William E. Borah

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Title:     William E. Borah
Author: Clinton W. Gilbert [More Titles by Gilbert]

BORAH, William Edgar,

Senator; b. at Fairfield, Ill., June 29, 1865; Educ. Southern Ill. Acad., Enfield, and U. of Kan.; Admitted to bar, 1889; U. S. senator from Idaho, Jan. 14,1903; elected U. S. senator for terms 1907-13, 1913-19, 1919-25

 

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.

[The end]
Clinton W. Gilbert's essay: William E. Borah

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