SENATOR WALSH OF MONTANA
Johnston, Mercer G.
Senator Walsh of Montana [By MERCER G. JOHNSTON, Editor, The Peoples Business] The high opinion we expressed of Sen. Thomas J. Walsh in our leading editorial for June, 1928, has risen during the...
...Lately, we have been throwing on* our mental silver screen a "movie-talkie" of the men who have figured notably in the House and Senate since those bodies were first called to order for business April 6, 1789...
...Is a distinctly fine record...
...America may well thank God for It...
...In the light of this interesting experience we do not hesitate to say that Senator Walsh, both in character and intellectual calibre, ranks high among the statesmen who have faithfully and fearlessly endeavored to mftke congress function for the permanent benefit of the whole great body of our people...
...It is a notable record —worthy of the gratitude of his constituents and his fellow-citizens throughout the land...
...With realistic eyes we have tried to get a good look at them, officially and personally, inside and out...
...In 1913, every member of the Montana Legislature, irrespective of party, voted for Senator Walsh...
...We have just gone through his voting record prepared by the People's Legislative service...
...Then, among other things, we said: "In point, of population thirty-five states ' take precedence of Montana...
...But to the eyes of a liberal, progressive mind it...
...Even could his present, opponent come to Washington with clean hands and unblotted escutcheon—as he cannot-even If his capacity for the performance of the duties of a United States Senator was more nearly on a par with that of Senator Walsh than it Is—the good people of Montana ought not for a moment to entertain the thought of not sending their vigorously virtuous veteran senator—a VIR in every sense of the old Roman word—back to the post of his great usefulness to the state and the nation...
...Let the mighty Rockies that divide them look down in November on equal wisdom and loyalty in Montana and Idaho...
...Whose ls> who lives and moves and has his being |n the United States Senate where a public servant, has hardly more political privacy than a gold fish...
...Now we are thinking especially of Montana's great senior senator...
...What Idahoan could reflect greater distinction on Idaho...
...But no state takes precedence of Montana in its contribution of clean, clear, brave brains to the working mind of the United States Senate...
...Every vote a vote either for the best interests of the whole country or (as he understood It) of the people of the state for whom he feels such fatherly responsibility that he must needs yield to their yearnings now and then even at the possible cast of the great whole...
...Then we were thinking more particularly of the junior senator from Montana...
...Thomas J. Walsh in our leading editorial for June, 1928, has risen during the past two years' close-up observation of the United States Senate...
...Idaho will send Senator Borah back to Washington without a moment's hesitation...
...He would have graced any congress...
...A big Borah ballot Is her answer...
...In this important matter the whole nation is its debtor...
...Such criticism of him as she makes or hears she swallows with a smile...
...The public-conscience of America, is kept more keenly alive and on the job, the whole body politic at the moment, by reason of the presence in the Senate of the distinguished senior senator from Montana and his alert, valiant, and able junior colleague...
...Montana may well be proud of It...
...The record Is not flawlosR...
...On the lowest plane of calculation Senator Walsh Is literally worth his weight in gold as a national human asset...
...If he continued to draw a Senator's salary from now until Doomsday, it would not exhaust the wealth he brought back to the nation In the recovery of Teapot Dome and Elk Hills, to go no further...
...The voters of Montana, irrespective of party, would reflect credit on themselves by re-electing him by an overwhelming majority In 1930...
Vol. 1 • September 1930 • No. 43
