Taken at its best, life, to William E. Borah, is little more than a
troublesome pilgrimage to the grave.
This does not mean that he is a misanthrope or a seer of distorted
vision. On the contrary his sympathies are broad and he has an
elusive charm, more apparent in the early years of his political
career than now. But, for some reason, probably temperamental, he
is in the habit of dwelling upon the dangers that beset the
republic--dangers which are sometimes very real. Nevertheless an
hour in his presence is more often than not depressing; it leaves
one with a sense of impending calamity. There are few bright spots
on his horizon.
It is not altogether to his discredit that his more venerable
colleagues look upon him as a young man--he is fifty-six; nor does
it imply merely arrested political development. For all of his
pessimism he maintains a certain freshness, if belligerency, of
spirit which is puzzling not only to those who have long since
accustomed themselves to the party yoke but to those whom
experience has taught the art of compromise. For Borah hates the
discipline that organization entails, in spite of his respect for
organization, and he dislikes compromise however often he is driven
to it.
This may be accounted for by the fact that he was not obliged to
fight his way laboriously upward on the lower rungs of politics--he
landed in the Senate from an Idaho law office in one pyrotechnical
leap when he was only forty two--and by the fact that in his make-up
he is singularly unpolitical. Disassociating him from his
senatorial environment it is much easier to imagine him as a
devotee of academic culture, a university professor, a moral
crusader, even a poet, than as a politician.
There is in his make-up an underlying Celtic strain which may
account for his moodiness, his emotionalism, and his impulsiveness.
These characteristics are constantly cropping up. For many years he
has buried himself in a somber suite of rooms in the Senate office
building as far away from his colleagues as he could get. There he
lives in an atmosphere of academic quiet. There he reads and
studies incessantly, far from the maddening crowd of politics. This
detachment has probably bred a suspicion that marks his actions. He
has no intimates, no associates who call him "Bill." He is not a
social being. He is rarely seen where men and women congregate. He
is virtually unknown in that strange bedlam composed largely of
social climbers and official poseurs called Washington society. He
neither smokes, drinks, nor plays. What relaxation he gets is on
the back of a western nag in Rock Creek Park where he may be seen
any morning cantering along--alone. He does not ride for pleasure;
his physician ordered it and it is a very businesslike matter. If
he experiences any of the exhilaration that comes to men in the
saddle he contrives to conceal it.
On the floor of the Senate he is quite a different person. There
his unmistakable genius for oratory is given full sweep and when he
speaks his colleagues usually listen, not because they agree with
what he says but because they are charmed by the easy and melodious
flow of his words. There is a hint of Ingersoll in his speeches
which are full of alliteration and rhythmic phrases. He has a sense
of form sadly lacking in his stammering and inarticulate
colleagues, for oratory in the Senate is probably at its lowest
ebb. But, strangely enough, it is only occasionally that he makes a
lasting impression. His eloquence ripples like water and leaves
scarcely more trace.
Mr. Borah's entire political career has been characterized by an
impulsiveness which has given him a halo of popularity but has
never enabled him to garner the fruits of plodding labor. At one
time or another this has led him to break with nearly every faction
with which he has been identified. The "regular" Republicans have
felt that they never could rely upon him; the "progressive" element
has found him inconstant and at intervals he has threatened to pull
down the party house of the Republicans and to bring destruction to
one or other of the leaders whom he dislikes.
This was illustrated by an observation he made to me one spring
morning in 1919 when the Republican attitude toward the League of
Nations was still in the formative process. Borah was "convinced"
that Elihu Root and Will H. Hays were conspiring to induce the
Republicans to accept the League and he said, quite seriously, that
he had about come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to
wreck the Republican Party to save the country. Root, he told me,
was pro-British to the last degree and Hays, he said, was cajoled
by the great international bankers who trembled at the delay of
peace.
"If such men are to lead the Republican Party," he declared, "the
sooner it is destroyed the better." Of course, he did not take the
stump. He has failed so often to carry out his threats of rebellion
that they no longer inspire the fear they once did. Although he has
repeatedly turned against the organization he has managed to escape
being an outlaw. This singular trait of political conservatism came
conspicuously into play in 1912 when Roosevelt turned upon the
machine. All through the stormy days of that stormy Chicago
convention Senator Borah could be found at the side of that one
leader for whom he had a consistent regard. He was with him up to
the very last moment before the die was cast. He was almost
successful at the eleventh hour in inducing Mr. Roosevelt to
abandon his mad project. They were closeted together on the evening
of the clamorous meeting of the progressives in a hotel across the
street.
"We have come to the parting of the ways, Colonel," Borah said to
his chief. "This far I have gone with you. I can go no further." He
urged Roosevelt not to take the step which would mean the
disruption of the party and defeat. Roosevelt wavered. But before
he could reach the decision Borah sought a committee from the
outlaw meeting, burst into the room, and enthusiastically announced
that the stage was set for the demonstration that was to mark a new
political era.
Roosevelt, hat in hand, turned to Borah and said, "You see, I can't
desert my friends now." The ex-President went his way and Borah
came back to the old Republican fold.
From that time to this he has followed his own way which,
fortunately for the Republican Party, has been within organization
limits, but his relations with his fellows are neither intimate nor
serene. Some of the Republicans, who can be forgiven for not
understanding a man who respects neither party decrees nor
traditions, feel that Borah is so American that he possesses one of
the characteristics of the aboriginal Indian--in other words, that
he is cunning, that he will not play the game according to
organization rules. He has a habit of making too many mental
reservations. I am not quite sure that these allegations could be
supported before an impartial tribunal. I am rather inclined to the
belief that to maintain his position in the Senate Borah has had to
become a shrewd trader.
