Life — October 12, 1928 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

THE POLITICAL FRONT The Deadly Borah THE APPROACHING winter will furnish an interval of high comedy in the United States Senate, when Mr. William E. Borah of Idaho assumes responsibility for passing Mr. Kellogg’s treaty for the renunciation of war. Mr. Borah has never been happy since he became Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, because as Chair- man he must get things done. The job of securing ratification of the agreement so gaudily signed at Paris this summer will not be difficult, but Mr. Borah’s perform- ance will be fantastic. Those very dogmas which Mr. Borah used in 1919 to defeat American adhesion to the League of Nations Covenant will now be hurled at his own head, in op- position to that new pact of Paris. The by Henry Suydam same arguments that the Democrats used in 1919 to defend Mr. Wilson's project Mr. Borah will now employ to protect Mr. Kellogg’s. The Senator's astigmatism is temporarily cured. What was a poo ous thistle to him in 1919 is a simple rimrose and noth- ing clse besides in 1928; even if it grows in the soil of Geneva. Thus the brilliant Senator from Idaho is executing a com- plete about-face in an interval of less than ten years. Nobody who knows Mr. Borah need get excited about that. His charm is compounded of diverse elements, of which pertinacity is not one, There are times when Mr. Borah Gorden Tale, “Now tell me, who do you think will be our next President?” would rather be “regular” than consistent, In 1912 Mr. Borah supported Mr. Taft, not Mr. Roosevelt. At Kansas City ig 1928 he paid fulsome tribute to President Coolidge, although he had spent the pre. ceding quadrennium laughing at the President and often opposing his pro- gram on the floor of the Senate. He stepped into the breach for the Admin. istration at Kangas City, squelched the more radical farm forces in his party and made the nomination safe for Mr. Hoover, He is now defending Prohibition againg Alfred E. Smith, indulging in sanct- monious and legalistic platitudes about the Eighteenth Amendment and ignoring the Fourteenth and Fifteenth. During the winter, he will attempt to convince the country that Frank B. Kellogg is the greatest Secretary of State since Alex ander Ham—that is, since John Hay. The Administration has done a fine job on Mr. Borah. Those two timid gentle men, Messrs. Coolidge and Hoover, have him hog-tied. The Senator from Idaho would explain his present course on the ground of party responsibility and party regularity—obligations of which he ie perverse and joyous disregard at normal moments. Once in four years, when there is an election for President, Mr. Borah delivers himself into the hands of his party organization, an awkward if willing slave. To him a passage in one of H. H. Munro’s novels applies: “He reminds one of a circus clephant—infinitely more in telligent than the ‘ople ~who direct im, but quite con- tent to go on putting his foot down or taking it up as may be required... .” Such is this inde- pendent, this corus- cant, this erratic Sen- ator from Idaho when his party is out to elect a President. Once in four years Mr. Borah dwindles to the stature of Simeon D. Fess of Ohio. Once in four years he becomes fit com- pany for such persons as Dr. Work and Clem Shaver. Then, having got his Re ublican President safely in the White Jouse, Mr. Borah expands with satisfaction and proceeds to fight, ridicule, patronize and generally discredit that same President until the next campaign comes around. THE FASTEST HUMAN “I unperstano he holds a record of some kind.” “Yes. He is the father of seven, and be once reassembled a Sunday paper in foot minutes.” comicbooks.com \|