NORRIS OF NEBRASKA
Norris of Nebraska Article in August Number of Plain Talk NORRIS OF NEBRASKA was written by one of the best known newspaper correspondents of Washington. Unfortunately, however, his paper...
...Great Journals carried editorials and signed statements calling on him to carry 011 the struggle...
...He has a way of blunt, unadorned, terse expression that is sensational in lis effect...
...His declaration of battle was a ringing manifesto to liberism throughout the land...
...A greater issue than that is at stake...
...To Washington the suggestion "uphold the hands of the President" raises an outcry of derision...
...The Department of Labor, in June, received 195 preliminary Reports Of Heaths...
...He said he was "thoroughly sick, tired and disgusted of forever trying to accomplish something for the public, welfare and forever finding those efforts blocked by the greed of selfish interests and the prejudice of partisan politics...
...The reelection of George W. Norris to the United States Senate for another term of leadership and great usefulness there means that Nebraska gives to the Nation a desperately needed clarity and vision and idealism in the present-day economic and social problems...
...That...
...is a good motto for lawyers as well as admirals...
...When he stepped onto the stage alone he faced a packed hall and apparently a bitterly hostile crowd...
...Another celebrated instance of this genius for overwhelming simplicity was the opening statement of his attacl: upon Newberry of Michigan, when it was disclosed that several hundred thousand dollars had been expended to elect him to the Senate in the days when the public hud not become accustomed to the million dollar campaign funds of the Vares, Mellons, McCormicks...
...the acebarrister of New Haven, Conn,, didn't give up the ship and the other day his efforts in behalf of Mrs...
...THE announcement produced a remarkable demonstration...
...Parker was rejected and Hoover was forced to name a much abler man...
...Uphold the hands of the President...
...In no other state in the land were such words heard...
...Through every grade of court, and utilizing every legislative device, Attorney Koletsky carried his fight to allow Mrs...
...A PUBLIC auction was held in the state of Michigan, and the thing which was put on the block to be knocked down to the highest bidder was a seat in the United States Senate," began Norris...
...an end to "yellow dog" contracts and injunctions in labor disputes...
...Soon it will bo on the desk of President Hoover for his signature, and the moment he affixes it there will be jo.in at least one New Haven family and something even greater...
...He became widely known for the liberalism of his justice and it was inevitable that he should be nominated on popular demand for Congress...
...as his advocacy of or the Democratic senatorial candidate In Pennsylvania In 1928 as a protest against the graft and corruption of the Republican Vale's nomination...
...Beginning with Nebraska thousands, of letters and telegrams poured in .beseeching him as the one...
...He attempted to make no capital out of the Cannon victory...
...The sweep and authority of the declaration simply took away the breath of the House and swept away with it Cannon's iron grip...
...HE at once launched into a careful and dispassionate review of the events that were leading up to the declaration of war and his own part in them...
...Ulrich and that bill was passed in the Lower House with a four to one vote in its favor...
...Attorney Joseph Koletsky...
...A bill to this end is now pending in the Senate after having been fought by Norris through two years of committee obstructions...
...All patronage was denied him and both in Washington and in Nebraska the Old Guard Republican organization stayed awake nights working over schemes of how to "get" him...
...Repeated attempts were made to persuade, and when that failed to "draft...
...From all sections of the country the message came...
...which censured Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut, for his secret lobby associations during the writing of the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff bill that resulted in the inquiries of the Senate lobby investigating committee with its amazing record of disclosures of the behind-thescenes operations in the Capitol...
...Men and women cried and cheered...
...First, for an education...
...One wonders how It can possibly' be...
...The exception is Norris of Nebraska...
...Tiie last resource was Congress and to Congress Attorney Koletsky brought the...
...After repeated failures a choice was finally hit upon...
...Other stales will have the opportunity this year of serving themselves and rewarding meritorious service by returning distinguished senators to their seats in the august chamber...
...Everyone in or out of office should vole for what he thinks is right and in utter disregard of partisan considerations...
...No fanfare of campaign pledges, no grab-bag of promises...
...It just can't be done...
