Life — November 9, 1911 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LUPE PURLISHT A. Merewntt. AS MinEEn, 5 vy West ‘I et, New Vork fest Su OMMENTING on La Follette’s tale in the American Magazine of how he worked to heme his actions in Congress to the Wisconsin bring minds of the voters, the van says: ins the Howse did hinery for co The Wisconsin frest not have, the elaborate mi venient filing that the Republi tiopal committee was able to provide, but the es. sence of the plans was the same. For all his virtuous pretenses and long distance clo- quence he is perhaps the cleverest machine politician ard boss in these United States. To be sure. The remarkable thing about him that comes out in the seli- told story of his life is the extreme diligence with which he went after the voters when he wanted anything from them. Opponents say he is a mean tighter. He does not scem to inspire much affection, and that—if it is so— is a handicap to him as a politician. people who follow La Follette nto follow him not because they ise of his great gift for promot- ing the discomfort of persons whose discomiort they feel it desirable to There is not much “after you, sir,” about the Wisconsin. Sena tor. His “Look at His life has been a long seram- and probably he has had no chance to cultivate He has always wanted office, and he promote watchword is, “after you, sir,” manners has had it continuously since very soon after he scrambled his way through college. But how has he paid for it? we come to the main point about La Follette. Ile seems to have paid for office by working about sixteen hours a day. year in and year out, for the Outs inst the Ins. The difference be- tween his “virtuous pretenses and lony distance eloquence” and those of «LIFE: the regular and authorized machine politicians with whom he has con- tended, has been, apparently, that he has been incorrigibly addicted to mak- ing some of his pretenses good. They tell us he has changed and bettered many laws in Wisconsin; in the Sen- ite we remember how he fought the ne bill, and he speaks in his auto- biography of fighting many other bad bills. If we follow the autobiography we shall doubtless get a fairly com- plete record of his good political deeds. He is an aggressive, grasping person who likes power, but when he gets it he does something with it, and here’s the point—it is usually some- thing that needed to be done. He likes polities, not as Murphy likes politics, a good thing,” and a con- because it’s “ dition precedent to. personal enrich- ment, but, apparently, because govern- ment interests him, and because he loves to poke laws and other obstacles between the self-selected heirs of the carth and the inheritance they covet. Follette is a good deal of a And there's Insurgent Senator Cummins of Iowa. He is not writing himself up just now, but A. Mc- Sween has contributed his picture and 2 particularly good piece about him to the reinvigorated and transmogrified Metropolitan Magazine, which has come out in new form and now looks like the Ladies’ Home Journal, and talks like Finley P. Dunne. Cummins began his working life as a carpenter, but, having carpentered himself through college, turned lawyer. Presently he was a pretty good lawyer, and then, in due course of time, the best lawyer in Des Moines. It is as- serted in the Metropolitan's piece that he was getting an excellent corpora- tion practice and was speeding along the high road to respectability and easy circumstances, when the recent epi- demic of — industrial combination swooped down upon the country, and John Gates put together a collection of wire factories valued at $32,000,000, capitalized it at $90,000,000 and di pensed the resulting securities witl gr to the trade. Lawyer Cummins was so near this transaction that he could not get the smell of it out of his nose, The carpenter in him revolted, Mr. MeSween says. De moralization set in. He began to let law opportunities slip by him and to ‘glect the fiscal interests of his fam- ily, and presently he was running for office and spent most of the accumu- Jations of his profitable years in get- ting clected to the Senate. is sadder than La Follette’s, because he had actually cut his cake as a law- yer before he got so over-interested in government, and in constraining the patrons of the trough to occupy it with their snouts only and keep their trot- ters on the ground. ee Xe.. <D now some people think that after all the Republican nomination may flit away from Mr. Taft and light on Mr, Cummins. They think he con- stitutes a likelier perch for it than Mr. La Follette, perhaps because he has had a longer experience on the con- structive side of business, and does not rest so much of his reputation on his efficiency as a knocker. Mr. La Follette, it seems, never had any money worth mentioning, and what little Mr. Cummins had they say he has spent in politics. Of course, two chokes do not make a convulsion, but it is depressing to notice examples that suggest systematic incompatibility between effectiveness in reform poli- tics and a proper solicitude about get- ting together the means of support Here are a couple of very able men whom any intelligent interest: would hav n glad to hire. And, look at them! Mr. Taft himself is no better. He has been living on government salaries most of his adult life, and could never have attained even to physical greatness if he had not heen a remarkably casy keeper. Still. at his writing his voice comes over the every morning from city or previously unknown hamlet in the West. He is politely received ywhere, and maybe he is doing himself good, but his fences at Was ington begin to need mending. it success His case wire some comicbookMee