AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

Evening Star, Issue 19775, 27 January 1928, Page 7

AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

DEMOCRATIC NOMINATIONS SENATOR REED AS A CANDIDATE Press. Association—By Telegraph—Copyright ' WASHINGTON, January 25. The first evidence that the usual practice in American politics of letting the strongest contenders for Presidential honors negative each other is seenin an announcement that Senator Reed, of Missouri, is a candidate for -the Democratic nomination. His friends have stressed the point that he is in the contest “to the finish.” Strong intimations have been given out that Senator Reed, who is the first important-figure to contest Governor A 1 Smith’s prominent position in the Democratic Party, j will make it a “ knock down and drag out ” fight. Senator Reed will begin a speaking campaign throughout the United States on February 12, and observers are already' beginning to see strong possibilities that the Democrats will be compelled to select a compromise figure, since the most prominent aspirants are likely to stalemate each other. HOW HE GAINED HIS REFUTATION INVESTIGATOR OF LOBBY CHARGES. ’Declared au outcast by his party in 1920, Senator James A. Reed, of _Missouri, bitter-end opponent of the Wilson policy of international co-operation, today has the unanimous endorsement of the Missouri State Democratic Committee for the Presidential nomination by that party (says a correspondent of the ‘Christian Science Monitor’). “Jim” Reed got a good political start by being born on a farm. The location of the farm was politically perfect—it was in' Ohio, near Mansfield. Three years after his birth, which occurred on November 9, 1861, the family moved to lowa and settled near Cedar Rapids. Not long afterward, the large flock of sheep winch they bad taken with them dwindled down to nothing, and the. rosy dreams of the Reed family vanished. John A. Reed, the father, passed on when James was eight years old-. He left a mortgaged farm, a widow, and six children, the oldest, fourteen. Senator Reed has a vivid recollection of the family council that followed. “ I can sell the farm, pay the mortgage, and with the balance give yon all a good common school education,” the mother told the children; “or I can keep the farm, but if I do that we shall all nave to work.” They voted to stay on the land and work. YOUTH PROVES ABILITY.

James had learned to drive a, drag in the field by the time He was seven. At fourteen he was doing a man’s work nine months in the year and going to school in Cedar Rapids the other three. He won a State oratorical contest when he was sixteen. Two years later fortune began to smile on the hard-pressed family. After an irregular attendance at the Cedar Rapids High School for four years Reed entered Coe College in the same town. Having decided early to become a lawyer, be mapped out a. special course with that end in view. It was a course in history, economics, and other fundamental subjects—a course, he says, that he wouldn’t change a bit if he had bo make the selection Again.

From college he went into a law office and read law for three yeas, was admitted to the Bar, bought an office library with 135d0l received from the sale of a horse, and began practice. He had already, at eighteen, began making political speeches over the county. SUCCESS AS PROSECUTOR. Reed in 1887 moved to Kansas. City. Weathering the collapse of a boom, he built up a large law practice, and became an outstanding figure iu Democratic politics. He was appointed county counsellor in 1896, and won every suit brought against the county. Elected prosecuting attorney _on the strength of that record, he achieved the amazing total of 285 convictions out of 287 case's tried during his fifteen months in the office. In response to a petition he resigned us prosecutor to run for mayor on a reform platform, and was nominated and elected. His two terms as mayor were marked by 'a series of contests with the street railway and other public corporations. In his second terms ho brought about a “peace agreement,” under which street car service was improved and extended, and the price of telephone service and electricity reduced. He reorganised the police force and smashed the street-paving and other “combines” which had city contracts.

In 1910 Reed refeated David R. Francis, of St. Louis, for , the Democratic nomination for United States Senator, and was elected. It tells something- of his ability as a campaigner to recall that he has never been beaten on a direct appeal to his constituents. All his political defeats have been at the hands of conventions.

Reed early achieved a national reputation as a Senate investigator.. The occasion was the famous inquiry inspired by the statement of President Wilson, soon after he came into office, Hurt Washington was infested with a corrupt lobby seeking to control legislation. Reed took the foremost part in adducing evidence in support of the President’s charge, and Wilson sent him a letter of congratulation and thanks. CONFLICT WITH WILSON. The first serious clash of the strongwilled Missouri Senator with the equally strong-willed President was brought on by the latter’s demand for quick passage of the Federal Reserves Bill. The measure had been hurriedly put through the House. When it reached the Sen T ate, Reed demanded hearings. The "Wilson forces objected, but Reed had his way. As a result the Bill was amended 563 times before its passage. When Mr Wilson, then in retirement, wrote n letter in 1922 opposing the renomination of Reed for the Senate, declaring that Reed had obstructed the passage of the Bill in every possible way, the Missourian retorted by producing a letter of 1913 in which the President commended “ the sincere honesty and independence of judgment” he had exercised in “this whole matter.” and thanked him for his aid in perfecting the Bill.

