The Senate and Public Welfare
THE COMMONWEAL
A Weekly Reuiew of Liter~we, The Arts, and Public AfFairs. i i Volume V New York, Wednesday, January 12, 1927 Number Io CONTENTS The Senate and Public Welfare...
...Nigel Tourneur 268 THE SENATE AND D ISCUSSION of the right of Colonel Frank Smith to the seat in the United States Senate to which he was elected by the voters of the state of Illinois, has ranged from denunciation of the direct primary to demand for further curtailment and stricter regulation of campaign contributions...
...It is this: If an individual is elected to the Senate from any state, for what purpose is he elected...
...Jessica Powers 269 Communications...
...George N. Shuster 260 The Problem of Italy...
...Certainly, it is altogether too late for the Republican party to accept any such assertion with- out protest...
...Even the most practical of politidans pay tribute, willingly or unwillingly, to the public opinion of the nation when it makes itself heard on an issue such as has been raised by the state endorsement of the senator-elect from Illinois...
...As, on that theory, its decision could not be questioned by the judiciary, it could reject a senator for any reason whatever, Who can tell what waves of class or political feeling may hereafter arise in the turbid stream of American political life...
...here are the Democratic members of that august body urged by such an influential party organ as the New York World to seat the man who defeated George Brennan because of his "rights"--and both seem determined, whatever the outcome, to give the whole matter a thorough airing...
...Nay, the very fact of such condonation may make such a man all the more obnoxious and more potentially dangerous in the opinion of citizens of other states who are fighting to restrict the privileges of special interests within their own borders and see in the seat- ing of such a man by the Senate a challenge to the forces of reform...
...Either the word "qualifica- tions" means the legal qualifications, which are care-fully prescribed in the Constitution, or it means the intellectual and moral qualifications of a senator-elect to sit in the Senate...
...He was not given his seat as the member from Northampton because at first he i'efused to obey a rule of the House which required him to take an oath, whereas he desired to make an affirmation...
...Now while the definers of the technicalities may appear to have somewhat the better of the nationwide discussion over the seating of Colonel Smith, there is one fact about the situation which has arisen which is as strikingly significant as it is eminently satisfactory...
...Or might not a Senate of fundamental- ists exclude a ~va~ator on the grou~ of b~is heterodoxy, as the English Parliament tried to expel Bradlaugh be- cause he was an atheist...
...253 Week by Week...
...Political leaders and senators generally on both sides of the chamber show singular unreadiness to seek refuge in the technicalities elaborated for their benefit...
...After all, it is rather late in the day in this country to assert that state rights are superior to public opinion in the nation...
...William Franklin Sands, Robert R. Hull, George D. Meadows, Frederic Taber Cooper, Theodore Maynard, George M. A. Cain, George N. Shuster, Ernest Sutherland Bates, Frederick H. Martens 272 The Quiet Corner...
...It must be confessed that the proponents of this latter point of view--some of whom have little admira- tion for Colonel Smith and still less for his methods--The Only Door (verse...
...In other words, he is a lawmaker for the nation as a whole and not for any restricted section of it...
...Beck points out, the senator-elect from Utah was seated...
...Suppose that the Senate were dominated by radicals--might they not hold that any senator-elect who had been the president of a business corporation, or a banker, or a railroad presi- dent, was by reason of his economic ties, quite unfit to be a senator ?" Such speculations are interesting but far from con-clusive...
...Here are the Republican members of the Senate in such straits that in order to ensure a bare majority of two, they must court the favor of Hendrik Shipstead, the Farmer-Labor member from Minnesota...
...R. Dana Skinner, H.W...
...If the latter view be accepted--and none would have more surprised the framers of the Constitution --then the states only preliminarily determine the in- tellectual and moral qualifications of a senator and the Senate finally decides the question...
...For the question of the qualifications of senators has gone far beyond the confines of parties...
...on occasions when their sense of responsibility to the country brought them into conflict with the popular sentiment of their respective states, they voted as members of a national assembly and faced the storm aroused at home with consciousness of duty done...
