Democrats:—

We will scrutinize that list and see how the members fared at the November election. The first four Republicans and the first Democrat as named in the list were defeated at the last senatorial selection—in fact they were repudiated by the states they had been representing or misrepresenting, as the reader cares to take it. As these defeated toga-smudgers attributed their overthrow largely to newspaper and other periodical attacks upon them, Mr. Hitchcock naturally found them in line for anything he wanted to visit upon those offensive publications.

Of the other Republicans, Crane, is reputed to be lugging around with him a large-sized aspiration to be Republican leader in the Senate. If he cashes that ambition, he must necessarily stand pat with the President and Hitchcock, in spite of the alleged fact that Senator Crane does not carry an over-load of esteem for said Hitchcock. The other left-over Republican member of the committee, Guggenheim, would not be worth mentioning were it not for the fact that the methods pursued by himself and his friends in his elevation to senatorial honors have put him in the class almost removed from criticism. Those methods received much caustic consideration from newspapers and other periodicals. Simon Guggenheim, though reputed to be noticeably obtuse in comprehension and decidedly pachydermatous of integument, is probably neither so dull nor so thick of skin as not to have felt and to have remembered the exposure the magazines made of the methods they asserted were used to secure his toga; methods, it was asserted, which virtually bought his “friends,” both those in and those out of Colorado’s legislature. Yes, Simon probably remembers those exposures and the sources from which they emanated.

Entirely aside from that fact, Simon Guggenheim is a dyed-in-the-wool Administration man. In fact, if reports be true, and his record in the Senate appears to justify the reports, Senator Guggenheim could not be other than an Administration man. First, it is said, there are “official” motives and reasons for his being such, and, second, that his intellectual equipment is so out of repair, or so lacking in native operating power, as virtually to disqualify him for any part or position save that of a nonentity in legislative procedure and affairs.

So Senator Simon “Gugg” must necessarily stand with the President and the Postmaster General on the “rider” amendment as on any other proposition they wanted to forward.

As to the hold-over or returned Democratic members of that committee little needs be said as the Democrats were in the minority anyway. Senator Bankhead is quite generally recognized as a congenial, obliging and accommodating politician. In all probability, he would not enter any strenuous objections to Mr. Hitchcock’s proposed amendment, provided a hint was given him that the President approved it. That such hint was handed around quite freely before the committee’s report was submitted to the Senate is a matter of common knowledge.

Senator Taylor first voted for the rider amendment. Later, however, when he neared Jericho, the scales appear to have fallen from his eyes and he then saw things differently. At any rate he later voted against the amendment.

Senator Terrell of Georgia was ill, and therefore not present when action was had. It will be seen, then, that the Postmaster General had his “discriminating” committee.

Mr. Hitchcock began his advance on that committee February 1st. He approached certain of its members on the 1st and 2nd and informed them, in effect, that he wanted them to urge a second-class amendment to the postoffice appropriation bill, which the committee had under consideration. He, it is reported, also assured these senators that President Taft most earnestly desired that an increase be made in second-class rates. He got a committee appointed, consisting of Senators Carter, Crane and others to confer with the President regarding the matter. Owing, however, to the pending of other legislation in the Senate (the ship subsidy bill in particular), the matter dragged along until the 8th of February. During the delay, Hitchcock made sure of the committee by nailing down Penrose, Crane, Burrows, Carter, Scott, Bankhead, Taliaferro, Dick and Simon “Gugg.” On the date last named, Senators Carter and Crane went to the White House “by request” to confer with the President. The President, it is said on authority, flatly told the two Senators that they “must” put the amendment into the bill. It is also reported, and to their credit, that the two Senators argued strenuously against the expediency of inserting it, pointing out the fact that such an amendment would go out on a point of order under Senate Rule XVI. Mr. Hitchcock was present throughout the conference. Incidentally, it may be likewise noted that Vice-President Sherman dropped in, quite “by accident” of course, but he showed no hesitancy, it is said, in participating in the discussion as actively as Postmaster General Hitchcock had been doing from the beginning of the conference. While the President and his Postmaster General were arguing with the Senators to prove to them how important the action was to the Administration; why the “rider” must go into the bill as an amendment, and probably why it was “time for all good organization men to come to the aid of the party,” Mr. Sherman probably dropped a few timely hints to the effect of how easy it would be, with the gavel in his hands and a quick, true and favoring eye for floor recognitions, to get around Senate Rule XVI. In the end, Senators Carter and Crane were won over and a meeting of the Postoffice and Postroads Committee was called for the afternoon of the same day, Wednesday, February 8th, 1911.