Party Business

Last week in the consideration of the Italian debt settlement Senator James A. Reed turned his oratorical beacon upon a subject that was not directly under debate:

"What this Government needs is a political upheaval to sweep away the dead wood. I do not hesitate to ask my party associates what the Democratic party is here for? To join in these nefarious schemes? To unite with Mellon in all his demands? A few days ago my secretary (Hicklin Yates) defined a Democrat as one who worships at the shrine of Woodrow Wilson and votes with Andrew Mellon. The Republicans at least have a policy--even though it is a buccaneering expedition.

"We Democrats get upon the floor and stick pins in them. We deliver homilies about the President's riding a hobby horse. It is the most innocent thing he ever did--and the most commendable.

"No wonder the people of the country repudiate the Democratic party. We could not even hold the solid South were it not for the race question. We have no more concert of action or continuity of purpose than a lot of chickens in a barnyard when an owl comes along."

Judging from other recent expressions of politicals and observers, there are not a few Democrats who credit Senator Reed with having spoken with the owl's wisdom.

The tax bill is passed; the World Court is entered (so far as Congress is concerned); the Italian debt is settled; the tariff, farm problems, postal rates, reclamation difficulties, senatorial cloture, labor problems in the coal mines and on the railroad have grown cold on the stove for want of a little fire; prohibition fury is bubbling away to nothing in a futile investigation.

What the malcontent Democrats are saying is: This session of Congress from a political standpoint has been a total loss. Where, where under sun or moon or in the dark of night is Democratic leadership? Where is the opposition?

The vacant passages in Democratic ears await in vain even the rumble of a distant drum. The clash and clangor of battle is strangely lacking. Now and again the silence is broken by the popping of a single gun, or a fusillade against the flyscreens of the White House.

And Democratic voices, the voices of Nestors who recall the glorious battles of the golden age of politics, bellow the roster of their captains: "Robinson of Arkansas! Would you be President by sleeping the moon away in the quiet of your barracks? Walsh of Montana! Why are your battle cries so feeble?" And then their cries turn into lamentations which no echo answers.

The real trouble is not that the leaders are incompetent but that they are not competent enough. This is a year in which Senators and Representatives are elected. The Senators who this year come up for re-election were elected in 1920 in a Republican landslide. The Democrats among them are Underwood of Alabama, Caraway of Arkansas, Fletcher of Florida, George of Georgia, Broussard of Louisiana, Overman of North Carolina, Smith of South Carolina-- all from the solid South. The Democrats have not a chance of losing one of their seats, but the Republicans have seats which may be lost to Democrats this year in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington. In a few of these 14 states there is a mere chance of the Republicans' losing; in a few of them there is a decided probability that the Democrats will win. In most of them it is too early even to give probabilities. But in these 14 cases by the law of chances and probabilities, the Democrats should take a handsome profit. At present the Democrats hold 40 seats in the Senate and 48 would be a working majority (leaving 47 Re, publicans, including those merely nominal, and one Farmer-Laborite).

So the Democrats are in a fair way to profit without an issue and without a general pitched battle, and they have at least a good case for a counter argument: That it is the Republicans who have failed to arouse an issue, for without a great rallying cry like "No foreign entanglements!" which they used in 1920, the Republicans have small chance of holding their working majority. The leaders of the Democrats are at least astute enough not to lose this advantage.

But the outcry of the malcontents is unanswered. The Democratic leaders are not great enough to forego a small profit for a chance of a greater, to swing a united party behind them into the battle line and lay the fortunes of their party upon the lap of the gods. They have no great benefactor of mankind to teach us new dissatisfactions--the stuff of which our issues are made.

The Democratic party in the Senate has three wings: the urban, wet, conservative East, the dry, conservative South, and the Progressive, dry, agrarian West. The tariff and prohibition, two issues which still bear in them the seeds of vigorous dissension, of partisanship and high political fury, will either' of them split this loose confederation.

Outside the Senate there have been and are other leaders trying to formulate the terms of leadership. Such is Governor Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland. His speech last week before the Boston City Club gave his idea:

"I am fighting for the rehabilitation of the States; for the preservation of their rights under the Constitution; for a larger measure of self-government and a more vital State; for less centralization and more individualization; for more reality in politics; for more interest in government; for a higher intelligence; for a broader tolerance--all because in the last analysis these are factors in the great equation of political liberty. This is the one touchstone by which all government must be tested. And I sincerely believe that our fundamental liberties are in jeopardy."