There are two gentlemen in Congress whose importance increased by leaps and bounds last week. One is a journalist with a bloc. The other is a lawyer with a bloc. In each case the bloc is a farm bloc. One of them is Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas; the other is Representative L. J. Dickinson of Iowa.
Mr. Capper's senior and colleague is Charles Curtis, the Republican leader, and although as the junior Senator from Kansas Mr. Capper occupies no such important post, his importance has swelled in the political firmament as the resentment of corn farmers in the West (TIME, Jan. 4, 11) has been more and more clearly disclosed at the Capital during the last few days.
Mr. Capper is 60, slender, affects no polish of dress or manner, neither is he an aggressive type. He looks "like a country editor, grown into large estate"—and he is. He began life by learning typesetting on a small Kansas newspaper; he graduated into editorial work, became a reporter, city editor, Washington correspondent, publisher. He owns nine farm papers, with a combined weekly circulation of 1,500,000. He owns the Topeka Daily Capital, on which he began as a typesetter, besides another daily in Kansas City, a political weekly with a circulation of 600,000, and a "home" monthly with 1,250,000 circulation. In fact, he stands in the front rank as a successful publisher. How comes it that he is leader of the farm bloc?
The answer is that his whole life has been spent in winning the confidence of the average man. He has the reputation of knowing more about what the farmer really wants than any one else in Congress. It is said that he receives more personal mail than any other member of Congress, and reads and answers every letter. Among the things he started were Calf Clubs and Pig Clubs. He put up money secured only by the personal notes of boys and girls. At the end of a year, the animals were sold and the youngsters pocketed a profit.* His success in reading the farmers' minds is attested by his political record. He failed in 1912 to be elected Governor of Kansas in the three-cornered fight of that year, but he was elected in 1914 and in 1916. In 1918 he was elected Senator by a large majority, and reelected in 1924.
He has declared himself in favor of a corporation to take care of the farm surplus. The importance of his position lies in the fact that he is leader of the farm bloc in the Senate. The Senate with its loose organization is a much better field of operation for the farm bloc than is the House. Whatever legislation the junior Senator from Kansas espouses is likely not only to have the firm support of the farmer, but to have a good chance of enactment provided the Presidential veto does not intervene. At any rate as leader of the Senate farm bloc, Mr. Capper has as much power to disturb the even temper of that body's procedure as Mr. Curtis, his colleague, the majority leader, has to carry out the Administration's policies.