THE ROLL CALL
Kentucky's Chance THE RESOLUTION for election of Senators by the people was before the House. The Honorable Ollie M. James, of Kentucky, having appropriated the floor and, as is his wont on...
...From their point of view his is a very bad case...
...All of which goes to indicate that Kentucky can materially improve its representation in the Senate by permitting Ollie James hereafter to "waste" his time in the Upper House...
...If James is wrong and anybody is to blame, it is those System interests, which, controlling tariff legislation, have perverted the protective system and made the tariff in many respects just about what James says it is...
...We can not go into Paynter's record in this Roll Call, but a fair illustration of this contrast is that between James' work on the Ballinger-Pinchot investigating committee and Paynter's grand little performance as assistant "whitewash" artist under the leadership of the repudiated Senator Burrows, of Michigan, in the investigation of the Lorimer case...
...The System machine beat James again, because the machine had the votes...
...The way James voted, "NO" on that Congressional Mileage Grab is still fresh in the recollection of some of the older members with nervous systems none too robust, more especially among those who wanted the money...
...Of course, the rest of us are not much alarmed at James and his type...
...Though not yet forty years of age, James is serving his fifth term in the House, which is some evidence of accomplishment as an on-rusher...
...That the Ballinger-Pinchot investigation brought forth as much as it did, in the way ef disclosing to the people the mismanagement of their trust estates for the benefit of System interests, was due, so far as the committee was concerned, to the work ef James and one or two other House members, who would never have been appointed on the committee had the Speaker had free choice...
...James doesn't need a band anyway, or anything else that can't keep up with the procession...
...Ollie James cherishes mortal hatred, it is that breed which comprehends the long list of versatile schemes for the enrichment of shipping interests at public expense...
...in the Second Session, supporting the bill to promote the safety of railway employees and travelers on railroads, by limiting the hours of service of train operatives...
...Steel Trust Doesn't Like Him IN THE Fifty-ninth Congress, he went on record on every roll call against the steel trust scheme to incorporate the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal Company by act of Congress...
...He is against a protective tariff, and he doesn't care who knows it...
...James is not to blame for this...
...In fact, the majority of the people manifest a decided liking for this type...
...Chairman Foss of the House Naval Committee and of the House conferees on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, led in the fight to have the House reject the Newlands amendment...
...Practical persons" who followed the proceedings of this committee were wont to wonder how a man of James' skill and acumen as a trial lawyer could be "so foolish as to waste his time in Congress...
...It was a modest little measure to give the promoters about everything that they could make use of along the proposed route, including public streams and high-ways with the right to capitalize the canal at some $800,000 per mile, without any adequate provision for the ascertainment of its value or cost of construction...
...This bill, as presented to the House, proposed to incorporate a company to construct, maintain and operate a ship canal from Lake Erie to a point on the Ohio River near Pittsburg...
...On Ballinger-Pinchot Committee WHEN, in the last Congress, the resolution came before the House for the appointment of the House members of a committee to investigate the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy, James was one of those who took a leading part in forcing the selection of the House members of the committee by the House itself, instead of having the committee packed by appointees of Speaker Cannon, in accordance with the grand little scheme that had been worked out in advance in the interest of Ballin-ger and the Morganheims...
...On this proposition, from the first roll call on Dalzell's motion to re-adopt the Cannon rules to the last roll call on the Burleson resolution to oust Cannon from the Speakership, he voted against Cannon, Cannonism and the System...
...Also, it was heard in the Lorimer camp in Washington...
...In this case James was on the winning side and, when the House came to choose its committee members, James was among those chosen...
...James votes...
...This is what happened, as shown by the Record: "Mr...
...And good, too" you say...
...James is for revising the tariff—with an axe...
...When the System majority of the committee would force an executive session to determine whether certain witnesses and records, called for by the attorneys for Glavis and PiNCHOT, should be ordered produced by the committee, James voted always for investigation and disclosure, never for suppression and concealment...
