Big Wigs

It used to be a custom--it was until 1913--that every year the Vice President gave a party for Congress. Quite a reception it was, the invited including 96 Senators, 435 Congressmen, Cabinet members and Justices of the Supreme Court, Army and Navy officers of high degree, a few hundred diplomats--a crush. But the modest Marshalls and the retiring Coolidges gave up the demonstration. This year the Daweses, with a large house and plenty of money, decided to resume it. In fact it is to take place very soon.

The reception is certain to be a mob scene, the envy of Producers D. W. Griffith or Cecil B. De Mille. Imagine the quandary of even a well-informed newspaper correspondent, cornered perhaps by Pra Sundra Vachana, First Secretary of the Siamese legation, or Abu-el-Enein Salem Effendi, second attache of the Egyptian legation, with the inquiry: "Monsieur, will you be so kind as to point out to me the gentlemen who have recently distinguished themselves in the operations of the Congress?"

The reporter would probably begin with assurance: "Well, now I'll point out the celebrities of the Senate. . . .

"Of course there's your host, the Vice President. He began by making all the Senators angry by proposing that they put a limit to their talk. Every now and then he still speaks of that limitation, but the whole incident seems in a fair way of being forgotten. You see that man with the iron grey hair and iron jaw--rather a fine figure --that is Senator Jim Reed, a Democrat. He is dissociated from his Democratic colleagues but he has put up a fine fight on nearly every issue that has come before this Congress. He poured forth fire and brimstone on the World Court, on the Debt settlements. He is one of the fiercest attackers of prohibition. You see that map with the big weather-worn face? That is Mr. Borah. He is our finest orator. The galleries are always full when he is going to speak. He belongs to the other party but his stand on foreign relations--he is chairman of the Committee--is about the same as Jim Reed's. They are the two most forceful men in the Senate, but each of them is more likely than not to be opposed to the rest of his party on any given question. That is why they are not leaders. That erudite looking man over there is one of the two Mormons in the Senate--Senator King of Utah. He talks more than any other Senator. He has something learned to say on almost every subject, but he does not carry many votes with him. That good looking, young-looking fellow just to your left--he is David Reed, a cousin of the other Reed but a Republican. He is rising fast, a staunch supporter of the Administration. . . .

"There is Norris. He is a Progressive Republican, perhaps the ablest of the insurgent group--now that LaFollette is dead. He keeps the regulars hopping. That dark, short young man over there, immaculately dressed, is young LaFollette who succeeded his father. He is a newcomer in the Senate; so he has not done much yet.

"That pair--you see them?--the one with the dropping mustaches is Curtis,* Republican leader. He came years ago from Kansas, with Indian blood in him. You seldom hear from him. He is all the time behind the scenes patching up compromises, pleasing people. The tall thin man next to him with the long neck is Smoot--the other Mormon. He is chairman of the Finance Committee. He speaks with a soft voice and retires from the outworks when somebody sets up an outcry. That third man, going up to them, looks like a. prosperous business man and he is. It is Butler, who is supposed to be especially close to the President and the personal representative of the Administration. He tries to manage things but he is not always successful. That grey-haired man with rather stiff movements is Bruce. He is a Democrat and another one of the vigorous antiprohibitionists. Like King, he has much to say on many subjects. He too is very learned and fond of classical allusions, but he can be fierce at times. James Couzens, millionaire, isn't here. He has been ill of late. When he is in top form, he makes a formidable opponent. That solid, dark little man is Robinson, nominal leader of the Democrats. He is a downright fellow. Of late a good deal of his time has been taken in putting through Administration measures--the World Court and the tax bill. There is Walsh; he is the Democrat's hanging prosecutor, only he hasn't found any Republican to gibbet for the public recently. That other man with the wavy, black hair is Pat Harrison, a first-rate denouncer. There was a time when Harrison poured Greek fire on the Republicans, and Walsh poured quick lime. . . .