...Thirty-three United States senators, a number of them really distinguished men, are up for reelection this year...
...SIMPLY and straightforwardly, as is his way, he Is meeting Ills Inveterate foes...
...He is always accessible, never harboring a hidden bitterness...
...And because the odds were so desperately againit him he calmly and quietly decided to run for the Senate...
...I offer no apology for the course I have pursued and the only promise I make is that if I am reelected to I lie Senate I will continue to pursue it...
...stake...
...I am one of the best 'compromisers' in Congress," he himself says...
...The man La utterly without guile, bombast or egoti<ni...
...When friends in Nebraska warned him of what was under way he promptly accepted the challenge and reentered the fight "for the principles for which I have stood and fought all my life...
...And that is why powertrust magnates, bigoted dry demagogues, and public and private corruptionists are pooling their resources and schemes in an effort to "get Norris...
...To any oilier man without money, without organization, without publicity, the outlook would be daunting...
...according to Miss France:) Perkins, State Industrial Commissioner...
...When I can't get what I want I take what I can get, provided the required concessions don't outweigh the gains...
...as has been pointed out, almost a miracle...
...Norris' very simplicity makes him...
...Norris should find in the life of this valiant insurgent of his day the inspiration and poetry that, he docs is profoundly fitting and .significant of the well-springs of the "most useful man in American public life" as another great American once characterized him...
...the least showy of men, often of tremendous dramatic power...
...latter's wet stand, the fanatics, always disliking him...
...In the past session he was the leader of the challenge of the appointment, of Charles Evans Hughes to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, on the ground that his great utility associations unfitted him for this exalted post...
...But though he supported the Bull Moose ticket he maintained titular identity as a Republican in that campaign, as "he has done throughout his independent career since...
...The increases over May were conned manly to construdtion work, which reported...
...To Nebraska alone is given the privilege of not only expressing its gratitude to a noble and devoted servant, but by doing so of rendering the Nation as a whole the most signal service...
...He responded to the demand, was renominated and reelected by overwhelming majorities...
...He returned to Lincoln, the Capital of the State, and at his own expense hired the largest hall In the city...
...His speech is always simple, straightforward, homely...
...And yet there he Is, In Die United state Senate, a man whose love of right and Justice is as fierce as most men's greed and acquisitiveness...
...law.—New York Mirror...
...Nebraska needs and wants regular Republican representation, they are saying...
...the German wife of a representative American citizen, a man hi good circumstances and a veteran of the World War, was refused admission to this country on the grounds that in her girlhood she was convicted in the German courts of a minor offense...
...In all but one instance, interest in the outcome of these elections rests chiefly upon the personal fortune of the individual senator...
...It was his patience, his enthusiasm, his strategy, that brought the Insurgents and Democrats together and time and again welded them into a potent fighting lorce that smashed to smithereens the opposition of the Old Ouard...
...During these years he assiduously studied law...
...Norris was born on an Ohio farm...
...Send a man who will "uphold the hands of the President," they urge...
...Norris held Parker was not big enough for the great post, and that, his economic and racial views further disqualified him...
...To them the reelection of Norris would be the greatest body blow that could be sustained in this year's elections...
...How can you, they demand querulously in private, uphold the hands of a President who runs like a scared child at the slightest intimation of a fight, and whose Administration, although less than half through, has already become an epic in failures, vacillation and reaction...
...Stewart...
...the supreme issue of whether vital and uncompromising liberalism shall continue to be represented and voieed in the highest reaches of our national government or Whether reaction, deniagoguery and fanaticism shall stifle its most potent and tearless champion...
...Behind this sugar-coated front the great mercenary forces of wealth, politics and morals are making their fight against Norris, who is standing literally alone, without money or organization, with only the loftiness of his cause and the purity of his character to appeal to the mass of voters...
...There is the profound and utter sadness in his eye of a man who has seen and met with much hardship, who has fought and labored for hit fellows and who has suffered bitter blows in the cause he has espoused...
...I .submit the issue to the constituency which has stood so loyally behind me all these years...
...Among the most historic is the opening statement in his now famous speech challenging Speaker "Uncle Joe" Gannon's czardom of the House when Norris was a member of that chamber...
...He is of medium height, but his frame discloses the rugged hardness and hardihood of a Westerner...
...The final outcome of that relentless fight was Newberry's retirement from the Senate and public life, as later he was followed by Vare, and Frank L. Smith, of Illinois...
...and against him are arrayed all the power and might of predatory interests and all the little, mean, vicious bigoted packs doing their masters' bidding and hating Norris for his pristine independence, his inviolate integrity, his gleaming straight-.speaking...
...KOLETSKY HUMANIZES A LAW "Don't give up the ship...
...His cruelly difficult life, struggling as he has almost from birth i for a livelihood and an education and on through manhood against reaction, corruption and injustice, has left an indelible impression upon his gentle face...
...He accepted and was elected in 1903...
...Instills and Grundys...
...They know with a far keener perception than the great mass of Nebraskans that Norris reelected means far more than merely the return of a distinguished individual statesman to the Senate...
...Unfortunately, however, his paper Is reactionary in character and his job would be jeopardized if his identity became, known...
...But compromises should be arived at honestly, in sincere effort to do what is best, and not be used as mere devices in playing the game of practical politics...
...A volume would be required to enumerate and describe the causes that Norris has led in the Senate, Many of them have been forlorn, but some have been crowned with success...
...He taught school in a frontier community...
...But to Norris of Nebraska it is but one more fight in the unending struggle lie hits always made and led, often single-handedly, in the more than forty years of his devoted and patriotic service to the people of Nebraska and the Nation...
...Within two years he was made District Attorney and a tew years later he was elected judge...
...Today although well into sixty years of age he is at the height, of his physical and mental .powers...
...INDUSTRIAL DEATH TOLL IS CLIMBING ALBANY, N. Y.-A "substantial increase" in the number cf deaths caused by industrial accidents was shown in June, as compared with May...
...He quietly returned to the comparative obscurity that surrounds an insurgent member of the House...
...By 1910 he had developed an insurgent group in the House which launched the successful and historic fight against Carinonism...
...It is when they cease to be instruments and become ends unto themselves or mechanisms of indirection and abuse that I object to them...
...He is almost universally informed and is ever alert to new sources cf information...
...THE meeting broke up in a tremendous ovation...
...I have not the right to yield my views just because a leader or a group running the party as a machine thinks to the contrary...
...whose selection it was disclosed during the bitter fight against his confirmation was specifically made by Hoover for political purposes...
...That he is to be found in the Senate of the United States is...
...That notable battle took him to the Senate, although entirely without his asking for the place...
...But because he has refused to be whipped into line by the AntiSaloon League and because he insisted that there were far greater issues at stake as between Hoover and Smith than the...
...Albert B. Fall, and others of the amazing Harding administration, He offered the resolutions which denied the Senate seats claimed by William S. Vare of Pennsylvania and Frank L. Smith of Illinois...
...WELL, if they do it will be by some legerdemain that has the power of making black appear while and good seem evil...
...Norris insisted that Roosevelt was the rightful Republican candidate and lie voted and talked lor the Bull Moose ticket...
...Norris was nearly mobbed as the crowd strove to shake his hand, to pat him on the back, to embrace him...
...whose compassion and gentleness of heart and being is that a poet...
...He denied nothing about Germany's guilt, but he showed clearly the equal guilt of the Allies, Concluding, he offered to resign at once from his seat in the Senate if the Governor of the State would promise to call a special election at once so that the people could pass on his record and his candidacy for reelection...
...The legislature of Nebraska condemned him by resolution...
...Simply and honestly, as he has always lived, so he again came to his people...
...The announcement of this scheme," he declared, "constitutes a direct challenge, not so much against me personally, as against the fundamental principles of government for which I have fought: and if I failed to accept this challenge, it seems to me I could be charged with political cowardice and with a failure to do my full duty at a time when the principles of a free and democratic government are at...
...proof that there is a way to humanize, u slringes...
...General Pershing...
