Evening star., 1934-05-04
LEADING S|LVER|TE
WAS GOLD DIGGER.
Senator Pittman, However,
Met With Little Success
as Prospector.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
The tall, wiry individual who may
help determine the White House at
titude on current silver legislation
used to dig gold for living
Senator Key Pittman of Nevada
ace silverite, was one of the first to
take the Skagway trail to Dawson.
When he caught the whisper which
soon was to burst into a roar of new
frontiers, Lawyer Pittman traded his
library for a two-year pack of sup
plies and equipment and struck out
for the Klondike's valleys of gold.
But, the earth yielded little for
ProSpector Pittman. He turned
counselor for enraged Australian min
ers in Alaska who had been cheated
of their property, and he accumulated
sufficient stake to be in the vanguard
Of the rush to Nome.
Alaskan gold was as elusive as Ca
madam had been, but official skull
duggery equally as bad. Vigilantes
were formed to halt grating and
claim jumping. The famous consent
government" was set up, and Pittman
became its prosecuting attorney. He
earned more nuggets than he ever
extracted with sluice or pan.
In 1901 he tired of the "bite of
Yukon night" and longed for vaca-
ton far from "the gold and the
muck" He signed as common
sailor, the only way he could get pas
sage to the States on the infrequent
and crowded boats,
Follows Call of Silver.
Before packing again for "the
frozen land near the pole" he heard
of the gold and silver strike at Tono-
pah-the last of the great American
gold rushes. There he married and
settled down. Tonopah is his home
today. The fire of the gold proSpector
had burned out-but silver was some
thing else again. Pittman believed
the white metal ought to have a def
mite role in the Nations monetary
system
In 1912 he was elected to the United
States Senate, where steadfastly for
% years he has busted himself with
the study of silver and its relation
to the national economy.
He was President Roosevelt's choice
to handle the question on an interna-
tional scale at the London economic
and monetary conference. His work
there is regarded as significant. Where
as about everything else failed, Pittman
quietly and unobstrusively obtained
the signatures of seven nations to an
agreement to cease further debase-
ment OF silver coins, to check silver
sales and to support government pur-
chase for treasury use.
That, he says, is just about as far
as other nations are ready to go at
present in reviving silver. Mr.. Roose-
welt had been inclined to pass up
further silver legislation by Congress
pending future world agreements.
Such a position by one known as the
country's foremost authority on silver
has fired infationists to demand
mandatory legislation. The silverites,
perhaps, would be satisfied to equip
the President with additional dis
cretionary powers, since they hold
eventual reconciliation of silver the
key to prosperity.
Watches Both Schools.
Pittman has been watching both
schools of thought, but has withheld
pronouncement for the present. His
bills in the last session authorized the
President to peg the Government price
of silver, to make certain purchases
of the metal abroad, to accept definite
amounts of silver in war-debt pay
ments and to absorb additional silver
-. Af fcc1t
1t all was left to presidential initi-
ative, however, and only start had
been made along any Of the avenues
opened by Congress.
Pittman is chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, whose
"yes" or mo" prompts America when
she raises her voice in the family of
nations, and is president pro tenn OF
the Senate.
He gives the impression of one who
takes his burdens easily. He moves
with a smooth and certain step, his
figure taut as a trigger-spring. His
phrases and gestures snap like ma
chine gun fire. He is neither the
back-slapping nor the pouter-pigeon
type, which probably accounts for
man with a record of such solid ac-
complishments being strangely neg
lected by the press.
He resigned from the Naval Affairs
Committee after nine years Of men,
bership because he believed the United
States had surrendered too much in
the Disarmament Conference. He be-
1ieves in peaceful ways, but says it Is
too early to start carrying an empty
pistol holster. Public lands, home
steading. conservation and irrigation
have claimed his attention.
But Pittman's greatest service to
his party is reckoned in the number
of political speeches and platform
blanks which bear the earmarks of