The Quick and the Dead

I

WHY is William Edgar Borah? Why was Mr. Lodge? The latter had so meshed himself into yesterday that it is hard to speak of him, after thirteen short months, as now having passed out and on. This with the affection which the nobler emotions excite toward the dead. These two men are coupled in contrast here because the one is, and the other was, the best-equipped man in the Senate. There are stiffer intellectual tests elsewhere, it is true, for some now sit in the Senate who allow a singular subject to keep company at times with a plural verb. As it was with Mr. Lodge, so it is now with Mr. Borah: the first question in the Senate gallery is, ‘Which is he?’ In some of their qualities they blended. In others they sharply separated. They were much unlike and yet strangely much alike. They stimulate study. The study stimulates.

As they appeared on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Lodge and Mr. Borah were quite diverse in physique. Mr. Lodge did not impress as does Mr. Borah. Though abstemious habits and exercise had always kept him fit, Mr. Lodge was of frail contour, particularly in later years. Mr. Borah has a large, powerful frame. If driven to the ring for his sustenance he would survive, and in the heavyweight class. Mr. Lodge’s hair had the aristocratic twirl of the blueribbon Skye terrier, a coiffure least uncommon among the Beaconese. Mr. Borah has almost a mane, which, like that of many a statesman of the West, ceases behind, thick and abrupt, like the docked tail of a show horse in the old days. It shrinks from the shears as the wheat-fields of Minnesota are a stranger to the hum of the lawn-mower. Mr. Lodge wore the type of hat seen in the college yard at Cambridge, while Mr. Borah assumes the black slouch often seen in Texas. Mr. Lodge was the more careful in his dress, while Mr. Borah is content to measure up to the tests of Boise only. Mr. Borah, like most men, goes to work in négligé. Mr. Lodge was seldom seen outside of a so-called boiled shirt. Mr. Lodge in his tout ensemble suggested the thoroughbred of any species, perhaps a Kentucky thoroughbred. Mr. Borah is leonine. Men looked up to the skill of the former, while they contemplate with awe the power of the latter, who sometimes forgets the gentler arts.

Mr. Borah is lonely. On analysis, so was Mr. Lodge. Their condition was much the same. The causes were largely different. Mr. Lodge was born into an atmosphere symbolized by the Massachusetts Historical Society. He belonged even before he was born. Hence he did not naturally herd. This disability was chargeable more to his ancestry than to him. For why should one who was born to ride a motor-cycle be asked to play sympathetically with those who ride velocipedes? He was a child of convention, of those who think most of how they do what they do. With him it was less bad form to come late in a Pierce than early in a Ford. No one ever called him ‘Cabby’ or sacrilegiously slapped him on the back. And yet, with many, with Mr. Borah it is‘Bill.’

The natural rut of Mr. Lodge was teaching and writing. This rut for some time he walked. Then, tiring of academic position and of money, like many he sought power, and in politics. A Cabot of the Cabots, so far as a Cabot properly could he set out to bevel his social edges, but only as discipline and for the political prizes of life. He sought to remould himself. Unlike Mr. Borah, he learned to lament his loneliness. Like Mr. Borah, however, he remained happiest among the few who appealed to his fancy. The essence of Mr. Lodge was culture.

The place of his nativity and his temperament found Mr. Borah, and have also left him to-day, lonely. As against Mr. Lodge, the causes were different but the effect much the same. Unlike Mr. Lodge, to this he is largely indifferent, and he has never sought to reform. History records no even semitransition with him. For him the merry-go-round has had no natural charm. Nor has he sought to simulate one. Born on the then frontier lands of Illinois, nature and not man was his stimulus. The forests to him meant strength, eloquence, and loneliness. In the exigencies of that life they suggested to him, not alone wood, houses, and kitchen fires, but above all, perforce, self-sufficiency. He was a child of freedom. As he was as a boy, so he remains to-day as a man. A lawyer by education, he passed on into politics. This has been his most commonplace act. He then did only what a host of others have done. It must have wounded him. The essence of Mr. Borah is individuality.