"This man who may remind you of a pompous schoolmaster is Hiram Johnson. He used to be a rip-roaring Progressive Republican. He still votes with them, but he seems to be an extinct volcano. The old gentleman there, with a kindly face--no, not that one; he is Frederick Gillett, who used to be Speaker of the House and has now retired to the dignified bosom of the Senate as a reward for his long and faithful labor in the Republican cause. The other one farther back is Senator Cummins, who used to be a Progressive Republican, but now is one of the Nestors of the Senate, chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and one of the new Progressives, Brookhart, is going to try to displace him. Ah, and do you see this large face and figure advancing? That is Heflin, who used to be chief demagog of the Democratic party, but his voice seems to have grown tired, and Caraway, with his low sarcastic drawl, twits him. This neat little man is Moses, one of the Republican irreconcilables--quite a wit in his way. His speeches are usually short, a sentence or two, delivered from the back of the chamber. His barbed arrows used almost always to go straight to Achilles' heel, but they don't fly so fiercely as they used to."

"But where are the leaders?" asks the foreign diplomat.

"Oh, that you must decide for yourself," answers the newspaperman. "And now I shall show you the leaders in the House.

"You see that fellow with the large chest and ruddy face looking straight before him in the midst of that admiring group? He is smiling and blushing. Probably someone has just suggested that he will be the next President. That is Nick Longworth, the Speaker. He and his cronies run the House by dint of goodwill and numbers --because, you see, politics in the House isn't half so individualistic as in the Senate. Everybody likes Nick. He is the likable boss, although that lean stiff man, Tilson of Connecticut, bears the formal title of Republican leader. The impressive old man over there is Burton of Ohio. He used to be a Senator, but now is back in his old haunts. For all his 74 years, he is astonishingly able, active.

Yonder is Finis Garrett, the Democratic leader. He is brilliant but inclined to be erratic. Ogden Mills is just coming in. He is a Republican and comes from the silk stocking district of Manhattan, a Harvard man, with plenty of money, able, incisive, one of the best on the Ways and Means Committee. The man with the shock of white hair is Haugen, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture whose farm bill is raising such a rumpus. You see that smart young man who is going around and making so much of a party out of this? That is John Philip Hill of Maryland, who has appropriated to himself the leadership of the vociferous Wet bloc. There is Jack Garner, the Democratic Chief on the Ways and Means Committee. It was he who united with Bill Green, the chairman, to make a non-partisan tax bill. That fellow with the flowing black locks, who looks so political--he is Tom Connally of Texas. He has a sharp tongue and uses it to tickle Republicans between the floating ribs. The thin little fellow with crutches--sharp face, dandy hair--is Upshaw, of course, the champion of prohibition. The Anti-Saloon League gives him $100 for every Dry speech he makes. See that elderly man, with a sort of hard-shell face? That is Snell, chairman of the Rules Committee. He is a red flag to the radicals. They think he is the special representative of the interests. Over there is Martin Madden, who has the difficult job of chairman of the Appropriations Committee. There are a lot more of course. Will Wood, who runs the Republican Congressional Committee, and Oldfield, who occupies the same post for the Democrats, and others who cut a figure, for one reason or another--Jim Begg, and Fred Britten and Henry Allen Cooper and Hamilton Fish and Howard, who dresses like William Jennings Bryan, and Wingo of Arkansas--you can't stop if you once start picking them out."

"I thank you," says the diplomat; "I thank you very much. But where are the leaders?"

* Mr. Curtis' great grandmother was the daughter of White Plume, a chief of the Kaws, and granddaughter of a chief of the Osages. She married a French trader, Conville, and their daughter, Julie Conville married another French trader, Pappan. This gentlewoman, Mr. Curtis' grandmother had an Indian allotment on which Mr Curtis was born. Ellen Pappan, his mother married Captain O. A. Curtis. Part of the Senator's boyhood was spent on the Kaw reservation.