...On this proposition he is not analytical...
...To the special pleaders of the shipping interest, in and out of Congress, he has answered a uniform negative and in a tone which has never indicated the slightest hesitation...
...Partial to Labor JAMES is open to the charge of favoritism toward just one constituency, and that is the people who work with their hands...
...That Toga, Please, Judge...
...The Speaker...
...Yet he does not on-rush without preparation, for be it known, he had "begun his legislative career at the age of sixteen as a page in the Kentucky legislature...
...There is no secret about this, for James made th.e announcement himself and it was heard in Kentucky from the river, on the West, to the mountains on the East...
...The Honorable Ollie M. James, of Kentucky, having appropriated the floor and, as is his wont on occasions, the attention of the Members and other persons within the Hall of Representatives and the adjoining corridors, was agitating the "circumambient air" with distinctly audible, concise, positive and convincing vocal expression of certain conclusions by way of emphasizing the public good to be subserved by the proposed reform in the method of electing Senators of the United States...
...One of the early fights of James' Congressional career was that on the armor plate investigation in the Third Session of the Fifty-eighth Congress...
...And so are most people, thanks largely to the aforesaid perversion of the protective principle by special interests...
...In the Fifty-ninth Congress, James was back on the job, opposing the Frye Ship Repairs bill and voting on every roll call to beat the big ship subsidy graft of that Congress...
...A little later, he appeared as attorney in the famous Goebel election case...
...And, judging from the speaker's remarks immediately following, one might infer that he was referring rather pointedly to some actual occurrence in connection with the election of a Senator or Senators under the present system...
...James is running on his record—and on Paynter's...
...Yes, "good," except that it is a bit "technical...
...Most of us have come to understand that the having of views and conclusions of this character is only the consequence of some honest, intelligent, and independent thought and study—a manifestation, as it were, of the courage to make the logical connection between cause and effect in public affairs and to announce the result as measured by the standard of the pub-lie interest...
...Always he fought the plans of those who were bent on exonerating Ballinger, regardless of facts...
...Blue-grass people have a tidy custom of keeping the fences surrounding their door-yards neatly whitewashed...
...His mistakes, and like all men he has made mistakes, are "bunched" in his early years...
...Another reason why the steel trust does not like James is his support, in the Second Session of the Fifty-ninth Congress, of the appropriation for a government gun foundry at the Washington navy yard...
...Now that we have in public life a number of men of the James type, the country has got quite used to it, so to speak...
...A Big On-Rushing Personality THE Hon...
...For, when James says "NO," you had better believe that the clerks do not have to strain their ears to get it...
...Admitting that seven of the 108 votes cast for Lorimer were shown to be corrupt and that 102 votes were necessary to elect, as the final ballot was taken, Paynter's pet contention was that the seven corrupt votes were simply null and void and should be deducted, not only from the votes cast for Lorimer, but from all the votes cast in the election, thus leaving Lorimer with 101 votes, but reducing to 99 the number required to elect...
...Of course, the steel combine, through its representatives, in and out of Congress, brought every pressure to bear to prevent the investigation...
...Ollie James is no common come-along...
...Mr...
...If a tariff must be levied to defray the necessary expenses of the government, he is willing to stand for it...
...In fact, he sees to it personally that they are understood...
...The things that James said and did on that occasion will be laid up against him in Wall Street to the end of time...
...Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry...
...Space will not permit us here to discuss the three hundred odd passages of the record wherein James took a hand in the examination of witnesses, holding them down to the facts and prying out of them unwilling and damaging admissions...
...Physically and mentally, he is a big, forceful, on-rushing personality bent on making progress with a minimum of lost motion...
...Not much...
...As for the snug and smug citizens aforesaid, they will come along, too, in time—perhaps...
...James, you will find right up in the first section of the procession, right next to the band...
...James defends his attitude in behalf of labor on two grounds...
...Always he was alert and aggressive...
...The Rules and the Tariff IN THE contest for reform of the House rules in the last Congress, James never missed a roll call and, he never failed to vote against the System machine and for government of the House by the House...
...He studied law and was admitted to the bar before he was twenty-one...
...In accordance with these principles, we find James in the First Session of his second term working and voting against the measure to repeal the eight-hour law on the Panama Canal...
...He even prepared an amendment to that effect...
...His Respects to Wall Street HAVING on numerous occasions and sundry propositions invited Wall Street's special interests to "deplore" his legislative conduct and to "view with alarm" his demagogic attachment for the public interest, James concluded in the Second Session of the Fifty-ninth Congress that it was timely for him te pay his respects to Wall Street proper, which he did by getting into the fight during the pendency of the Aldeich Deposit Bill, which proposed to provide for the depositing in Wall Street banks ef several additional millions of government money, no mention being made of interest on said deposits...
...He appealed from the ruling of the Chair, but, of course, the Cannon machine stood by Cannon and Wall Street...
...The difference amounts to a contrast...
...Paynters record is different from that of James...
...Accordingly, it was and is...
...With the support of the Cannon machine, the armor plate interest finally won out, but the votes of Ollie James were counted against them at every stage of the contest...
...Thus, from the beginning of his service in Congress, and on every proposition, whether the graft was to be thousands or millions, James has stood by the public interest on this proposition, voting and working against it in every form...
...In fact, James does not consider it a waste of time to serve the people of Kentucky at Washington, when he can do so with profit to them and honor and distinction to himself, but then, of course, he is not a "practical person...
...James went the limit...
...He followed by fighting at every step the so-called Frye Shipping bill and the Philippine Shipping bill, which were all snakes of the same breed...
...Even before he was admitted to the bar, he was heard as a campaign orator in many parts of his state...
...But James made the record straight and the record, if made and kept straight, will in time put the System machine out of business...
...If he ever compromised a principle of his political belief or if he ever traded a vote for favors of the Cannon machine, the Record does not indicate the occasion...
...The gentleman will state it...
...And when he votes anybody who happens to be hanging around is perfectly welcome to know how he votes and they don't have to wait for the publication of the Congressional Record either...
...First, the things that he has favored have not been special privileges or special legislation, but simple justice...
...I want to offer an amendment...
...An Ascending Record JAMES' record of service in the House is, on the whole, a good record...
...The Speaker...
...Senators and Whitewash "THEY will no longer have to investigate how great a cor-ruption fund was collected by the trusts and monopolies to control and buy up members of the legislature...
...On the other hand, he cherishes an equally distinct and even more positive antagonism to the wasting of good, wholesome whitewash in the disgusting business of deodorizing and rehabilitating crooked and corrupt "statesmen" and their rotten political fences...
...And the band will have to "hump" too, or James is apt to walk right over it without taking any special notice...
...He began in his first session by voting on every roll call against the measure for a Merchant Marine Commission to devise campaign material in behalf of shipping subsidies...
...He voted against it and fought against it, and he showed up in the H©use the crooked agreement by which the conference committee, in secret session dropped out of the bill the Johnston and the La Follette amendments in the public interest, which had been put in the bill in open debate in the Senate...
...has them frequently...
...In politics he is a Democrat, also a democrat...
...Speaker, it will, in my judgment, make unnecessary hereafter the use of so much whitewash in making reports upon bribery charges, and the people may have whitewash for their fences throughout the country in which we live at a reduced price...
...Having and entertaining which partiality and antagonism, respectively, the Representative of—not merely from but of—the First District of Kentucky naturally proceeded to "let it be generally understood...
...Fortunately—for Wall Street—the Cannon machine stood between it and this outrageous "assault upon property rights...
...He declared positively that it was wrong and, worse, it was not Democratic to continue for all time to legislate in Congress upon the theory that the government and its finances should be managed for the sole and exclusive benefit of Wall Street and he demanded that the deposit bill be amended to require the banks t-o pay interest on government deposits...