II

These two men, then, saw their names engraved on desks in the Senate for the first time together in 1907. They were there together seventeen years. They had survived the perils of the polls. They had been jostled by the crude heelers who walk the way of politics. This entailed less suffering on the part of Mr. Borah than of Mr. Lodge, for Mr. Borah’s nerves are more subcutaneous. He is not so sensitively strung. Mr. Lodge suffered from constant nervous strain, whether there was much of a cause or not. Mr. Borah is somewhat phlegmatic. Like the Newfoundland dog, when the steam orchestra stops, he sleeps. Mr. Borah was the more fortunate of the two in that he was the first eight-cylindered man who had come out of Idaho. To its people he looked bigger than did Mr. Lodge to Massachusetts. Whether he plays in tune or out of tune, Mr. Borah knows that Idaho knows that with him she is largely known and that without him she is largely unknown. Hence he can romp and hold his seat. Idaho hangs on him more than he on Idaho. Mr. Lodge, on the other hand, knew that a successor to him would not have to be drafted. He recognized that he must watch his step, to keep clear of the muddy spots, to hold his seat. He was but one of the eminent men who had sat from Massachusetts. She is not easily dazzled. Monadnock, like Mr. Borah at home, looms out of the foothills of New Hampshire. Mount Washington, like Mr. Lodge set off against the traditions of Massachusetts, is somewhat shadowed by its sister satellites. The contrast between these two men now passes on from one of back coloring to one more of equipment and attitudes.

In emotional temperament, Mr. Lodge was sensitively strung. He was at times a turbulent torrent. This found expression in feet never at rest, when he was sitting, and in the cigarette, a symbol of restlessness. Few if any men have seen Mr. Borah with tobacco. The emotions make and unmake. Harnessed they create; otherwise they destroy. The electric current is an asset when as servant it drives machinery; a liability, however, when as master—lightning — it kills and burns. Mr. Lodge’s emotions were an asset. As a poet he stood almost alone in politics, with his great beauty of expression. His perorations were always appealing, when he often spoke of his love for Essex and the Old Bay State. His ‘Here’s to the pilot that weathered the storm,’ and his great talents, concentrated, made Calvin Coolidge almost less unpicturesque, in the campaign of 1919, after the police strike. His quotation, ‘So Valiant-forTruth passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side,’ closed his memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in the Senate with almost swamping appeal. On the other hand, Mr. Borah’s virility of physique augments, as it always does, the force of what he says. This advantage Mr. Lodge offset with skill, as when Mathewson, with waning strength, substituted his fade-away ball for speed. Had Mr. Borah and Mr. Lodge been hitched in the old days to a heavy load, the former would have thrown his whole weight into the breastplate, while the latter would also have indulged in a little prancing. His was the lighter touch.

In voice, Mr. Borah is a mellow modulation, while Mr. Lodge rasped a bit. Thus Mr. Lodge’s voice carried farther, in a way like the tearing of a bed sheet. Mr. Lodge had irony but small humor. Mr. Borah has the former. To speak is natural to Mr. Borah. It was a speech for the governor of Idaho that won him the governor’s daughter as a wife. Speaking, with Mr. Lodge, was a taught art. When as a young man he began, one had to go early to be sure of a seat in the back row, when there were plenty elsewhere. In his mature years it was hard to find a seat anywhere. Mr. Lodge was less unpliable than is Mr. Borah. Mr. Lodge could enjoy caviar. Mr. Borah cannot. Mr. Lodge was the less inaccessible. To siege the Borah citadel, one must arm himself with a series of countersigns to pass the draw and portcullis. Mr. Lodge was controversial, politically and personally. Mr. Borah is controversial, officially only. Of the two, Mr. Lodge prayed with the less zeal for his Biblical persecutors. As a constructionist, one who looks forward, Mr. Borah is strong. Here Mr. Lodge was vulnerable. Mr. Borah presses forward; Mr. Lodge held back. Mr. Borah would rather do something at the risk of mistake; Mr. Lodge preferred a perfect percentage to chance. The Republican state committee was never harder pressed than when it attempted to set forth, in his campaign of 1922, Mr. Lodge’s constructive record. It cried for yeast.

With some, the disability of Mr. Lodge was that he was understood. With many, the disability of Mr. Borah is that he is not. No one ever asked for an interpretation of Mr. Lodge. Little else is asked of Mr. Borah. There is some solace here for Mr. Borah, in that his files are a stranger to an advertising invoice, for the curious will satiate their curiosity and at their own expense. These did not pursue Mr. Lodge, for they thought that they understood him, whether they did or not. He looked easy. Some say that Mr. Borah’s aspiration is the Presidency. Such an aspiration may have influenced the course of Mr. Lodge, in a small way. It was advocated by Mr. Roosevelt in 1916. The first aspiration of Mr. Lodge was triumphant Republicanism. The first aspiration of Mr. Borah is to blaze the way in a great speech toward a greater America. If he becomes President it will be, not because he seeks a following, but because he tolerates it. Otherwise, why should he press the cause of Russia? Why did he oppose the bonus? Some say that he does not like the President personally, and yet a portrait of the President covers the whole of one wall at his apartment. Some say that riding, with him, is a martyrdom and a medicine, forgetting that he first threw his leg over a horse at seven years of age. A man who rides as many as two hours a day rides because he likes it, not as medicine. Nevertheless, Mr. Borah does not do his best work with his legs. Strangely, these two men have had but one avocation, — more strangely, the same and in the same place, — riding in Rock Creek Park. Mr. Lodge was the more of a horseman and an expert in his day. Both have lived almost to see more horses in Nahant than in Idaho.

