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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 1925)
1 1 THE GAZETTE-TIMES, HEPPNER, OREGON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1925. PAGE THREE Behind the Scenes At Washington Calvin Coolidge, Mrs. Coolidge, Senator Borah, Chas. G. Dawes, Herbert Hoover and Andrew Mellon Discussed in Speech by Newspaper Man. McNARY AND SINNOTT ARE LAUDED Stanfield Mentioned; Fate of Parties Weighed; Elec tion Prospects in Relation to Control of U. S. Sen ate; Relations With Japan and With Europe. By FREDERIC WM. WILE. In Portland Telegram. With in Introduction by L. R. Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler Mr. Preildent and Gentle men: H. G. WelU. in hti "Outline of His tory, attribute the fall of the Roman Republic to two factor: Int. the lack of a public prew adequately to Inform the people, and znd, the lack of tystem of rep resentative government to provide the nee Mary machinery for popular npreaiion. The development of the public preni in the lait century has been one of the "unii in if" outKrowtha of our American democ racy and in one of the eaiential safeguard of IhU democracy. We have grown from a country with 27 daily papers having an aggregate circulation of approximately 10, 000 in 1810 to a country with approxi mately 2600 daily papers having an aggre gate circulation of 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 in li2fi. Practically every one in America readn a daily paper. The lament ia often heard that we have drifted away from the good old days when editors of the Horace GreHey type ruled journalism and hlpd mould public opin ion with masterful editorials. It is a char acter in tic of modem journalism that the interpretive writer has to a large extent supplanted the old-time editor. People no longer want to be told what to believe but rather are inclined to want an analytical discutwlon of the facta from which they can draw their own cone 1 unions. Mr. Wile belongs to this new class of interpretive new a pa per writers. He began his repertorial work with the Chicago Record, later the Chicago Daily News. For a number of years he repre aei.ted this great daily paper first in Lon don as assistant correspondent during the, hoer war, and later In Merlin up till the time when he came to the notice of Lord NorthrlinVs paper, the London Daily Mail, about W09, and was employed by the Lon don paper up to and after the opening of the war. On the outbreak of hostilities he wait imprisoned in Berlin and with some difficulty escaped punbhment as a spy at the hands of the enraged military caste. During Amercia's participation in the war, Mr. Wile served under General Per shing in France, putting to good account his journalistic knowledge of Germany and his thorough understanding of the German press. He, waa with President Wilson on t latter' European tour and at Ver sailles. Since that time he has been Washington correspondent for a distinguished lit of newspapers among which are the Christian Science Monitor, the Philadelphia North American, the Ixmdon Sunday Times, and the Japan Advertiser. Readers of the Portland Telegram will recognise In him the Telegram Washington correspondent. Mr. WileMr. President, and Gen tlemen of the City Club, it is i very thrilling experience for an Eastern tenderfoot, far remote from that com munity of Rumor, Recrimination and Remorse called Washington, to stand before an audience on the Pacific coast. It is also a maiden experience and one in which 1 take the keenest delight. Ai an occasional contributor to the columns of one of your great news papers, I do not feel myself an en tire atranger in Portland. Though I feel myself very much at home, thanks to the typically bountiful western hospitality of which I am the willing and grateful victim, I ititl reserve to myself the right of the visitor to rhapsodize over this city magnificent. It is a complete eye opener to me, as la also, if I may ven ture to say so in Portland, your sis ter city of Seattle. Their splendor, their beauty, their metropolitan air, their bustling life, their gorgeous en vironments, their illimitable possi bilitiea of future development, have made a deep and lasting Impression upon me. If 1 could be born again and start life all over, there is nothing that could prevent the pitching of my tent out here where the west ends. I am afraid I should drive the stakes as near the Columbia River Highway as possible. I have been far afield In two hemispheres in my day, but I re call nothing that can approximate the grandeur of those miles of panorama. Nature has been very lavish to West ern Oregon. Your enthusiasm over her gifts is fully justified. Disconcerted by Distances. I have come among you after four weeks of exploration of the western country lying between the Great Lakea and the Pacific ocean. The northwest wai virgin soil to me. It haa been a revelation, every inch of the wav. The trip has been for me a campaign of education that I, In common with most residents of the east, sadly needed. I have learned for one thing, why they