Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1910 — GOSSIP OF OUR LAW-MAKERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOSSIP OF OUR LAW-MAKERS

By R EDWARD B. CLARK

f CHANGES which are certain to come in the membership of the United 'states Senate next March will involve much more than a mere disappearance of old faces and the appearance of new ones. It often has been said that the senate of the United States is a law Unto itself in matters of procedure, and so It is. The senate does things as no other legislative body in the world does them. The senators pride themselves upon the dignity of their body and they take no little pride apparently In the uniqueness of the rules which govern them and in the accepted method of doing things without absolute governing regulation.

Over in th® house members draw for seats. A tnan just elected is as likely to get a first-class Beat as a man who has been in the service of the house for years. The leader of the majority and the leader of the minority and the oldest member in point of service in the hall are allowed to select their own seats. After they have made their choice all is a lottery. In the senate the thing is different. A newly elected member of the upper house takes such a seat as he can find vacant, and his first duty to himself is to “file” on the seat of some other member so that he may get it when the other member dies or retires. At times there are five or six “filings" for the same seat. For instance, if some senator has a choice seat and he is aged and in the ordinary course of things may be expected to die soon, his seat is certain to be in request by several senators provided that those lower on the list of applicants think that those above them like the holder of the seat himself, are likely to die, or to be retired quickly from the service by their constituents. Some of the old senators do not like the way in which the younger members file for their seats. Then there - are some senators who are not old who do not like to feel that others think that their seats soon are to be vacated. When a senator in the prime of life finds that his seat has been “filed” on he takes it as an intimation that the senator who -does the filing thinks that the seat’s occupant is nearing the end of his tether because his state has disapproved of his services, or that the political party opposing the one of which he is a member is likely soon to become in the ascendant. Senator Dolliver, who died recently, had one of the best seats in the senate chamber, a commanding place from which he could always catch the eye of the presiding officer. The lowan’s successor in the senate will not get his predecessor’s seat, for notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Dolliver was apparently in good health and was only fifty-two years old, there were three applications on file for his seat when he should vacate it. Of course it must be understood that the seats of the Republicans and those of the Democrats are separated and that no man of one party ever files an application for the seat of a man of the other party. z ■<? Senator Beveridge of Indiana was in the upper house tor yean before he succeeded in getting a seat to his liking. Early in his service he had filed an application for the seat occupied by Senator Spooner of Wisconsin, a vigorous man with apparently a long lease of earthly and senatorial life ahead of him. Unexpectedly Senator Spooner resigned, and Beveridge moved to what is perhaps the best seat in the house, one on the middle aisle midway between the front and rear of the chamber. Bfiihu Root, who is accounted one of the fore-, moat men in the upper house in point of ability, is obliged to sit in what is known as tlje “Cherokee Strip.” There are so many Republicans in the present senate that they more than fill the seats allotted to the-majority on the left side of the center aisle. There are not enough Democrats to fill the seats allotted to them. 'The vacant Democratic seats are away around near the wall to the extreme right of the vice-president, |who has to turn his head to see the seats of the Occupants. In this “Cherokee Strip” sits the ’‘overflow” Republicans and one of them is Elihu Root. Before the new senate office building was completed it was the effort of the senate to provide a separate room in the Capitol for each senator All of these rooms were called committee

rooms, but in order to dignify them as such it was necessary to create several committees which really were nothing more than committees in name, for they seldom held meetings and it is said that in one or two cases no meetings ever have been held. The senators as they were assigned to rooms were made chairmen of the committees which were supposed to meet in the

