The Senate of the United States, and Other Essays and Addresses Historical and Literary
by . New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1921. 8vo, vi+248pp. $2.50.
THESE essays and addresses of Mr. Lodge represent a curious yet characteristic mixture of the active and the passive lives. We feel in them every where the strenuous effort of practical political experience and the remote receptiveness of the leisured scholar.
In the chapter which gives the title to the book, a study of the history and significance of the Senate, the author mainly emphasizes the recognized position, that the Upper House in our government stands for conservatism and stability. He very naturally maintains that the influence of the Senate in this direction has not, on the whole, been unduly exercised, and that recent attempts to shake that influence are dangerous, not only in their immediate results, but in their wider tendency to disturb the reasonable checks upon excessive and violent innovation which were so wisely framed by the creators of the great Instrument of 1789. Critics of Mr. Lodge’s position will, of course, insist that, if the Senate wishes to retain its power, it must not abuse it. Perhaps the shrewdest observation in the essay is that on page 24, repeated in a different form on page 185, that the virulent radicalism of to-day, which aims to destroy representative government in the name of progress, is really reactionary, and would only return to the rudiments of popular rule by tearing down the organic structure which has been erected by the wisdom and reflection of enlightened generations.
The study of Theodore Roosevelt is not directly political, but it shows on every page the view of his character naturally taken by one who has gone through the same struggles, confronted the same problems, and contended with the same obloquy, misapprehension, and abuse.
The address on the Pilgrims of Plymouth is interesting because of the comparison, instituted by the speaker himself, with the situation considered by Webster in his speech of a hundred years earlier. If there is less of buoyant hope and enthusiastic confidence in the more recent words, it is perhaps natural, in view of the misery and terror which have shaken the world; and Webster himself could not insist more vigorously on the imperative need of the Puritan virtues in the present hour.
The bulk of Mr. Lodge’s volume is occupied with far different matters — the study of the classics, the magic of old authors, the scene of Shakespeare’s Tempest, all fascinating to the quiet reader, but all remote enough from the United States Senate, When one sees the charm of these studies for Mr. Lodge, one can but admire the real spirit of patriotism that led him to eschew a life devoted to them and throw himself into what must have seemed to such a temper the sordid and ugly arena of politics. Many scholars and thinkers and literary men are inclined to criticize his course in many ways. Perhaps they are justified in doing so. But, at least, here is a man who did not think himself too good to go down into the dust and mire, and fight; who came out of the ivory tower and forgot the function of eternal fault-finding, and did something. Even if in the process the pure gold of the New England character has seemed at times a little tarnished, this is better than secluding it so carefully that it loses all current value in the minds of men.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD.