THE CONGRESS: Oratory, Etc.

There was oratory, humor, poetry, vituperation and blatherskitism in Congress last week. Most of it was directed against President Coolidge's and Secretary Kellogg's policy in Nicaragua and Mexico. The Administration read about it, no doubt: but he'd stubbornly to its own ideas on U. S. foreign policy. Could the following representatives of the people have spoken in vain?

Senator Borah oi Idaho, of course, orated before crowded galleries ; suggested that the U. S. keep the marines in Nicaragua only long enough to supervise an election, which President Diaz should authorize, to elect a new President. Mr. Borah wound up with stirring generalizations: "Inaugurate a campaign of peace . . . get in touch with the masses."

Senator LaFollette of Wisconsin produced some curt prose worthy of his mighty father: "This document [Mr. Kellogg's Bolshevist evidence] is the flimsiest sort of propaganda. If it had emanated from any other source than the Secretary of State I venture the assertion that no reputable editor in the United States would have authorized its publication. It would have gone not to the composing room, but to the waste basket."

Representative Huddleston of Alabama said early in the week: "The whole maneuver seems to be something like trying to pick up a pin with an immense pair of blacksmith's tongs. . . ."

Senator Norris of Nebraska, himself no mean versifier, parodied James Whitcomb Riley's Little Orphant Annie with especial reference to Secretary Kellogg:

Onc't they was a Bolshevik, who wouldn't say his prayers— So Kellogg sent him off to bed, away upstairs. An' Kellogg heered him holler, an' Coolidge heered him bawl. But when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all! They seeked him down in Mexico, they cussed him in the press; They seeked him 'round the Capitol, an' everywhere I guess But all they ever found of him was whiskers, hair and clout— An' the Bolsheviks I'll get you ef you don't watch out.

Senators Lenroot of Wisconsin, Gillett of Massachusetts, Moses of New Hampshire were the chief defenders of the Administration.