...Because of his reputation for rigid fairness, impartiality and total lack of personal malice it is always Norris who is .sought as the leader in movements for needed Senatorial investigations...
...When he was scarcely beyond infancy Ills father died and from then on he has struggled unceasingly...
...and he also led the successful fight against I he appointment tn the same court of John J. Parker of North Carolina, a pettv politician-Jurist...
...That he should be continued there as long as he can be persuaded to remain is a vital necessity to the progress and liberty of the Nation...
...He introduced the resolution under which the second Teapot Dome investigation was launched and which produced the sensational disclosures concerning the Continental Trading Company, and the distribution of more than $3,000,000 in Liberty bonds among Harry Sinclair, Col...
...The immigration authorities did not take cognizance of the fact, that the German authorities issued a certificate of good character to Mrs...
...Robert...
...He announced that he would make a speech discussing his vote against the war...
...Under the Cable act, Mrs...
...Mr...
...and .as |*he endorsed Al Smith as against Hoover as the belter man, even though he disagreed with the Democratic candidate's wet views...
...So bitter was the economic, struggle in this region that he could find no place to board and had to build his own shack...
...These Interests and elements, ever hopeful, considered that the time was ripe to once again make a fight on Norris...
...And on other issues he has hung on as uncompromisingly for his basic principles...
...IN his early manhood Norris made his way for several years jus a wandering school teacher, sometimes traveling from one place of employment to another in empty box ears...
...When he addresses the chamber he is listened to closely, and he is one of the very few senators whose remarks have a profound effect on the course of legislation in Congress...
...John Munsill Ulrich were crowned with success...
...My oath of office is not to a parly or a so-called party leader, but to the Constitution and the laws...
...and which authorized the work of the Senate campaign fund Investigating committee which has so far brought to light the million dollar campaign funds expended in the Republican primaries of Pennsylvania and Illinois of this year...
...There are numerous instances In his career of this blinding forthriglitness...
...He has completely won over the Senate on the question and in 1928 did likewise with the House, only to be stabbed in Hie back by Coolidge with a pocket veto of the bill...
...The great mass of plain men and women of the State, whose sons were about to be taken off to war rose as one and shouted their endorsement of his courage, his vision, liberalism...
...He wandered into what was then Washington Territory and farmed and trapped for a while...
...He is the idol of the newspaper corps, and the deeply reverenced associate and friend of his colleagues, regardless of point of view...
...Meanwhile he wns drilling toward the Middle West'and finally settled down as an attorney in Nebraska...
...Representative Tilson and Senator Bingham sponsored a bill to admit Mrs...
...His present decision to run for still another term is largely the result of a conspiracy between water power interests and certain dry demagogic leaders, who fear and hate him for his militant independence, to replace him with a complying and "regular" party man...
...If the combination was intended to frighten him it failed...
...Ulrich...
...great champion of free government not to abandon the fight...
...Ulrich to join her husband in this country...
...In his case the question of whether he is or is not reelected far transcends the matter of the fate of the man George Norris...
...no heroics, no rhetoric, no dodging, 110 guile, no faltering, "I would rather be right than regular," he said in announcing his candidacy for reelection...
...He is active and alert as few men are in the Senate, both physically and mentally, and when in action he is without peer tor industry, astuteness, resourcefulness and courage...
...Speaker," Norris began, "I present a resolution made privileged by the Constitution...
...This is his creed and he has never deviated from it, even when it seemed the desperate and foolhardy thing to do, as his defiant vote against the World War because he believed that the war was wrong and would do no good...
...To him I he principle has been the vital matter...
...I believe in political parties and other forms of organizations, but as instrumentalities only...
...Which explains that, feared and fought us he Is, lie is yet the most revered and beloved of men in the Senate...
...Ulrich—practically an apology...
...For ten years he has waged single-handedly his fight to preserve to public operation the vast power resources of Muscle Shoals...
...SIX years ago Norris determined to retire from public life In a public statement he declared that he "had been bucking this game for 30 years" and had decided that it was "unbeatable...
...who has never turned from an issue, and who has never said an unkind word or did a dishonorable deed In the entirety of his life...