are called the "great open spaces. My acquaint ance with those vast distances is re newed every time I buy a sleeping- ear berth. Along the Atlantic seaboard, when wi iournev from Washington to New York, or to Pittsburgh, or Detroit, or Chicago, or St. Louie, we think we re taking a long journey. It was a little disconcert na to find that msmarcic, North Dakota, la as far from Helena, Montana, as New York in from Lhi cago, and that it takes longer to got from Portland to San Francisco than it does to go from Washington to Chicago. I spent tha Fourth of July at Minneapolis and said to my host that it felt good at last to be in the heart of the west. He told me that Mlnnennolis is only 1,300 miles from the Atlantic and that I was still 1,900 miles from the Pacific. Columbus am a groat job when he discovoered this vast land of ours, though, an English man once said ho didn't sea how Christopher could very well have missed it! Men, Women and Ilerdera. Tr. la a irroaL compliment to a pro fessional chronicler of public affairs to be invited bo far afield as Portland to discuss events. "Behind the Scenes at Washington." It la appropriate that you custodians of wostern dos tlnios should survey those scones for vou are now monarch there ...There has never been a time when the West waa ao strongly intrenched at tho seat of Federal government as It ii today. For the first time on record, more than half of the Cabinet ia recruited from the region where men are men, where women are governors, and where aheepherders are shot. You have in Kellogg, of Minnesota, the premiership of the Administration, the Secretaryship of State. Califor nia holds two Cabinet portfolios Wilbur is Secretary of the Navy, and Herbret Hoover is Secretary of Com merce, and a lot of other things be sides. New, of Indiana, is Postmas ter General. Jardine, of Kansas, is Secretary of Agriculture. Work, of Colorado, is Secretary of the Inter ior. Everett Sanders, of my own na tive state of Indiana, ia secretary to the President a post of great power. And, of course, there is General Dawes, of Illinois, hell-bent for leath er on converting the Vice-Presidency from a decoration into a volcano. St. Paul Gathers the Fruit. Within the past four months no fewer than three important Federal plums have been dropped in the lap of a single western state. To Minne sota men, in rapid succession, Presi dent Coolidge gave the posts of Sec retary of State, Solicitor General of the United States and an assistant secretary of Stat. That generous shaking of the patronage tree in Min nesota's favor may help to wreBt the state from the Farmer-Labor grip, but it may not keep Minneapolis safe for Coolidge, for Mr. Kellogg, Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Olds all came from St. Paul. Predominance of the West at Wash ington by no means ends with the Ad ministrative branch of the govern ment. Congress is ruled and led by men of the Middle West, the Missis sippi Valley and the Rocky Mountain region. In both Senate and the House sons of the west will preside over the Sixty-ninth Congress Dawes of Illinois, as president of the Senate, and Longworth of Ohio, as Speaker of the House. There is hardly a ma jor committee of either house that is not headed by a western man. Of the blue-ribbon Senate committee on Foreign Relations, Borah, of Idaho, is chairman. In the Seats of the Mighty. Smoot, of Utah, is chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, with vital authority on questions of tho tariff, revenue and taxation. The vet eran Warren, of Wyoming, is chair man of the Senate Committee on Ap- ; propriations. Hiram Johnson of Cal-; ifornia, is chairman of the Senate Committee on Immigration. NorrU, of Nebraska, heads Agriculture and Forestry. Oddie, of Nebraska, is chief of another committeo of special interest to the West, that which deals with mines and mining. Capper, of Kansas, heads the com mittee on Claims. Jones, of Wash- ngton, is chairman of Commerce and Shipping. Harreld of Oklahoma heads Indian Affairs. Cummins, of Iowa, authority on railroad economics, di rects the activities of the committee on interstate commerce, which deals ith the thorny problems of trans portation. Norbcck, of South Dakota, is chairman of Pensions. Stanfield and Sinnott. Oregon is very much in the picture behind the scenes at Washington. The chairmanships of the important com mittees on Public Lands in both Sen ate and House are in the hands of Oregonians Senator Stanfield now leads the Senate committee, and my old friend and comrade of college days at Notre Dame, Representative Nicholas J. Sinnott, of The Dalles, heads the House committee. I regret not having seen Sinnott in Portland. Few men In Congress enjoy higher respect. He was the all-round athletic champion of Notre Dame a genera tion ago, and has carried into his work at Washington the energy, the skill and the strength that made him invincible on the cinder-path in the early nineties. Senator Stanfield is also chairman of the Senate committee on Civil Ser vice, and a member of the exceeding ly important committee on