Mr. Borah succeeded Mr. Lodge at the head of the Committee on Foreign Relations by the rule of seniority in the Senate, where men qualify, not by ability, but by age — as a horse with the veterinary by his teeth. Here these two men have shown diverse qualities. Mr. Lodge’s fear was, perhaps, that the Committee would not follow him. Mr. Borah perhaps fears that it will. This place he has the capacity to adorn if not the fancy to qualify. Here he is materially out of sympathy with the President, on the issue of the World Court, for example. So was Charles Sumner, at one time chairman, out of sympathy with President Grant on the St. Domingo issue — and Sumner significantly a Senator from Massachusetts. With Mr. Lodge it was method. He was punctilious and punctual. In his correspondence he was unique and remarkable. Even in the busy days of the fight over the League, the idlest letter received an answer, and often a long one. In this respect it is sometimes the late Mr. Borah. At a dinner once held to consider some grave question of policy, he came in with the fish and went out with the salad. Some say that when he is billed to speak no one is sure that he will until he has.

In the quality of courage, in an honest estimate, it must be conceded that Mr. Borah is braver than Mr. Lodge was. In his own campaigns, Mr. Lodge was timid, peculiarly so for a veteran. Here his son-in-law, Augustus Peabody Gardner, was a vital tonic. Mr. Lodge never spoke for himself, with but one exception and at Symphony Hall, Boston, — his greatest speech, — where he said: ‘I am a Senator of the United States. My first loyalty is to that bright flag in which the stars glitter and the sight of which dims our eyes and chokes our throats when we see it in a foreign land.’ He hesitated under fire at times because, more than Mr. Borah, he loved the approval of his fellow men. Mr. Borah stops with the conviction that he is absolutely right, even when alone. His quality to him offsets their quantity. With Mr. Lodge it was more the ego of personality than of principle. It was a common question with him after a speech: ‘How did I do?’ He insisted that Thackeray was justified when he laid down his pen and cried: ‘My God, that is genius.’ In his fight against the League, when he was at times tempted to compromise, it is a fact that it was the spur of Borah that kept him an Irreconcilable. The courage of Mr. Borah has never been questioned. He was great when, almost alone, he opposed the so-called salary-grab bill. He was never braver and more idealistic than in his great words against the bonus, ‘ I will not buy my reëlection with four billions of the people’s money,’ when the timid hesitated before the Legion and the ballot box. Again, in his opposition to the confirmation of Mr. Warren, he said: ‘I do not propose to sit, criticized and silent, when I am simply responding to my obligation under the Constitution, to advise and to consent.’ In this speech he measured up to Burke. Here he was looked upon also as wise in Wisconsin, Idaho, and in some parts of Cappadocia — that is, outside of Massachusetts.

III

Nowhere were these men more diverse than in their attitude toward their party. With each it has been his country first, his party second, with this qualification, however, in Mr. Lodge: that, in his estimate, upon the salvation of his party, first, hung the salvation of his country, second. As a patriot he worked through his party for his country. In this way it was party before country. With him a country without a party was a man without a country. With him his party was his religion. For it he clung to nominees, however daubed, as to Mr. Blaine in 1884, and temporarily forgot intimacies, however close, as with Mr. Roosevelt in 1912. In his own words, he gloried as ' a regular of regulars, ‘ and looked upon his party primary as the pilgrim looks upon a shrine. With him at the gate none but Republicans could qualify for Paradise. Mr. Borah, on the other hand, is troublesome to the party leaders. They pretend to forget him, but they are always careful to find out where he stands, as one seeks the whereabouts of furniture when walking in the dark at night with bare feet. Mr. Borah does not prostrate himself before the letter R. With all his irregularities, however, on one day of the year he is politically polite: that is on election day. Mr. Roosevelt flirted with him in 1912, but could not alienate his affections.