...Norris is at one and the same time one of the saddest and yet most lnspiring of men...
...They understand thoroughly that Norris reelected means renewed hope and inspiration to the cause of popular government, a vital impetus to the movement of basic economic reform...
...Nebraska is thus afforded a unique opportunity of serving the en entire Nation...
...His honesty, his simplicity, Immediately fixed him in his neighbors' attention...
...And yet, tenacious and unswerving as he is on fundamental principles, he is no obstructionist...
...That the great reactionary forces grasp fully the real issue at stake in the reelection of Norris is clearly enough indicated by the desperate efforts they are making to defeat him...
...As if all the highbinders, big and little, haven't been trying to do that, since he took office a year and a half ago...
...Except for his striking face, with its sad eyes, deep lines and its crown of snowy hair, Norris presents an ordinary appearance...
...Norris went back to Washington to work for the soldier, to prevent graft and- corruption in war contracts, and to put the burden of the cost of the conflict upon those best able to bear it...
...as when he .supported (he elder Senator La Follette ill his independent, presidential race in 1024...
...Indirectly is the assault launched...
...ALMOST frenzied have been their efforts to get a suitable candidate...
...His insurgency in the 1928 presidential race, when lie bolted the issue-dodging Hoover to support the outspoken Smith, yeemed to them an excellent opportunity to whip up the fanatical dry element against him: although he Is a staunch and sincere believer in Prohibition and total abstinence himself—in fact one of the few in the whole of Congress...
...I know of no character in history to whom Norris is more comparable than his beloved Cyrano de Bergerac, that dauntless hero and poet, who alone defied the feudal overlords and fought them uncompromisingly to the death...
...ALWAYS he has abided by his innermost convictions, lie has followed Ills own conscience, ever| And he has done so without dragging in personalities or Indulging In petty recriminations...
...HE does a prodigious amount of this, attending to the duties of chairman of the Judiciary committee, the affairs of several other important committees, among them that of Agriculture and being one of the most regular in attendance in the Senate chamber...
...But in Nebraska Norris' foes are hoping they can make the false issue stick...
...With the others of the "little group of willful men" as assailed by Wilson, Norris had been ferociously attacked and denounced...
...What his friends say is the most dramatic episode in his entire career is the night he spoke in Lincoln, Nebraska, following his filibuster against the arming of merchant boats...
...So the issue is Joined: Norris the embodiment of the finest in American life, strong of body, indomitable of heart, incorruptible of vision, intellect and fundamental ideals...
...joined with the reactionaries and predatory interests in another attempt to "get" him...
...His heroic persistence is already a legend in the Senate...
...Ulrich matter...
...BUT gently sad as is his face in repose there is nothing of the cynic or misanthrope about him...
...That a man of Norris' insurgency and Independence, of purity of character and Idealism of heart, and mind should in this day and age of triumphant reaction and demagoguery, million - dollar campaign funds, far flung party and propaganda machines be a member of the United Stales Senate is almost a miracle...
...a quiet, "safe," pliant state politician, a "good" man personally, with a record as a vote getter and no disturbing stand on any matter of importance...
...He responded with a characteristic act...
...The next session may very likely see this vital legislation written into the law of the land through his practically singlehanded effort and persistence...
...I hen for a meager livelihood on the frontier: and later lor justice and honesty In public afairs...
...He was the inspiration and force of the coalition movement in the past session of the Senate...
...It is significant, however, that even the correspondents of papers that politically oppose Norris are numbered among his admirers.—EDITOR'S NOTE...
...He attended for a while 'Baldwin University, at Berea, Ohio, and took a teacher's course at the Northern Indiana Normal School at Valparaiso...
...And lie did, as a Republican opposed to Taft who had been renominated that year as the Republican presidential choice...
...There was not a sound of greeting as he began...
...He is chairman of the enormously powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and has brought to a far stage of two years' effort to put...
...He shrewdly refused all temptations, sensing in his level-headed, calculating, self-interestedness the task that lay before him...
...The fight against him is as devious and crafty as the lurking forces that are making it...
Vol. 1 • August 1930 • No. 36