Senator Reed antagonised the President in 1914 by his refusal to support t’..j Adminis'tratioit’s call for repeal of tl.o law exempting American coastwise vessels from payment of Panama Canal tolls. He aligned himself against the President again in the same year on the issue created by the nomination of Thomas D. Jones to he a member of t’ ; newly-established Federal Reserve Board.- His fight against the confirmation of Mr Jones, on the ground that he was allied with the “Harvester Trust,”' resulted in--the 'President's withdrawal of the nomination. The President subsequently declined to ac cept-; the recommendations of Reed and his senior colleague. Senator Stone, with regard to, patronage in Western Missouri. IN SUPPORT OF PRESIDENT. .

Reed warmly supported the President’s use of troops in the Mexican crisis of 1914, was a leader in the Administration fight for the Ship Purchase Bill, and upheld the President’s veto of an Immigration Bill establishing a literacy test. Throughout his career he has contended for a liberal immigration policy. Ho again stood by the President in the famous battle over the resolution which would have warned American citizens against travelling on the armed merchant vessels of belligerents in the

World War, and he declined to join the “wilful twelve,” who' in 1917, prior to our entrance into the war, prevented a grant of authority to the President to arm American- merchant Senator Reed voted for the dcclarati< i of war, and as he has said, “ tor , ery dollar, every man, every ship, every gun the President ever asked for to carry on the war.” He argued for the volunteer as against the draft sys tern of raising an army, but voted for Conscription after his proposal had been .defeated. He .opposed the .‘‘..War Cabinet ” Bill, which would have shorn the President of much of his- power. STANDS BY HIS CONVICTIONS. His votes for war measures did not mitigato criticism showered upon him, both at home and nationally, for . his attacks on Herbert Hoover and the Food Control Bill. Senator Reed fought this measure with all his great resources of oratory and parliamentary strategy. He declared tho Bill unjust to the farmer and unconstitutional —and this is his view, to-day. LEADER IN OPPOSING LEAGUE. The final and irreparable break with President Wilson came in 1919, when the President laid the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations Covenant before the Senate. Reed’s part in the great forensic battle over the League is too tell known to need recapitulation. From tho beginning he was a 1. ider of the “ irreconcilables ” —those who were against American entrance into League on any terms, and he waged his fight boldly, both in the Senate and on tours of the country. The volume of his utterances against the League is probably greater than that of any other man.

Senator Reed’s fight against the President on the League issue occasioned stern opposition in his home State. “ Rid-Us-of-Reed ” clubs were formed, and a majority of the Democrats in the Lower House of the State Legislature demanded his resignation. Reed _ remained defiant. The hostility to him reached its climax in 1920, when the Missouri State Democratic Convention denied him election as a dclcgate-nt-large to the National Convention at San Francisco, and the National Convention, going a step further, refused to honor his credentials as a district delegate from Kansas City. Reed, in other words, was declared a political outcast. His return to power has been no-, thing short of amazing. There is nothing quite like it in the political history of the country.

Reed opposed the Eighteenth Amendment, on the ground that Prohibition was a, question for each Stato to decide for itself. An opponent likewise of the Volstead Act, he has. devoted much time and energy to an endeavor to show that its attempted enforcement has been honeycombed with official corruption and invasion of the constitutional guarantee against unwarranted searches and seizures. _ He is an implacable foe of the Anti-Saloon League. In his most recent statement on Prohibition he declared it to be a moral and not a partisan issue. In the last—the Sixty-ninth Con-gress-Senator Reed was easily the most commanding figure. Singlehanded, he brought about the adoption of the resolution to investigate primarv and election expenditures of 1926. ' Resultant disclosures touching th lavish use of money in Pennsylvania and Illinois Republican primaries did more than to bring him into favor as a potential Presidential candidate. Hir, “come hack" was complete. AGAINST CENTRALISED POWER. Senator Reed is one of the most effective champions of religious tolerance in the Senate. Ho believes that the tendency to centralise power at Washington should bo checked, hie is for tariff reduction and for a large national programme of inland waterway development to he financed by a bond issue.