Der Tag

On Dec. 3 opens the first session of the 68th Congress of the United States. That is Der Tag for Robert Marion La Follette, senior Senator from Wisconsin. In 1905 Mr. La Follette first went to the Senate. He had previously been elected governor of Wisconsin three times in succession. He had instituted remarkable " reforms." Great things were expected from him as a leader of the progressives. And then came disappointment -- many disappointments.

He never gathered a large following. His was always the righteously indignant voice of the protesting minority. His followers deserted him at crucial moments. He joined the ill-fated Progressive Movement of 1912. For years he has been a minority candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination. But his trouble was that lie could not work continuously with able assistants. In the words of Edward G. Lowry* he has " no facility for mutual easements and accommodations." He is a leader of the insurgents because he is their prototype, their most explosive dynamite. But a weaver of a stout party, he is not.

At last he comes into his own. The opening of the 68th Congress is his day. It is for him to make history; for this year he rules Congress--rules it in the same way that, as the progressives say, one man rules the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision. With opposing weights almost evenly balanced he stands at the fulcrum of the teeter-totter, able to see-saw decisive power to either power. It is the supreme triumph, the acme of power, to which a man of La Follette's type, by character an eternal insurgent, can attain.

The majority of Mr. La Follette's group are, like himself, labelled as Republicans; a few are Democrats; and fewer still, Farmer Laborites. In the Senate 49 votes are a majority; in the House 218 votes. The Republicans list on paper 50 Senators and 225 Representatives--but only on paper. The La Follette group numbers 10 or 15 in the Senate and from 25 to 50 in the House. They are not bound by iron-clad allegiance to Mr. La Follette; some will come and some will go on every issue, but there are enough of the La Follette-minded always to form a group that will hold the balance of power.

Last week Senator La Follette was reported ill with influenza. He is 68 and his health no longer what it was once. It is even possible that considerations of health may keep him out of the Presidential race next year. If influenza should keep him from the opening of Congress, he will be there, represented in spirit by his two lieutenants--Senator Norris of Nebraska and Representative John M. Nelson of Wisconsin.

* Editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger.