OCR Text |
Show NEW SENATORS. Oflthe ninety, Senators of the United Uni-ted States, the terms of thirty will . expire on March 3, 1907. Of these, at least stventeen have already been reelected, or else are so sure of re- election that they sit easy in their ' seats. Those old veterans,' Morgan. Bacon, Culloni, Dolliver, Frye, and Tillman, seem to come back practically practi-cally as a matter of routine. Clark, Patterson, and Dubois, Democrats, Dem-ocrats, are to be succeeded by Dixon, Guggenheim, and Borah, Republicans. Republi-cans. The Republican representation I will, therefore, be increased from fifty-eight to sixty-one, and the Democratic Dem-ocratic numbers reduced from thirty- ' two to twenty-nine. Three Republicans have been pro-fl) motedfrom the House to the Senate. These men, Curtis of Kansas, Dixon of Montana, and Smith of Michigan, are young and aggressive. They art fairly representative of the new type h of "Roosevelt Senator.'' Other who have "lined up" in support of the President's policies arc Guggenheim, Borah, and Brown. Paynler, Jeff Davis, and "Fiddling Bob" Taylor will bring to the Senate no noticeable reverence for the tradi'ion that that j body is the most conservative on earth. Any hasty assertion that the corporation cor-poration fighters arc having their day must be avoided in discussing the new Senators. It is true that Millard of Nebraska, who gives way to Attorney-General Brown, is a loss to the Western railroads, and Dixon of Montana, who takes Clark's scat, appeals to the people rather than to the mine owners and land magnates for support. But in swapping "Old y Perplexity" Patterson, whose brow has been wrinkled by long search for invective to luril against corporations, corpora-tions, for Simon Guggenheim, Colorado Colo-rado has gone back under the yoke of the big business interests. The new Senator from Colorado went to Denver in 1888, when he was twenty-one. When he was chosen , Senator he held fourteen salaried places in the family's various Colorado enterprises. These paid him $75,000 a year, though, of course, this represented repre-sented only a small part of his income. in-come. The charge that he bought his I ' seat has been made openly, and has been denied. It is alleged that he ! paid the campaign expenses of prac- ' tically every Republican candidate for the Legislature who found a campaign necessary. Guggenheim is no orator his political po-litical .sponsor, "Ikcy Stevens" of Pueblo, keeps him carefully away from the lime-light of the platform. He is in strong contrast to his immediate im-mediate predecessor. Pattctson has worried the business men bj talking too loudly against their methods in the State; if Guggenheim ever makes a speech in the Senate, or originates a radical piece of legislation, Colorado Colo-rado will be astonished. Patterson is quick tempered and vindictive; Guggenheim hasn't an enemy in the State so far as he knows. "1 am going to Washington," the new Senator from Colorado declares, to represent all the people. 1 am free and untrammeled and under obligations obliga-tions to no interests, company, railroad, rail-road, or corporation." In earnest of his complete allegiance to the people rather than the corpoiations, he has resigned his fourteen salaried offices. Further he says: "I am in hearty sympathy with the progressive achievements of our party and of President Roosevelt. I favor all legislation leg-islation adopted by Congress to correct cor-rect industrial abuses, and will support sup-port and suggest further measures that experience or wisdom may show to be necessary." While Colprado has cried halt to the radicals, her neighbors Kansas S. and Nebraska, arc still hot on the trail ' of the railroads. In the preliminary struggle, before the Kansas Legislature Legisla-ture sat down to choose a successor to Benson, it was reported that statesmen states-men hardly dared to ride on a rail way train for fear of the moral effect. Charles Curtis of Topcka, who has been in Congress since 1892, has not been a rabid fighter of the railroads, but no one questions him when he says that he is, and will continue to be, free from their domination. Curtis had come nearer to earning promotion than any other Kansas rep-resentaMve. rep-resentaMve. He is part Indian. His mother was of the Kaw tribe, a "quarter-blood," and his father an army officer. He began life as a newsboy, became jockey, then drove a hack in Topeka. Studying whenever whenev-er opportunity offered, he left the driver's scat at sixteen to enter a law office. At twenty-four he was prosecuting attorney of Shawnee County; at twenty-eight he first tried for a scat in Congress; at thirty he succeeded. In his fourteen years in the House he has worked hard. The most important Indian legislation since the Dawes land allotment act of 1887, the Curtis bill for the breaking break-ing up of the tribal governments in Indian Territory, was credited to the Kansas Representative in 1898. His industry is indicated by his statement that in his campaign for rcnomina-tion rcnomina-tion in 1904 he wrote twenty thousand letters. He is a friend of the pension seekers in his Washington office is a directory of applicants for pensions which contains six thousand names, with notes as to the status of each claim. More perhaps than any other Kansas Kan-sas Congressman, Curtis has the good will of the Administration. The railroads rail-roads may be behind him, but