AMERICAN PORTRAITS.-I. SENATOR BORAH.
THEoutstanding figure in the past few Sessions of the United States Senate has been William Edgar Borah, Senator for Idaho since 1903. A speaker of no mean ability, it is not to his capacity for being at his best on an important occasion he owes this prominence, but rather to the recognition by the country as a whole that he is an absolutely sincere, honest man. His Republican colleagues, with whom he is so often at variance, call him cunning. They are mistaken. Mr. Borah is honest ; he will sacrifice his ambitions for a principle. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he occupies in American politics a position analogous in many respects to that of Lord Robert Cecil at home ; Lc is often wrong, but he is always sincere.
Of Celtic origin, which betrays itself in odd moments of impulsive and emotional outburst, he has also an elusive charm and freshness of vision contrasting with a typical Hibernian belligerency. At the age of forty-two he suddenly found himself transferred from a small law office in a comparatively obscure State to the Senate.
Since that time he has played a lone hand. Social Washington—and only those who have lived in that delectable and hectic city know what that means—has failed completely to capture Mr. Borah. Men know him in his seat in the Senate and as a lonely figure riding of a morning through Rock Green Park wearing an immense sombrero, kid gloves, buff waistcoat and an old riding coat. The clothes fit the personality of the wearer. Sensible, unostentatious, efficient, with an occasional outburst of colour in waistcoat or tie.
As Mr. Borah is unapproachable in a private capacity, we must judge him as seen through his public life. lie has probably contributed more than any living American statesman to the present difficulty of defining the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. Borah is seldom in agreement with his party, but he has always been a party man. One of the greatest admirers and followers of Mr. Roosevelt, Senator Borah did not hesitate to stay with his party in 1912 when the Progressive Party was formed under the leadership of Mr. Roosevelt —a proceeding that gave Woodrow Wilson the Presidency.
Yet the regular Republicans dislike him ; he is more often against them than with them ; the present-day Progressives, La Follette of Wisconsin, and the firebrand, Hiram Johnson of California, cannot welcome him into their fold. Borah hates demagogues. What he cares for is the Constitution. What he believes in is the inviolability of America. Hence his hatred for the League of Nations. He distrusts Europe. He hates the Ruhr situation because he believes France wants to conquer Germany. (Equally he condemns the American regime in Hayti, which he regards as Imperialistic.) He believes there will be no solution of the economic situation in Europe until Russia and Germany are back in the family of nations.
He is the leading, and perhaps the only, public exponent in America of the recognition of the Soviet Government. Not because he has any sympathy for Bolshevism, but because he feels that a stable Government in Russia can be developed step by step out of the Soviet.
He is convinced the armament race is still going on in Europe. Therefore he is utterly opposed to any can- cellation of debt. On the same ground he bitterly opposed American representation on the Reparatioril Committee, arguing that such a relationship would involve America in every conceivable political question that could arise in Europe in the next forty years. Mr. Borah has never been to Europe. It is stated he is to go over this summer, and one devoutly hopes he will. Liberals in this country look to him for leadership. For on domestic questions, such as the release of political prisoners, the Tariff Act, the soldiers' bonus and Govern- ment ownership of coal mines, his leanings are astonish- ingly Radical for a member of the party of " the Interests." Yet it seems hardly possible Mr. Borah will ever be President, though every President will want to know first what Borah says so long as he is in the Senate.
As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labour it is important that Mr. Borah be allowed to learn as much about Europe as possible on the occasion of his visit. And Europe can learn much from this typical Middle Westerner. Once he is convinced Europe desires Peace more than anything else, and is proceeding along the lines best calculated to preserve the Peace, real disarmament, she will have no greater and no abler advocate in America than Senator Borah. But, in the vernacular of his own country, he has got to be shown.
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