finance, which has to do with the tariff and revenue. McNary'a Enthusiasm Withers. Senator McNary is chairman of a Senate committee no less important to Oregon than the committee on Public Lands the committee on Ir rigation and Reclamation and be cause of his high repute among his colleagues, has also won assignments to the vital committees on Agricul ture and Forestry, on Commerce, on Indian Affairs, and on Manufactures, McNary'a name has become a house hold word in Washington because of his temporary identification with the agricultural export corporation bilk If I am rightly informed, his enthus insm for the McNary-Haugen measure has withered with time, though I have discovered throughout the farming west a keen desire for something like that legislation, by whatever name it is to be called. The farmer does not yet feel thot he is on anything like equal terms with the manufacturer with regard to the protection which the tariff gives to industry. The farmer looked upon the McNary-Haugen bill as protection for the farm, Nostrums for the Farmer, I think we must be prepared for a resumption of the demand that ngrl culture be given a squarcr deal with Industry, though, as far as I enn make out, agriculture in thawest is doing very well Indeed without any patent medicine from Congress. It looks to a casual observer as if Nature wore Coolidge Does Not Ym y sfcEaV y AyUTpclgTa-ctl ss laCtl An unusual picture of the President and Mrs. Coolidge aboard the Mayflower for a short1 cruise along the New England Coast Despite the fact that the President is badly in need of rest and relaxation, reports from Swampscott, Mass., are that he has again thrown himself into affairs of state with important ' conferences scheduled almost every day. t.ulrinc nvri11fnt fa ret nf tha hnnar ana ijaeiy 10 maKe a Deuer Job 01 it man Washington could ever do. Haney and Chamberlain. Oregon has a capable and respect ed representative at the national cap ital, too, in the person of Bert E. Haney, a member of the United States Shipping Board. And the Beaver state has never sent a more popular son to the Potomac than George E. Chamberlain. If Oregon doesn't want to return him to the Senate, Wash ington is quite content to have its bar adorned by a lawyer of such eminence. Don Quixote Tilta at W indmills. To a western man has been en trusted the toughest job in Washing ton, even though it is the outstanding proof that the star of congressional empire is steadily taking its way tow ard the Pacific. 1 refer to that stur dy Kansan of Chicksaw ancestry, Sen ator Curtis. Curtis is leader of the so-called Senate majority and chair man of the committee on Rules, that citadel against which Don Quixote Dawes is now bo vigorously tilting. Dawes says he, too, is banging away at windmills. Senator Curtis' job in Washington is the kind described by Lord Rose bery, in his biography of Disraeli, as the tedious art of managing men." Curtis is the official leader of a ma jority that exists only on paper. He commands followers who go not where he leads, but whither they please. Fickle as the Weather. The Republican Party has a sta tistical majority of 14 in the senate, which now contains 63 nominal Re publicans, 40 Democrats and one Farm Labor member Henrick Ship Btead of Minnesota. That statistical majority is about as dependable as the weather. Let only seven Repub licans of the less regular type like Borah, Johnson, Couzens, Howell, Norris, Norbeclc, and Mc Masters leave the reservation, and the so- called Republican majority in the Senate goes where the woodbine twineth, I Tempermental Republicans, Indeed, not even seven of these tempermental Republicans need to, stray from the straight and narrow path to annihilate Administration control of the Senate. For when the Republicans expelled LaFollette, Brookhart, Ladd and Frazier from the Lodge last winter, it reduced even their paper majority from fourteen to ten. Subtract from ten the seven capricious spirits whom I named a moment ago, and you have a Repub lican control reduced to almost less than nothing. These are the condi tions that are fast turning Senator Curtis' remaining raven locks to white. Solid South and Frenzied North. That is the present situation. The future is even more disconcerting. Thirty-five elections to the United States Senate are now in prospect. Twenty-eight of the seats in question are in Republican possession, count ing the LaFollette and Ladd vacan cies. Seven are held by the Demo crats. While all of these democratic seats, being in Southern hands, are secure for that party, many of the Republican seats are highly insecure. Several are bound to be lost. It will not be necessary for the Democrats to gain more than a few of them to wipe out Republican control of the Senate In the next Congress. Cool idge administration policies will face a period of extremely rough sledding, if that contingency arrives. The time is easily within the recol ectlon of most men here present when the roost at Washington was ruled by the hast. In those days, only a very few years ago, the West was the po litical step-child of