so is the President. Norris Brown, who takes the place of Joseph H. Millard, regards his election to the Senate as the culmination culmi-nation of the long fight that has been waged in Nebraska against the railroads. rail-roads. A's Attorney-General of the State, he has fought for the effective enforcement of the laws against spec-id spec-id privileges. The anti-railroad agitation agi-tation has won his scat for him. He says that it is not .1 passing fancy, and has put himself on record, along with other- young and aggressive freshmen iiv the Upper House, as favoring fav-oring the. President's railroad-curbing activity. William E. Borah of Idaho has displaced dis-placed one of the most forceful and picturesque figures in the Senate, Fred. T. Dubois. Borah himself is an orator and brilliant lawyer. He conducted the prosecution of 'th-c Coeur d'Alejic dynamiters in 1899 and is associated with the prosecution of Moyer and Haywood of the Western Federation of liners for the alleged assassination of ex-Governor Steuncnberg. Tacitly he has the indorsement of the Administration. Admin-istration. Borah has the Mormon support, though the Senate will not hold that against him. Joseph M. Dixon comes to the Senate from Missoula in the western half of Montana, Both Senators Clark and Carter arc opposed to Dixon, Dix-on, In Montana, it is something of an achievement to win against . the Clark-Carter mbination. Dixon has done it, and there has been no breath of bribery in connection with his election. elec-tion. Not quite forty, a man who "does tilings," a known friend of the President, Presi-dent, the new Senator represents a distinct gain to the Senate, lie will join the growing group of "Roosevelt Senators" from the West that are not afraid to call a land thief by his proper prop-er title. The First Senator by Direct Vote. A western man who makes his first appearance in congress as a senator is Jonathan Bourne of Oregon. He is the first man ever elected to the senate by direct vote of the people ratified by the state legislature a method of election destined to become much more general. Russel A. Alger's successor in the senate, William Alden Smith of Grand Rapids, is a railroad lawyer. He lacks two years of being fifty, and has served twelve years as a representative representa-tive from the Fifth Michigan district. Alger's illness kept him inactive. His prestige waned steadily since he was Secretary of War. Whatever may be said of Smith's quality, his industry is unquestioned. Like Curtis, he began be-gan life as a newsboy, but, instead of riding race-horses, he became a page in the Michigan House of Representatives. Representa-tives. Law and the railroads have been the rungs of his ladder since. In the South, one more "old time' ante-bellum statesman" has been retired re-tired in favor of an aggressive, fire-eating fire-eating modern. James H. Berry- is a Confederate veteran; his successor, Jefferson Davis, was born in 1862. While Berry is all dignity and conservatism', conser-vatism', Davis is impulsive and high tempered. His platform brawls have made him notorious. He is a graduate grad-uate of Vjandcrbilt University Jaw school, and a brilliant man. Robert L. Taylor of Nashville succeeds suc-ceeds Edward W. Carmack as the result re-sult of a spirited primary fight last year in which the qucston of local option against State prohibition of the liquor traffic played a leading part. Carmack is the abler man, but his speeches in the Senate and his fierce criticisms of the President have detracted de-tracted from his popularity in Tennessee. Ten-nessee. Taylor, on the contrary, has increased his great popularity in his state by making the anti-corporation cry his own. "Fiddling Bob" is a nickname that the new senator from Tennessee won in his campaign for governor in 188C, . ;. when his Republican opponent was his jl brother, Alfred A. Taylor. In the t 4M mountain districts "Bob" Taylor's jl fiddle won as many votes as his voice. jH Taylor is fifty-seven. He has been I U pension agent, congressman and gov- fl cmor, and he is editor of "Bob Tay- I lor's Magazine." The senate loses a I statesman and gains a picturesque I personality by the retirement of Car- I mack. H At sixty-nine, Jos. C. S. Blackburn H of Kentucky, who has served ten years H in the House and twelve in the Senate since 1875, retires, and Thomas liar- HJ din ("Hurricane") Payntcr takes his seat. Paynter is fifty-five, a big, ag- H grcssive man who has won every po- H litical honor in his state that he has H coveted. He served three terms in 'I congress as a representative between H 1888 and 1894. While he was at Washington his breezy manner and HJ his luxuriant mustache attracted the notice of Nast, who pictured him with H his moustaches wrapped about his H ears, and labeled the picture "Thomas H Hurricane Paynter." H From the House Payntcr went on H the Kentucky Bench. He was serving H on the Bench when he entered the H Senatorial race as Blackburn's oppo- H ncnt. In every political fight that he H has made, except when he was chosen HJ for a second term as Judge of the HJ Court of Appeals, Payntcr has had HJ strong opposition. His hardest figlu H was his last. Blackburn has for years H held Kentucky under the spell of his H oratory and his strong personality. H But, like Berry in Arkansas, Black- HJ bum has found that hia State no long- HJ cr responds to the appeals of the ante H helium statesman. H |