Senate Week

Work Done. The Senate of the U. S. last week:

P: Passed the Kellogg-Briand Multilateral Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy by a vote of 85 to 1 (two-thirds vote necessary); sent it to the President.

P: Debated the Cruiser Bill.

P: Confirmed the nomination of William J. Cooper to be Commissioner of Education, succeeding John J. Tigert.

P: Passed a resolution directing the Federal Water Power Commission to send to the Senate any protests against the lease of Cumberland Falls, Ky., to the public utility interests of Chicago's Samuel Insull; likewise protests against permitting Secretary of the Interior Roy Owen West to participate as a member of the Commission in a consideration of this or other leases.

P: Debated and confirmed the appointment of Roy Owen West as Secretary of the Interior. It was recalled that Secretary West was once attorney to Samuel Insull, once held stock in the Insull interests (TIME, Dec. 17). This personal participation in power transactions had been urged against Mr. West's fitness to be Secretary of the Interior, to serve on the Water Power Commission.

P: Debated the deficiency appropriation bill, with special reference to the amendment proposed by Georgia's Senator Harris calling for $25,000,000 for prohibition enforcement. Three substitute amendments were suggested: Washington's Jones suggested $1,250,000 to be used chiefly for educational purposes; Georgia's Harris wished to raise the Jones amount to $24,000,000. Virginia's Glass suggested $250,000 to finance Herbert Hoover's proposed investigation committee. Bitter and intricate was the argument revolving about these varied proposals. No decision could be reached.

End of Treaty. Preludes to the passing of the Kellogg Peace Treaty were played by two Senators in a genially cynical vein, by Senator Borah, treaty guardian, in an ardent, hortatory mood.

Senator Carter Glass said: "I am unwilling to have anybody in Virginia suppose that I am simple enough to imagine that this treaty is worth a postage stamp in bringing about international peace . . . but it would be psychologically bad to defeat it. . . . I'm going to be simple enough to go along with the balance of you and vote for this thing."

California's Hiram Johnson declared that the treaty's advocates had "analyzed it practically into disintegration." He said he would vote "under no delusions at all." He quoted the swashbuckling versifier Franc,ois Villon:

To Messire Noel, named the neat

By those who love him, I bequeath

A helmless ship, a houseless street,

A wordless book, a swordless sheath.

An hourless clock, a leafless wreath,

A bed sans sheet, a board sans meat,

A bell sans tongue, a saw sans teeth

To make his nothingness complete.

Senator Borah then rose and in a series of resounding periods made the peace-dove seem the most vigorous and promising of birds. It was the high point among his treaty utterances. The ladies in the Senate gallery were stirred. The Senate passed the treaty with but one opposing vote, that of Senator John James Blaine, Progressive Republican of Wisconsin. Two days later he was soundly rebuked by the Wisconsin legislature.