the Republic. Government waa still of the people, but mainly of, by and for the eastern people. Those days are gone. Min ing and agriculture and the other basic interests of this virile section of the United States no longer ap pear at Washington, cap in hand, to beg for favors. They present them selves nowadays in tho guise of lords and masters. They command the ear alike of Administration and Congress, and seldom Is it a deaf ear. Aiming at the Jaw. Events of the past month have clothed the 1926 Congressional cam paign with an unexpectedly new sig nificance. The passing of LaFollette and Ladd, who in a certain sense were the bone and sinew of the Radical movement in Congress, has opened up inviting possibilities for the Repub lican organization. You are certain to experience, in consequence of them a vigorous drive to givo Radicalism in Wisconsin and North Dakota, and in the Northwest generally, a knock out blow. Behind the scenes at Washington, during the next six months, there will be no singlo political activity with a more definite and determined purpose. The questions tho Republican lead ership is asking itself are those docs the disappearance of LaFollette mean the break-up of the Radical combin ation which Imposed its will with so deadly offoct upon recent procedure in Washington? Is western Radical ism a flimsy structure that was built around one or two dominating per- aonalitlcft? Is it now doomed to crum ble and decay? Was LaFollette tho keystone of an arch that cannot stand without him? Rest on Vacation Parties In a Maelstrom. The next few months or the next year will tell. What ensues is bound to be of far-reaching effect upon the whole national political situation. It may be that we are on the verge of an entirely new alignment of parties. It may be that both the Republican and Democratic parties are on the threshold of reorganization. They may be destined to find themselves in a common melting pot from which perhaps parties to be known as Con servative or Liberal will emerge. America is conservative at heart, but Radicalism in America can never be stifled, for it is the true mother of progress. We shall delude ourselves if we think we have seen the last of it Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean red flag radicalism. I mean enlightened Liberalism. Muffling Niagara's Roar. Radicalism, callel Revolution, won our freedom from Great Britain. Rad icalism, called Abolition, liberated the slaves. Radicalism, called Union, forbade Secession. Even radio is rad icalism a revolt against antiquated1 methods of transmission. Aviation is radicalism man's insistence upon peerage with the eagle. Radicalism in our politics may prevail under an other name, but it will smell as sweet end its invigorating perfume is bound to scent our public life for all time to come. It can no more be sup pressed than Niagara's roar can be muffled. Our task is to see to it that i Radicalism is captained by men who are sane and patriotic, and not mere ly self-seekers and demagogues. Coolidge Bends Like Granite. I Calvin Coolidge had not been Pres-1 ident very long two years ago before Washington realized that an unusual type of American citizen waa now es- i tabliBhed at the White House. The; Republican Party, which, it was com-' monly understood, had no intention of renominating the quiet man from Massachusetts for the Vice-Presidency in 1924, discovered, to the con sternation of many of its leaders. that a masterful personality was at the helm; not a spectacular person ality, not an orator, not a hail-fellow- well-met, but a man of calmness, courage and caution. With those qualities to recommend him, it did not take long to "sell" the new Presi dent to the country. Before Calvin Coolidge was Presi dent six months, the oil scandals en gulfed the nation's attention and rocked the country with fears and un rest that seemed for awhile to be unsettling the very foundations of the Republic. At such times this emotional and easily excited Ameri ca of ours needs calm, courage and caution in the White House. The comparison, of course, is not wholly pertinent, yet I have often thought that, as the crisis of Seces sion found us with a Lincoln, and the World War with a Wilson, we were perhaps more fortunate than we at the time realized that in that moment of overwrought national nerves in the winter of 1924, there was in the pres idential chair an individuality and a temperment of the type of Calvin Coolidge something of the granite of the Green Mountains, of that fibre against which even the most violent storms break, but which they do not bend. Clinging to Cautions Calvin. Tha presidential campaign of 1924 came on. Upon that contest the Dem ocratic party entered with as formid able a mass of fighting material as ever was at the disposal of an Amer ican political organization seeking to wrest control of the Federal govern ment. The administration in office was tainted with the oil 'scandals and the Veterans Bureau corruption. The Republican congress was in general disrepute, Coolidge himself, with what many of his followers felt to be reckless courage, had vetoed the soldiers' bonus. It was no small trib ute to Calvin Coolidge that the party which, only a few months previous was prepared to drop him, now saw in him practically its only source of salvation in the impending struggle for retention of power at Washing ton. As state primary after primary took place iV became evident, in the allit erative words of Senator George H. Moses, of New Hampshire, that "the chief asset of the Republican Party was the calm and cautions Christian character of Calvin Coolidge." So it came to pass that at Cleveland, in June, 1924, the Republican national convention was nothing but a Cool idge ratification meeting. The Pres ident automatically became the cam paign issue as far as the Republican Party was concerned. Other issues were raised. LaFollette provided the issue of "Save the Constitution." But the issue most effectively carried to the country was "the calm and cau tious Christian character of Calvin Coolidge." Chats Much But Leaks Little. Calvin Coolidge 1b no longer an ac cldent. He is President of the Uni ted States by one of ths most over whelming majorities in our electoral history, If I have derived one par amount impression in the west, it is tne impression that rresinent t-ooi idge's grip on popular confidence is almost a stranglehold. Let me analyze, briefly, as best t may, some of the apparent secrets of it. The people are under a good many misapprehensions about Cool idge, One is that ha Is a silent man. Another is that bt ia dull-witted. Another is that he is a small -town politician. He ia none of these things. Instead of being silent, he is talk ative. He is by far the most loquac ious President with whom the news paper correspondents in Washington have aver had to deai. At our semi weekly press conferences at the White House, we do not always find the President informative, but we invariably find him chatty. Some times be is positively garrulous. He always is verbose when he wants to answer questions without saying any thing or committing himself. Charm of Coolidge Personality. Although the President is not ex actly the "Silent Cal" of popular fic tion, he is thrifty with his words when conversational economy la use ful. The American people are so sur feited with wind bags that they wel come the arrival in public life of a man who even has a reputation for keeping his mouth jjhut. In private, conversation, the Presi dent, as I know from personal ex perience, is as communicative as any man. He has a hospitable manner, a winning smile, and considerable I charm. What the outside world looks upon as his coldness is to a large ex tent shyness and genuine modesty. He cares nothing for show, the cheap social graces, small talk or idle com pliments. You seldom talk with Mr. Coolidge without feeling that he has an adequate grasp of the topic under discussion and a mind open to con sider it from the other fellow's point of view. President's Favorite Ballad. The President, X believe, is ap proaching national and international questions in that mood. He is not a builder of air castles, or afflicted with an exaggerated vision, or fired with any evangelical ambition to re form either his own country or the world at large through a program of Utopian but impractical idealism. Except on the single issue of govern mental economy, we detect no sign of the cruBading spirit in Calvin Cool idge. On that issue he is inbued with almost religious fervor, but it is tinged, as all Coolidge policies are, with a very practical quality. Just before the President left Washington for his summer vacation, he delivered a farewell speech on his favorite subject of economy. Econ omy is the song Mr. Coloidge sings more effectively than any other bal lad in his political repertoire. He has undoubtedly lifted it to the dignity of the paramount number on his po litical program. He told the Busi ness Organization of the Government that he is committed to a policy of "relentless economy." The President's all-dominating pur pose in preaching and then practicing Federal economy is of course the re duction of taxes. He wants the American people to understand that without persistent economy in the ex penditure of public funds, there can be no progressive decrease in tax burdens. (Continued on Page Four) Ihisy satisfy Is no csitch phrase it's a taste -description of Chesterfields SUCH P O PULAB.ITY MUST BE DESE R.VED Liourrr & Myim Tobacco Co. M ifi v :A sf'teca i i . A SK That FeOow Feeling vrOU are all wrapped up in the merchandise that fills your store. You enthuse over the qual ity of this article and that line. You probably display the goods at tractively, too. All you need now is to transmit your enthusiasm to the buying pub lic of your community and your goods will move out and profits roll in. ADVERTISE. For advertis ing makes the customer feel as you do about the goods you have to sell. Every time you talk to prospective buyers through an Advertisement in The Gazete-Times, you are in creasing the fellow feeling that brings business to your store. AN ADVERTISEMENT AN INVITATION IS mere