Fortunately for himself he is too much of a personage to be ignored
or suppressed, and manages to be a power in a party which has no
love for him.
He is virtually a party to himself. He cannot be controlled by the
ordinary political methods. His constituency is small and evidently
devoted to him and his state is remote; he is not compelled to do
the irksome political chores that cost Senators their political
independence. However doubtful he might be as a positive asset his
dexterity and power of expression are such that he would be very
dangerous as a liability. A report that Borah is on the rampage
affects Republican leaders very much as a run on a bank affects
financial leaders. They are not quite sure when either is going to
stop. Borah knows that most of the men with whom he is dealing are
clay and estimates with uncanny accuracy the degree to which he can
compel them to meet his demands.
This method has not always been successful. It was singularly
unsuccessful in the case of Senator Penrose. Borah is the
antithesis of Penrose, whom he dislikes intensely. Several years
ago he interpreted a remark made by the Senator from Pennsylvania
to another Senator as a thrust at his own political ethics, or lack
of them. It was a petty affair at most and Penrose never admitted
the accuracy of Borah's construction, but Borah has had nothing to
do with him since. When the present Congress was in process of
organization Borah announced that he would bolt the party caucus if
Penrose were slated for the chairmanship of the Finance Committee
to which he was entitled according to the rule of seniority. It was
a ticklish situation. The Republicans had a bare majority in the
Senate and if any of them deserted the organization it might mean
Democratic control. The leaders were disturbed and tried to mollify
the defiant Senator from Idaho with every means at hand even giving
assurance that the Senator from Pennsylvania would vote against the
Peace Treaty and the League of Nations which was supposed to
represent his vital interest at that time. He refused to compromise
and announced that Penrose must go. He was offered every committee
assignment that he or his friends wanted, and accepted them, but as
a matter of right.
Penrose was determined not to be displaced to satisfy what he
regarded as a colleague's whim. He sat silent in his office
receiving reports from hour to hour on Borah's state of mind. On
the day before the caucus Borah whispered that he intended to make
charges against the Pennsylvania leader that would provide a
sensation regardless of any effect they might have upon the party
or the country. The report was brought to Penrose. Instead of
trembling he sent word to Borah that he might say what he pleased
concerning his political career but that if he made any personal
charges he would regret them to his dying day. Borah appeared to
understand. He did not even attend the caucus and Penrose was duly
elected. Whether he was trading for committee assignments or
initiated the fight on political grounds is a question he alone can
answer, if anyone should have the temerity to ask it.
The same violence of his likes and dislikes is shown in his
attitude toward the British and his espousal of the Irish cause. At
the time of the visit of the British mission to Washington,
Vice-President Marshall designated Senator Borah a member of the
committee appointed to escort the British visitors into the
chamber. This Borah resented as a personal affront.
"Marshall has a distorted sense of humor," he said. "He knows I
dislike the British and that I despise the hypocrite Balfour." This
feeling was probably due in large measure to the Irish lineage
which Borah can trace in his ancestry as well as a temperamental
dislike of the British methods of maintaining control over subject
peoples.
It is difficult to label Senator Borah from a political standpoint.
His most striking characteristic is his inconsistency. For a long
time in the early days of the progressive movement he displayed a
marked inclination to be "irregular" and he is to be found voting
for most measures for which the "progressives" claimed sponsorship,
but when the more radical leaders began to advocate the recall of
the judiciary, Borah rose up and delivered an invective the memory
of which lingers in the Capitol. It was one of the few speeches he
has made that had a permanent effect and, strangely enough, it was
the kind of speech that might have well been delivered by Root or
Knox.
There has always been reason to believe that Borah was never more
enamored of La Follette in his prime, or of Hiram Johnson, than he
has been of the "reactionary" leaders with whom he has been
oftentimes in open conflict. When the latter deluded himself with
the hope of securing the Republican nomination, Borah was supposed
to be his chief supporter. When Johnson had eliminated Lowden and
Wood, and seemed to have eliminated Harding, Borah showed more
interest in the Knox candidacy. He wanted Knox at the head of the
ticket mainly because he knew that Knox was an implacable foe of
the League of Nations. On that fateful Friday night in Chicago when
the signs of the trend toward Harding had begun to appear, the
Senator from Idaho was anxious and prepared to place Knox's name in
nomination and begged Johnson to swing his delegates in that
direction.
Borah has succeeded very well in concealing his own ambitions,
possibly because he is more cautious than some of his impetuous
colleagues, or because the opportunity has never come for an
avowal. But among those who have followed his career there is a
very strong suspicion that his one great desire was to be the
successor of Roosevelt. This might be one reason for his antagonism
toward the politicians of the old regime, such as Penrose, who have
barred his way in that direction, and his fitful devotion to
progressivism championed by others. The failure to realize this
ambition might account in some measure for his later reticence and
his suspicion of politicians in general. He has shown a pronounced
distrust of them. The only exception has been the audacious
Ambassador to the Court of Saint James who in his REVIEW and in his
WEEKLY flattered the Senator from Idaho with an absence of
restraint that might have made a more trusting person skeptical.
The Senator from Idaho has too many years before him to justify
predictions concerning his career. Whatever faults he might have
they do not entirely obscure his virtues. It is possible that the
occasion might arise for him to serve as the spokesman of a popular
cause, which he would do with undoubted earnestness and eloquence,
in which event he might still become a dominating figure in
American politics.