Debt of Gratitude

Oldtimers in Boise like to tell of the Idaho farm boy who some years ago returned from a trip to their city, breathlessly told his father that he had seen the great Senator Borah. As proof, the lad said he had heard a number of Boise people addressing the stranger as "Senator." "Son," the farmer drawled, "those city slickers were fooling you. Now what in the world would a man like Senator Borah be doing in a place like Idaho?"

Idahoans, indeed, have seen little of William Edgar Borah since they first elected this Illinois-born lawyer to the U. S. Senate in 1906. He owns no residence in Idaho. Rarely has he risen on the Senate floor to speak out for Idaho's sectional interests. Last week Senator Borah knew the acid test had come for this absentee political landlordship. Did Idaho Republicans think his reputation for Senatorial eloquence and independence worth a sixth term?

Idaho's Republicans, at any rate, preferred their 71-year-old statesman to Townsendism. In the Republican primary Senator Borah got 30,000 votes to the 9,000 massive-browed Byron Defenbach got from hopeful oldsters.

Meanwhile Democrats gave Charles Ben ("Cowboy Ben") Ross, an astute Bible-quoting politician who is the first Governor of Idaho ever to serve three successive terms, the Senatorial nomination over blind U. S. District Attorney John A. Carver. Idaho had, Senator Borah noted to his dismay, cast 7,000 more Democratic votes than Republican.

Last week, girding himself for the toughest fight in his political career against "Cowboy Ben" Ross, Senator Borah turned up at Boise to say of his loyal constituency with unprecedented warmth and familiarity: "I do not believe any public man ever owed the debt of gratitude to the people whom he was seeking to serve that I owe to the people of Idaho. After 30 years of service and under rather involved circumstances, they have given anew their assurance of confidence. I prize this above all things that could come to me in the way of compensation. It is a great comfort, which nothing can take away."

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