ELECTION STATISTICS
Election Statistics RETURNS published in the press from the November 2 election do not tell quite the whole story. Interesting and curious angles of the 1926 campaign may be gleaned from...
...All the "lame ducks" in the Senate are Republicans, most of them faithful servitors of the Old Guard and all of them administration supporters...
...Fling wide the doors...
...FARM RELIEF...
...William M. Butler, chairman of the Republican National Committee, the President's bosom friend, and Senator by appointment from Massachusetts, led a fight to oust Gerald P. Nye, Progressive Senator by appointment from North Dakota...
...A lease submitted to a joint committee created through administration influence is now pending on House and Senate calendars for consideration at the short session...
...Senator Brookhart went back to Iowa, defeated Senator Cummins in the primaries by 75,000 votes, and won the election last month by a majority of 150,000...
...It has been blocked by the Coolidge administration and the Old Guard in the House...
...The Senate committee conducted a recount, and by evolving a new theory for arriving at the "intent of the voter," ruled out certain classes of Brookhart ballots and declared Captain Steck the winner...
...There is only one real cure for the evils of the "lame duck" session and the hatching of special interest legislation that always accompanies it...
...Longworth of Ohio, Wood of Indiana, and Tilson of Connecticut came through with their usual majorities in machine-controlled districts, but some of their colleagues did not fare so well...
...Senator Richard P. Ernst of Kentucky, who had previously had a hand in reading Senators Brookhart, Frazier, Ladd and La Follette, sr., out of the Republican party in the Senate, presided as chairman of the committee...
...The "lame duck" group will be his "battalion of death...
...Senator Butler, with an outlay by a committee supporting his candidacy estimated at $160,000, endorsed by President Coolidge in the President's home state, was repudiated by that stalwart Republican commonwealth by an adverse majority for his Democratic opponent of upwards of 85,000 votes...
...A bill sanctioning the Cape Cod Canal "grab" and involving the Great Lakes "water steal" is pending on the Senate calendar for action, after having passed the House at the last session...
...The Old Guard majority in the House was whittled away to the vanishing point...
...The present "lame duck" session would win the thanks of the American people by passing the Norris resolution and making this the last assemblage of its kind to meet on American soil...
...In the Senate the "lame duck bloc" is composed of Wadsworth of New York, Pepper of Pennsylvania, Cameron of Arizona, Harreld of Oklahoma, Stanfield of Oregon, Means of Colorado, Weller of Maryland, Lenroot of Wisconsin, Williams of Missouri and Ernst of Kentucky...
...The lame ducks" will hold the balance of power in both Houses throughout the session...
...Look over the roster of the "lame duck" group...
...Senator Watson of Indiana, who offered the resolution depriving...
...As Congress convenes for another session, President Coolidge is playing host to Progressive Senators at the White House, the press announces, Senator Watson is on the ground early preaching forgiveness and party harmony, and ex-Senator Butler, "free" at last, as the President's spokesman puts it, "to devote all his time to the chairmanship," is back at his post on the Republican National Committee saying nothing to offend the most "unorthodox" of Republicans...
...The purest joys of friendship brings, Which change the bitter into sweet, Till all the world in friendship meet, And gladness, like the sun's bright ray, Warms every heart on Christmas Day...
...The election officials of Iowa had canvassed the returns and declared Senator Brookhart duly elected...
...Then ask yourself whether the weight of its influence will be thrown for or against the public interest on the questions listed above...
...these four Progressive Senators of their committee assignments, was the ranking Republican member of the committee and Senator Brookhart was deprived of his seat by a vote of 45 to 41...
...By SUSAN GOLDMARK (Written Especially for La Follette's Magazine) Fling wide the doors of mind and heart When Christmas comes...
...Bills to regulate radio broadcasters, passed by the Senate and, the House at the last session, are now before a conference committee, which will probably submit a report for final action during the session...
...RADIO...
...Stanfield remains chairman of the Public Lands and Surveys Committee, the committee that conducted the Tea-pot Dome investigation under the La Follette resolution, and the committee that must report any legislation that can be considered by Congress to protect the public domain from further ravages, Lenroot will act throughout the session as chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, to which estimates will be referred within the next few weeks for carrying out the $165,000,000 building program authorized at the last session...
...In the early days of the Republic it was necessary to have Congress meet many months after its election because of the difficulties of stagecoach travel...
...At the last session, Mr...
...Also at the last session, Senator Smith W. Brookhart of Iowa came before the Privileges and Elections Committee to defend his right to his seat against a contest filed by his Democratic opponent, Captain Daniel F. Steck, and the stalwart Republican State Committee of Iowa...
...There are 10 in the Senate and 48 in the House...
...Three of the 10 Republicans On the Foreign Relations Committee are "lame ducks...
...Indeed, his tenderness for statesmen who have been repudiated by their constituents is illustrated by the fact that two of them —Kellogg, Secreary of State, and New, Postmaster-General—now sit in the Cabinet...
...Another Lame Duck Session CONVENING December 6 for its final session, the sixty-ninth Congress will remain for the next three months under the domination of Senators and Representatives repudiated at the polls this year who now occupy the status of "lame ducks...
...The President has repeatedly recommended that Congress turn over the $140,000,000 plant at Muscle Shoals to private interests...
...Here are a few of the important public questions which will come up for debate and settlement at this session,— with the "lame duck" bloc in the saddle: TAXATION...
...After all, the party division in the Senate and the House amounts to little...
...Of the "lame ducks" in the House, 37 are Republicans and 11 minority members...
...Three of the Wisconsin members had no opposition and nearly all carried strongly Republican districts by overwhelming majorities...
...Butler was concerned as to this aspect of the case, he kept his objections to himself...
...Particularly on economic legislation, the line of cleavage is generally between representatives of the public interest and representatives of special interests, and when this line is drawn at the short session, as it will be, the "lame duck" will often control the situation...
...Obviously the standpatters have been studying the November election returns...
...That remedy lies in a constitutional amendment providing that Congress should meet annually in the January following the November election, as proposed by Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska...
...Fling wide the doors of mind and heart When Christmas comes...
...Interesting and curious angles of the 1926 campaign may be gleaned from comparisons of the votes cast for carious candidates for seats in the senate...
...Senator Nye, after a sweeping victory in the Republican primaries, defeated four opponents in the election by a clear majority of upwards of 60,000 votes...
...Many Senators voiced grave doubt that Senator Nye's appointment had been made in strict technical compliance with the law and accordingly and properly voted against seating him...
...When President Coolidge needs votes in the Senate or the House, he will know where to find them...
...Senator Watson, running for re-election in Indiana, which went Republican in 1924 by 200,000, was declared a winner by 12,000 votes on the face of returns which are to be challenged by his Democratic opponent...
...The Norris resolution to submit this amendment to the states has passed several sessions of the Senate...
...Plans sponsored by the St...
...MUSCLE SHOALS...
...It is not because "lame ducks" are any better or any worse than other men as individuals that the "lame duck" system is essentially vicious and entirely out of harmony with the principles of representative government...
...Butler was, however, quoted in the press as being hostile to the seating of Senator Nye because of his "unorthodox" Republicanism...
...Also at the last session, the 10 Republican members of the House from Wisconsin were formally read out of the party because they had supported the La Follette-Wheeler independent ticket in 1924...
...Meanwhile, Old Guard leaders in the House who had assumed to pass upon the Republicanism of the Progressives were having rough sledding in their home districts...
...If Mr...
...They hold 8 of 9 Republican places on the Judiciary Committee...
...These returns also point the way for Progressives to an uncompromising adherence to principle whatever may be the expediencies of a discredited and repentant Old Guard...
...That situation has passed, and with it the necessity of delaying the convening of Congress...
...Fling wide the doors...
...All of these members were returned in the November election, except Representative Voigt, who voluntarily retired from the primaries in favor of another Progressive Republican who was duly nominated and elected...
...RIVERS AND HARBORS...
...In the election November 2, these two Senatoi-s by appointment submitted the question of their senatorial fitness, to the judgment of the electorate...
...Chairman Ernst went back to Ken* tucky, won the endorsement of the state Republican convention, but lost out in the election by 20,000 votes...
...Wadsworth will continue throughout the session to "act as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, in a position to offer legislation, as he has in the past, to fasten a costly and oppressive peace-time military establishment on the backs of the American people...
...Ernst of Kentucky is chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which must consider recommendations made by the campaign expenditures committee and which eventually must pass on the election cases involving Smith of Illinois and Vare of Pennsylvania, As a group, the "lame ducks" in the Senate at this session hold 7chairmanships, They hold 4 of 10 Republican places on the Finance Committee, which" drafts all taxation, tariff and debt funding legislation...
...Louis conference of cotton and grain belt states and by the Grange, both opposed by the administration, will be submitted to both Houses at this session...
...He has no constitutional prejudice against "lame ducks...
...President Coolidge and Secretary Mellon have recommended that Congress pass a bill for granting refunds or credits to taxpayers, netting about 90 per cent of the taxpayers an average of from 33 cents to $1.50 and giving millions in gratuities to big corporations and multi-millionaries...
...The special committee headed by Senator Reed of Missouri will submit its report during the short session on "slush fund" practices in Illinois, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and the Senate will lay the groundwork for consideration of the Smith, Vare and other contested senatorial elections...
...Now love comes in on rushing wings, No barriers now...
...In committee, as on the floor, this group will thus have the power to jam through the kind of legislation that, identified with their names in previous sessions, caused their defeat, and to hamstring and obstruct legislation which is in the public interest...
...CORRUPT PRACTICES...
...Coolidge has jobs to offer after March 4, 1927, when 10 Senators and 48 Representatives will be out of office, and the President has shown that he is essentially a practical man and a good bargainer...
...The balance of power which will be wielded by this group in both branches of Congress will not be a balance between parties...
Vol. 18 • December 1926 • No. 12
