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Show SENATE IN DISGRACE. No body of American senators, since the forming of our national legislature, has received more merited condemnation than the present senate of the United States. "It would profoundly shock a number of our senators," says the San Francisco Bulletin, "if they were told that they were among the most potent causes contributing to the spread of Bolshevism in the United States. Yet it would be nothing more than the liberal truth. The enemies of orderly government are not merely those wl o openly open-ly disclaim against it. Equally dangerous are thos; who bring national na-tional institutions into disrepute by an utter failure to grasp the responsibilities re-sponsibilities imposed upon them as the active agents of such institute institu-te . . . 1 f 1 ' .1 A ! ! uons. representative government is me rounaauon oi uic 'merican democracy, and representatives in Congress who put 'heir persona! prejudices and petty bitterness above their national duty at striking at the foundations of government just as much as the most Hatant anarchist. Of the two the street-corner soap-boxer is less menacing than the Senator who sits himself systematically to thwart the national purpose. pur-pose. The seditious ranter has a limited audience and he runs the risk of arrest; but the unpatriotic Senator is heard by the whole nation na-tion and he disguises his opposition to the national welfare by specious professions of patriotism. A Victor Berger is instantly recognized as anti-Amencan and is refused re-fused a seat in the House of Representatives ; but there are Senators who consciously or unconsciously are every bit as un-American in their attitude. They do not render themselves liable to expulsion, I but they bring that discredit upon the Senate which is a factor in promoting pro-moting impatience with parliamentary institutions. "Frankly, the whole nation is disgusted with thc lamentable display dis-play of petty politics and the conspicuous absence of any general sense of statesmanship. "The Bolshevist is but the active extreme of what in others is the passive disrespect for law-making assemblages bom of the pathetic ineptitude, the narrowness and bungling of exalted political humbugs. But happily the nation as a whole still preserves its faith in order. It distinguishes between the institution and the senators who degrade it, and there will be a day of reckoning. The ballot can correct all the evils that the ballot has made.' |