Mr. Lodge believed that a Republican was above attack. Mr. Borah believes that sometimes he is beneath attack. It was easy for Mr. Lodge to respect his party because he was largely it. To Mr. Borah the procession is one where he is the van and the camp followers, the right and the left wings, and all this modestly. Mr. Lodge could subjugate himself, as he did at Cleveland in 1924. Mr. Borah was not at the convention, nor would he touch the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Borah cannot subjugate himself. Mr. Lodge had a great respect for majorities, always when they were Republican, and at other times when they were with him. Mr. Lodge asked: ‘How many voted?’ Mr. Borah asks: ‘Who voted?’ With Mr. Lodge, when the majority spoke, there was a presumption that they were right, if they were Republicans. With Mr. Borah there is a presumption that they are wrong, whoever they are. His self-confidence is superb, and shaken only when others agree with him. Then he moves on to another attitude, if not altitude, for he wants to be alone. In any company in which Mr. Lodge marched, he kept step: whereas often, with Mr. Borah, he is the only one to keep step when — if he marches. Mr. Borah, with the greater wisdom, looks upon a minority, those who dare to differ, as often the snowplough, the wedge-force for progress. He would rather be the whole of a defeat than a part of a victory.

Reëmphasizing the individuality of Mr. Borah, in this respect he stands apart from Mr, Lodge as he was and as all Senators are. In this quality he is not only at Lis worst but also at his best. He is always skittish in company. Hence he is seldom skittish. Unlike Mr. Lodge he cannot be driven to a pole. To Mr. Borah heaven is a minority of one and he that one. This he never nearer approached than when he opposed the postal pay-raise. Then he was in a minority and was one of three only. He fears death only because it is commonplace, for all men die, and because he will then be with a majority. To him, when the man Friday was cast upon that desert isle, then was Crusoe crowded. Should he be driven to an avocation, then it would be cards and solitaire. When he can ride horseback without a horse, then will he approach his ideal. All these lonely qualities he showed — that is, to those outside of Wisconsin — when he commended the anointing of the younger La Follette. Then he outstripped those men who may have opinions, but which no one can ascertain. And yet, with all these peculiarities, Mr. Borah is modest and men seek him.

In this quality of individuality he also finds his great strength. It is true that he would have gone further, as most men measure marches, had he surrendered himself over to a trainer. Perhaps this has been hard, for few might assume so grave a responsibility — certainly no stalwart Republican. Here he is strong, for he does not deviate from his course through hope of favor or fear of frowns. He takes a position with courage, indifferent whether others follow or fly. That old powerful four-lettered word, ‘they,’ which too much controls civilization, has small terror for him. This in an era when the halls of legislation are too much cluttered with the spineless, whose first and only hope is to find sanctuary with safe majorities. This quality makes Mr. Borah what he is on the floor of the Senate. When he rises, then the doors open inward only. Then a dropped pin in the Chamber makes a noise like a bursting bomb in no man’s land. Then there is a hush, and moths nest on the gavel of the presiding officer. This talent of public speech is the weapon of his individuality. Then is Mr. Borah at his best. Then is he not only himself, but also vital to the Senate. Great is that man who forgets himself for his country and its salvation as he sees it. This though sometimes he is called not ‘safe’ — a term which the sometimes decadent apply to their own.

With the pride of a mother in a son now dead, Massachusetts to-day remembers Mr. Lodge where he was great. He was a superb mental machine. As such he led the Senate. Reemphasizing the essence of Mr. Lodge, — his culture, — this showed preeminently in his speeches and in a spirit of poesy. Here there was no second to Mr. Lodge on the floor of the Senate, as when the America raced for the cup in foreign waters. His sentimental side, when touched, became a fountain, a rich-running river of the purest water. He was a master of history and of letters, unequaled in the Senate. He read much. He heard much. He forgot nothing. This made him a virile and efficient fighter though he had never learned the great Biblical resources of a soft answer as a power in eliminating wrath. One sees him today in tender reminiscence as he entered or left the Chamber, with restless energy, or walked the aisle as he talked. On the platform of a political convention, then was he where he belonged. Then he walked upon the clouds. Few who then listened could withstand the power of his appeal. Then were even the religious tempted to forget that great commandment: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ He had drunk the cup of politics to the dregs. He was drenched with the praise of many men. He had touched the peak of statesmanship as a majority of his country saw it. But the strain had begun to exact its toll. In hot summers of hard fighting, which mature years could not withstand, he had wasted himself in the cause. He had become an evening star, when many turned to another star which is now in the ascendant. But Henry Cabot Lodge could not turn from the burden and give up power for peace among his books.

Of such was Mr. Lodge. Of such is Mr. Borah. Of such is the contrast. Mr. Borah is left to lead the Senate to-day — that is in his equipment. In those days he gave way to Mr. Lodge only because of the disability of a birth delayed by fifteen years. The one was, the other is, a scholar of history and a statesman. Blending here and separating there, each has been vital to the Senate. What a superman Providence could have shaped out of these two, their failings filtered here, their virtues toned there, urged on by that conception of grand idealism which is the aspiration of the Church.