...It will scarcely be contended that he is chosen to advance wholly and solely the interests of his particular state...
...And public opinion throughout the United States, having in mind the fact that the Congress legis- lates for the whole country, and not for individual states, which have legislatures to enact laws regulat- ing purely domestic attairs, does not look with favor on the seating of a senator-elect who does not deny that while the head of a state public-utilities commis- sion, he accepted some $300,000 from the public-util- ities interests to use in the campaign which resulted in his election...
...279 PUBLIC WELFARE make out a strong case...
...258 Whitewashing Broadway...
...That would be against the whole purpose of the preamble of the Constitution under the authority of which the election was held...
...255 Birth and Breeding...
...Bernard Fay 264 Religion in Russia Today...
...Lawrence Maynard Grey z66 Books of Mary of Scots...
...269 Poems...
...When, after re~lection, he presented him- self and took the oath, he was immediately seated, although he was then as outspoken an atheist as he had been when he first appeared on the floor of the House...
...It is virtually a social club and could potentially be a self-perpetuating body...
...Might not a majority of the Senate, if they were fanatical "drys," say that any sen- ator who did not believe in the Eighteenth Amend-ment or who questioned the necessity of the drastic requirements of the Volstead law, was so hostile to the amended Constitution of the United States as to make him unfit to be a senator...
...27 I Books...
...One envisages the duty of the Senate as dear: it must refuse to seat Colonel Smith because public opinion throughout the nation rejects the thought of recognizing as a senator one who, while chairman of a state public-utilities com-mission accepted contributions to his campaign fund of some $3oo,ooo from public-utilities interests...
...Senator Smoot's seat was unsuccessfully contested on the ground that the obligations of his religion were in- consistent with good citizenship...
...If conditions have changed in recent years, if the distribution of local patronage has become to many of more importance than the promotion of the general welfare, or, on the other hand, if threats to withhold patronage have been used to sway senators from doing their part in establishing justice for all citizens in all parts of the country, one may well ask whether an indi- cation of willingness to serve the interests of small and powerful groups within a state at the expense of the taxpayers of the whole state should not be considered in discussing the qualifications of such a man to serve the country as a whole, even if such indication has ap- parently been condoned by the voters of that state...
...the other discloses the state as sovereign and the conse-quent obligation of the Senate to seat the candidate elected by the people of Illinois, since that state has no statute restricting the amount which any candidate may spend, nor any law requiring a statement of ex-penditures by a candidate or his committee...
...Might not a Prot254 THE COMMONWEAL January 12, 1927 estant majority of the Senate exclude a Catholic on the same theory...
...He is elected to do his part in establishing justice and promoting the general welfare...
...If so, the Senate has unlimited power to determine its own membership...
...From the welter of words in which eminent editors, distinguished jurists and prominent educators have at times made confusion worse confounded, emerge two opposing points of view in regard to the main issue...
...259 The Cross of Malta...
...There was no attempt by the British Parliament to expel Charles Bradlaugh be-cause he was an atheist...
...But admitting the contention of the former Solicitor-General that the Constitution formed the Senate as the peculiar representative of the states as political entities and that all that body can do in dis- putes such as the one under discussion is to judge whether a senator-elect is truly the choice of the state which elected him and meets the constitutional re-quirements as to age and place of residence, it is pos- sible that there is another aspect of this whole question worthy of consideration and one which makes the matter of public opinion throughout the nation not only pertinent but impressively practical...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Reuiew of Liter~we, The Arts, and Public AfFairs...
...Th~ere was a fight on the seating of Senator Smoot, and, as Mr...
...For example, James M. Beck, former Solicitor-General and dose student of the Con- stitution, discussing the power of the Senate to pass on the "qualifications" of its members, says: "As to this, there can be only two views, and no middle ground is possible...
...Thomas Walsh, Mary Brent Whiteside 270 The Play...
...The statesmen of bygone generations realized this obligation very keenly...
...i i Volume V New York, Wednesday, January 12, 1927 Number Io CONTENTS The Senate and Public Welfare...
...Luigi Sturzo 262 French Catholic Literature...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 10
