CRITICALLY ILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 7

CRITICALLY ILL.

WILLIAM E. BORAH.

" Stormy Petrel Of United

States Senate."

GREAT ISOLATIONIST

United Press Association.—Copyright

(Received 11 a.m.)

WASHINGTON, January 18

Senator W. E. Borah is Buffering from a cerebral haemorrhage, and is in a critical condition.

Stormy petrel of the United States Senate," "the knife-witted old Lion of Idaho, symbol of romantic Lost Causes" —these and other colourful phrases were coined to describe rugged, dynamicold William Kdpar Borah, one "of the most outstanding characters in recent American political history. Always intensely pro-American, and anti-anything that was un-American, Senator Borah has been out of the limelight for the last few weeks, but he was a dominant figure in the Senate struggle that preceded the repeal of the arms embargo last October. Borah stood for the isolationist "peace bloc," who saw only one means for the United States to stay out of the war—retention of the embargo. The thinning-maned old lion led his followers in a fierce struggle against the forces that worked for repeal. Indeed, it may have been the strain of this fight that caused the attack from which the 74-yoar-old statesman is now suffering.

Borah's entry into national politics was dramatic. A lawyer in Boise. Idaho, he wan eent straight to the Senate in 1907 at the age of 42, as a Republican, without any laborious intermediate stage. He did not mix with his colleagues, or go into society, but spent most of his time in reading or study. In the Senate, however, he was a different being. A brilliant speaker with a geniu3 for telling phrases, and a love for unpopular causes, he was not a party man, tint "ploughed a lonely furrow." Of him it was said: "He always goes down with his colours nailed to the mast, but he always goes down." Opposed League of Nations. A strong isolationist, Borah opposed many of Wilson's Mar measures, especially the League of Nations, and also the League to enforce peace, as he thought it tended towards internationalism. With hie somewhat parochial outlook, he was said to have been thoroughly representative of the Middle West. Numbered among his dislikes were Britain and the British, partly attributable to his Irish <les*mt.

Borah was strong for disarmament, and favoured prohibition, although he criticised the way in which the latter wes being administered. He apparently temporarily abandoned his moat radical isolationist views in 1032, when he proposed a World Economic Conference to consider, among other tilings, the question of war debt". The following year he also made an effort to introduce a programme to end the economic war.

Borah strongly opposed President Roosevelt's "New Deal," mainly on account of its. bureaucratic control of industry and agriculture, which was contrary to his individualistic views.