Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-10-14
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By Carter Field H3
rAMous WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT 80

enemies on the court enlargement
plan out of the Democratic party and
into oblivion whether they were
Democrats or not-seems rather
stupid.
I Of course not even the President
could have foreseen that Mrs.
Roosevelt would take the ball when
he went into Wyoming, and produce
a situation which made the voters
of that state think Sen. Joseph c.
O'Mahoney was the fair-haired boy
at the White House, by that specta-
Gle before a Wyoming audience OF
Joe O'Mahoney introducing his col
league, Sen. Harry H. Schwartz, to
the First Lady.
But he could easily have calcu-
lated the effect it would have on
the voters of Idaho to have con-
ference with the old lion, Sen. Will
liam E. Borah, alone for more than
an hour!
Of all people, the President should
have realized at once that even the
bitterest anti-Borah man or woman
in the state would get at least the
suspicion that Borah was rather i'm
portant in the Roosevelt picture.
They would know, for instance, that
the international situation is caus-
ing gray hairs in Washington as we'll
as other world capitals, and that
Borah is one of the best informed
persons on the diplomatic situation,
and on Russia which some regard
as the key to the situation-in par
ticular. So they might suspect that
Roosevelt was asking Borah's adj
vice, Borah happening to be the
ranking Republican on the senate
foreign relations committee, of
which he was chairman until the
Democrats got control.
If such a picture should be dis
missed as too fantastic, something
else mighty weighty would have to
be substituted, to satisfy normal hui
man curiosity and desire for specu-
lation. For nothing was announced!
Even Borah, shrewdly as usual, re-
fused to say.
Its Real Importance
Now the Importance of this is not
the effect on the Republicans of
Idaho, nor even on the Democrats
as a whole, but on the fervent
Roosevelt admirers. Court fight or
no court fight, they could not help
getting the inference that Borah
had become one of the Presidents
close advisers. What else would
explain Mr.. Roosevelt's giving him
more than an hour of time so pre-
cious while visiting their far-fung
but thinly populated state!
It was rather definitely settled be-
fore the President started out that
he would not make direct attacks
on those who had opposed him,
those whom, in the popular par
lance, were to be purged from the
ranks of the faithful, and relegated
to political oblivion.
The idea, it was thought by New
Dealers, was that the President
would build up the probable politi-
cal opponents of his enemies. For
example, he would make a big fell
low of Schwartz in Wyoming, and
encourage the young Democrat who
is expected to run against O'Ma-
honey in the next Democratic pri-
mary.
In Idaho it was thought that no
attention, save possibly cold courte-
sy, would be shown Borah. Every
one has known for years that James
A. Farley was desperately anxious
to beat Borah in the next battle.
Way of the Irish
The Irish have way with them,
nationals of other countries are apt
to comment from time to time, for
one reason or another, but seldom
better illustrated than by the young
Boston Irishman who in part repre-
sents the sovereign state of Wyo-
ming in the United States senate.
Joseph c. O'Mahoney, it will be
recalled, was one of the group of
willful men who stopped President
Roosevelt's pet proposal to enlarge
the Supreme court dead in it's
tracks Only the opposition of Sen.
Burton K Wheeler reused more re-
sentiment in the inner White House
circle than that of O'Mahoney. And
for precisely an opposite reason.
The bitterness against Wheeler
was very human. Folks are apt to
dislike intensely someone they have
treated badly, and Roosevelt and
James A. Farley had treated
Wheeler very badly indeed. AL
though "For Roosevelt Before Chi
cago" booster, and therefore en-
titled to eat at the first table as
far as White House gratitude, pa
tronage, pork and recognition are
concerned, he had been treated like
a stepchild.
When somebody who has been
badly treated turns on his former
friend and hits hard, it is not in
the friends heart to blame him
self. That would not be human.
So he feels twice as resentful for
the worm turning as though it had
been anybody else.
Which, plus the fact that Wheeler,
being branded as a radical, spoiled