assigned chambers. This gave the minority senators chairmanships, but it can be taken for granted that the majority always saw to it that the committees presided over by minority men were not of a kind to have any great influence on legislation. Now that the senate office building is occupied and each senator has a general office, a private office, a reception room and a bath, it is not necessary to provide separate rooms in the Capitol for all the upper house members. So it is that before long it may be that the farce of naming committees which never have anything to do may be done away with. Here is a list of some of the practically useless committees of the senate: “Transportation and sale of meat products;” “Revolutionary claims;” “Transportation rates to the seaboard;” “Investigate trespass upon Indian lands;’’ and last, “Disposition of useless papers in the executive departments.” There are to be many changes in committee chairmanships in March next and in fact there will have to be a general shaking up in the committee memberships as a result of changes in the senate’s roll call. Senator Dolliver who died was the chairman of the committee on agriculture and forestry, one of * the most important subsidiary bodies of the United States senate. Senator Frances E. Warren of Wyoming is the ranking member of the committee now that Senator Dolliver is dead, but Warren is the chairman of the committee on military affairs, a position which he would prefer to hold to that of the chairmanship of the agricultural body. No member holds two important chairs and so some one besides Senator Warren must be selected to take Mr. Dolliver’s place at the head of the committee which looks after the bills in which the farmers of the country and the forest enthusiasts are particularly interested. Eugene Hale of Maine will retire in March. He is at the head of the committee on appropriations, a position which next to the chieftainship of the committee on finance is the most important chairmanship in the gift of the senate. Nobody knows yet who will succeed Mr. Hale as committee chief, but it can be taken for granted that if the Republicans hold control of the senate and the eo-called regulars hold control of the Republicans, Mr. Hale will be succeeded by a man of what in these days the country is given to call the old school of Republican thought. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, the Republican leader in the senate, is the chairman of the committee on finance, which corresponds to the committee on ways and means of the house of representatives. It was the committee on finance which considered the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill and which reported it to the senate. Every bill which has to do with the raising of revenue goes to Mr. Aldrich’s committee. Under the constitution all such revenue measures must originate in the house of representatives, but frequently the United States senate takes house bills and strikes out everything in them except the enacting clause, thus gets around the constitutional question, and frames revenue bills much as it wishes to. Of course these bills have to go back to the house for agreement, but the senate despite constitutional inhibition does just about as much original work in revenue measures as the house Itself. Who is going to succeed Nelson W. Aldrich as chairman of the most powerful committee in the senate of the United States? Nobody knows. Senator Julius C. Burrows of Michigan ranks next to Mr. Aldrich on the finance committee and in the natural order of things he would succeed

to Mr. Aldrich’s place as finance chairman. The difficulty is that Mr. Burrows has been defeated in the primaries for re-election to the senate and like Mr. Aldrich he is to retire in March. Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania comes next on this all powerful body, but it is more than whispered that chairmanship preferment is not to be „given to Mr. Penrose. Next in order comes Eugene Hale of Maine, who is to retire in March, and thus is Out of consideration. Then comes Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois, who will not accept the chairmanship under any circumstances, for his age precludes his undertaking the

hard work connected with it. No one knows yet who will succeed the powerful Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island as the chief of the finance committee, a position which carries with it ordinarily the Republican leadership of the senate of the United States. A good deal of historic interest centers in some of the committee rooms of the, senate. The present senate wing of the Capitol was not completed until the year 1859, but there are several committee rooms still located in the old part of the great building. Even in the new section there are two or three rooms which have witnessed stirring scenes. In the room of the committee on- territories for instance, a body of which Senator Beveridge of Indiana is the chairman, there were held the hearings on the Kansas-Nebraska bill and on other “free or slave soil state” matters. In the room of the committee on privileges and elections, of which Senator Burrows of Michigan is the chairman, many senators have had what might be called grand jury hearings on the question of their right to their seats. The Utah cases have been heard here, and it was here that Senator W. A. Clark of Montana appeared through his counsel to try to prove that he did not use wrongful means to secure his seat in the senate. In the room of the committee on military affairs hundreds upon hundreds of problems were worked out during the days of the civil war. Since the United States has become a world power Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the committee on the Philippines, has had many puzzling questions on his hands, and the hearings which have been held in this room~at times have attracted crowds and nearly always have been of deep interest. In the Philippines room the “antiImperialists” have argued on behalf of independence for the Pilippino, and there have been'met in debate by men who have maintained that the day of liberty for the “little brown brother” must be postponed until he is qualified for its privileges. Memories of men pass quickly. While the United States government as a government is only

about 121 years old, few men can be found today to identify without looking at the names, the pictures and the busts of men high in official government position or of great fame in their time in contemporary historyin the senate chamber placed In niches about the gallery walls are busts, of the vice-presidents of the United States. Only the guides of the Capitol who have their lessons letters proof, can tell the names of—these men without reference to the printed lists or the printed inscriptions. When the house cleaning days were over only a season ago two pictures were replaced on the walls of the corridor of the senate. One of them was a picture of Patrick Henry and the other was that of Thoma's Jefferson. For weeks the fact that Jefferson’s picture has been labeled Patrick Henry and Patrick Henry’s had been labeled Thomas Jefferson went undetected. Finally a visitor noticed the error, called attention to it and had the change made. Perhaps the most striking picture in the senate corridors is that which shows Commodore J’erry standing in the row boat to which he went from his sinking flag ship Lawrence to the ship- Niagara at the battle of Lake Erie. Perry is pictured erect in the boat while a small boy evidently a “midship-mite," also standing trying to pull the Commodore down to a seat so that he will be less exposed to the furious rain of the shot of the enemy. The boy who is trying to induce the commodore to take the necessary precaution to save his life was a nephew of the great sailor, and it was he who later opened the ports of Japan to the commerce of the world. So it is that in the painting are the portraits of two Perrys, both of whom are famous in the naval -annals of the United States.