL or IS so-called
insurgent Republicans, or as they pre-
fer TO call themselves, Progressive Re-
publicans, of the Middle West. None
of the others has ever gone so far from
the Republican party as to support the
Democratic nominee for the presidency.
One wonders about this group alto
gether. One wonders about the terri
tory that supports them. Just what Is
the motive of section of the Nation
that habitually sends to the Senate
something more than a dozen men who
cling tenaciously to the party designa-
ton Republican" but act habitually
with the Democrats in the Senate?
What philosopher of that territory can
tell us the reason? What prophet in
that section can tell us how long this
curious situation will continue?
William Allen White of the Emporia
(Kans.) Gazette (who is supporting
Senator Norris) says: Senator Norris
is an irregular Republican from terri
tory which would rather be Republican
than not" But Mr.. White would add
an interesting chapter to our cotem-
porary political philosophy If he would
tell us just why it is that the Missouri
Valley and the Upper Mississippi Valley
cling so tenaciouSly to Republicanism
as a designation. Just why is it this
territory Shrinks from sending to the
Senate men who designate themselves
formally as Democrats? Is it some
curious memory of the Civil War sur
viving after nearly 20 years?
Senator Norris, looked upon in aspects
other than his willingness to act with
the party to which he nominally be-
longs, looked u as an independent
is highly esteemed. Norris independ-
ence is temperamental rather than in
tellectual, and the admiration he gets
comes, one feels, from persons who
envy and admire the spectacle of a man
who does the thing he feels like doing
at the moment he feels like doing it
and gets away with it. Norris is a
highly temperamental person, and the
manifestations of his temperament as
rule are of sort to attract sympathy
and liking
A few years ago Norris, acting wholly
ION his own" acting as a solitary in
dividual, undertook to reform the
politics of Pennsylvania. When Ware
OF Philadelphia was running for Sena-
tor in Pennsylvania, Norris, at his own
expense. upon his own initiative, appar-
emily consulting nobody, went into
Pennsylvania and acting as a lone
evangelist delivered a series of speeches
against Ware. Norris effort was i'm
practical, useless; but one liked him
for it. What moved him, some one
said at the time, was the recollection
of brother who had died in Pennsyl-
vania during the Civil War, at the
Battle Of Gettysburg.
Norris temperament makes him not
only independent but sometimes, I'M
fortunately, "touchy" toward others. For
months at a time while the late Senator
La Toilette of Wisconsin was alive he
and Norris did not speak. La Toilette
would take pains to avoid meeting
Norris in a Senate corridor. What
curious divergence of conviction could
have made them antipathetic nobody
knew. In their political philosophy, IL
Norris can be said to have a political
philosophy, they were much alike.
Similarly, those who observe the Senate
closely notice that Norris occasionally
shows a distaste for Borah almost more
definite than his distaste for such
standpatter as Smoot. Norris is case
of some intellectual independence-and
of an immense temperamental soli-
fairness.
Norris Sense Of HumOr.
Norris temperament endows him,
when he is feeling well, with humor
As he grows older-he was SO last
month-his humor takes more and
more the form of biting satire. But
as recently as within a year or two he
was feeling well enough to make as
heard on the floor of the Senate. Dur
ing the discussion of q depression IN
the textile business he observed that
"the young woman of today wears as
little on the street as her grandmother
went to bed in"
Norris political philosophy, SO far as
he has a consistent one. looks toward
State socialism. His most conspicuous
advocacy recently has been for Govern
ment and municipal ownership OF pup
lie utilities, especially electric utilities
One feels, however, that with MOTIFS IL
is less a case of believing in the prac-
ticability of Government ownership or
of believing in State socialism as a
philosophy than a case of strong feel
ing against wealth and power, Wher-
ever wealth and power happen to be
concentrated. All that Norris says
against what he calls the power trust
is true enough. Most of his long
speeches against it are crowded with
citations of the evidences OF the chi
canery of some of the managers OF the
electrical industry, evidence that has
been unearthed in numerous tnvestiga-
lions. If Norris speeches, his steady
crusading against the electrical indus
try, do any damage to the heads OF
that industry they have only them
selves TO blame.
Norris temperamental bent was IL
Illustrated by the part he took in the
fight against the confirmation of
Charles e. Hughes to be Chief Justice.
That incident as a whole-the part
that some 20 Senators took in twas
perhaps the least pleasant of several
recent episodes in which the Senate, to
put it mildly, has been not at It's pest.
Senator Norris contribution to the
attempt to prevent Mr.. Hughes con-
frmation was characteristic. 1t re-
yealed his temperamental slant.
II do not believe" said Norris, "a
man is fit to go on the Supreme bench