He was the village sport, with the best blood of the village in his veins, and was the village delight, the man about whom all the best stories were whispered. He had the clear mind which comes from scorn of pretense. But all this is not greatness, nor is it leadership. The Republicans in the Senate before being led by Mr. Penrose would have insisted on "picking the gal." They like to see framed marriage certificates in the party household.
The patrimony is gone and we reach shirt sleeves in Senator Charles Curtis and Senator James Watson, one of whom will succeed Mr. Lodge when he dies, retires, or is retired, and the other of whom will succeed Mr. Cummins as president pro tem when he similarly disposes of himself or is disposed of.
Neither of them has the stature or solidity of Hanna or Aldrich, and they will not have supporting them unity in party or in national sentiment. Neither of them has the romantic quality of Mr. Penrose or Mr. Lodge. Neither of them will ever be a leader in any real sense of the word. Neither of them will have anything to lead.
As frequently happens when you reach shirt sleeves by the downward route, you find the accumulative instinct reasserting itself on a petty scale. Look at the rather shabby clothes that Senator Curtis wears, in spite of his considerable wealth, and you are sure that you have to do with a hoarder. And that is what he is; a hoarder of political minutiæ.
Current report is that he is the best poker player in either house of Congress. You can imagine him sitting across the table watching the faces of his antagonists with a cold eye, which no tremor of a muscle, no faint coming or going of color, no betraying weakness escapes.
That is his forte in politics, knowing all the little things about men which reveal their purposes or operate in unexpected ways as hidden motives.
He has a perfect card catalogue of nearly all the voters of Kansas. It is kept up to date. It reports not merely names and addresses but personal details, the voter's point of view, what interests him, what influences may be brought to bear on him. Curtis is a hoarder, with an amazing capacity for heaping up that sort of information.
His mind is a card catalogue of the Senate, vastly more detailed than the card catalogue of Kansas. He watches the Senate as he watches the faces of his antagonist in a poker game. He knows the little unconsidered trifles which make men vote this way and that. And he is so objective about it all that he rarely deceives himself. If into this concern with the small motives which move men there crept a certain contempt of humanity he might mislead himself; he might be hateful, too; but his objectivity saves him; he is as objective as a card catalogue and no more hateful.
But you see how far short all this falls from leadership, or statesmanship, or greatness of any description. Usefulness is there certainly; card catalogues are above all useful, especially when there is variety and diversity to deal with, as there is coming to be in a Senate ruled by blocs and frequented by undisciplined individualism.
If Curtis kept a journal he would hand down to posterity a most perfect picture of men and motives in Washington,—if, again, posterity should be interested in the fleeting and inconsiderable figures who fill the national capital "in this wicked and adulterous generation seeking for a sign"—I am quoting the Bible trained Secretary of State in one of his petulant moments.