...This amendment," declared the speaker, in his usual carefully modulated tones—which could be heard throughout the Capitol and by everybody except Representatives Cannon and Mann of Illinois, and a dozen other Tory Congressmen and those Senators who belong to pre-Revolutionary times and whose auricular nerves are insensible to the sound of any progressive idea—"this amendment, that gives to the people the right to ect their Senators by a direct vote, will make unnecessary after its adoption, costly investigating committees, holding long drawn out sessions at great governmental expense, investigating how many members of the legislature were bribed, or whether a man really confessed he was bribed when he was not...
...Watch the little pea...
...On the tariff, James is a Democrat with a large "D...
...The things he said of Wall Street to Wall Street's representatives were not complimentary to either...
...The gentleman from Kentucky has not the floor for that purpose...
...They are generally progressive in type and plenty vigorous in composition...
...Ollie James cherishes a distinct partiality...
...That is what the Cannon machine was there for and they beat James and his amendment and passed the bill, but they knew where James was at when they got through...
...The James "No" JAMES is just as much opposed to graft for the benefit of Members of Congress as he is to graft for the benefit of special interests...
...Paynter not only joined in the "whitewash" report of the Lorimer committee, but made a four-hour speech in the Senate in defense of Lorimer...
...He is a Progressive, a follower and champion of William Jennings Bryan...
...The excellence of his record has grown steadily with his service...
...During his first term, an amendment was offered to the General Deficiency Appropriation Bill, appropriate ing an extra $190,000 to pay Members of Congress so-called "mileage" for travel which they never performed...
...If they don't nobody will care—in time...
...In all the vicissitudes of political fortune he has not found it necessary to repudiate either his leader or his principles...
...On this proposition James never has made a mistake from his first day in Congress...
...In the Senate, Senator Newlands had worked into the Naval Appropriation Bill a little amendment to provide for a government investigation of the armor plate monopoly that was holding up the government on its battleship armor...
...He says the tariff is a graft and it isn't worth while to analyze a graft...
...James was not even allowed to offer his amendment...
...JAMES is a candidate for the Senate against Senator Payn-ter...
...no dark recess of the cloak room for him...
...In fact, he has decided to "waste" several more years and, not to be small in the matter, he is going to "waste" it in six-year terms in the Senate hereafter...
...If there is one breed of legislative snake more than another for which Hon...
...Ruled off the floor by the Speaker, James did not quit...
...Another important thing about him is that he has views and conclusions...
...Whereupon, he offers the Judge this bet: "The idea of saying that a man may become a candidate for office and may go forth and bribe the number down to where he has a majority of those un bribed and get the office is the announcement of a doctrine that would undermine the republic and make the senate, more than it is now, the bulwark of plutocracy, bribery, and corruption...
...and second, that laboring people are the people, or so nearly so that their welfare is synonymous with that general welfare, to promote which the Republic was founded and the Constitution formed...
...The James Type THAT'S one of the important things about James and his views and conclusions—he lets them be understood...
...In the next Congress he came back at Wall Street again on the Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Bill...
...Again, in the Sixtieth Congress, he voted and worked against the passage of the ocean mail subsidy bill...
...The hand, gentlemen, is quicker than the eye...
...It is a wholesome and proper use of whitewash and one for which Hon...
...The big boy from the First District of Kentucky was watching the little pea and he saw the Judge pick it up as he put down the middle shell...
...This gun foundry, if established, would, by enabling the government to make some of its own gun castings, put a serious "crimp" in the trust's plearsant business of charging the government what it pleased for castings which it was in the habit of delivering when it got ready...
...But James doesn't mind "wasting" his time in Congress...
...always he was for a full and thorough investigation...
...Slick argument, isn't it...
...James, in fact, is that type of public man with whom the frequent recurrence of views and conclusions on public matters reaches the point of causing certain snug and smug citizens in Wall Street and some other streets, whose private interests are more or less involved, to "view with alarm...
Vol. 3 • April 1911 • No. 17
