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The political ancestry of present-day Insurgency goes back to Bryanism and beyond. Though they are called Radicals by their enemies (they call themselves Progressives) the present Insurgents have no historical kinship with the radical Republicanism of Sumner and Stevens which imposed military Reconstruction on the South, impeached President Johnson Some members became Insurgents under Speaker Cannon's tyranny (1903-11) and have never lost the habit. The rebellion of others goes back to the Republican schism of 1912 and the formation of the Bull Moose Party. The agrarian revolt in the Northwest as a result of post-War depression swept still others into the Senate. A fourth group is composed of occasional, "intellectual" Insurgents from normally regular states who join the faction only on special issues.
The Senate Insurgents have no political cohesion. They agree upon no large program of legislation. They recognize no leadership within the group. That their votes are cast together is the result of chance, not predetermination. Two general factors give them unity: 1) hostility toward President Hoover as a representative of the reactionary wing of their party: 2) a vague agreement on certain economic principles. A third factor, present in other Senators too, is a great pride in the Senate per se.
Suspicion of Big Business colors all Insurgent economic beliefs. They doubt the good intentions of private enterprise. The hydro-electric industry, to them, is an industrial ogre whose head must be chopped off by Government control or competition. They shudder at what they call U. S. Imperialism in Central America. To them war is but a profiteer's game, taxation a special burden for the ultra-rich to bear, the railroads a greedy octopus out to strangle the farmer.
Inside the Senate the Insurgents have their petty feuds and jealousies among themselves. They are all prima donnas Outside the Senate they have little or no social intercourse as a group. Some Insurgents take their fun with the regulars; others take no fun at all.
Old-line Insurgents:
George William Norris, hollow-eyed, white-haired, of Nebraska, who led the Cannon revolt 21 years ago. Partisanship, to him, is the curse of politics. Sincere, saturnine, intellectually honest, he fights for Government operation of Muscle Shoals, elimination of the "lame duck" session of Congress, judicial reform. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he is hardworking but perennially frustrated. He is President Hoover's bitterest Republican antagonist in the Senate. He likes to write parody verse, put his feet on his desk, listen to sporting events on the radio, go to bed at 10 o'clock. Great and noble a few million think him.
Hiram Johnson, white-crested, well-fed, of California, who was the Bull Moose nominee for Vice President and has since eaten out his political heart because the Republicans would never nominate him for President. A high-speed, rabble-rousing orator, he uses his vote as a protest against the Californian who did get elected President. Constructively he forced through the Boulder Dam Act, groaned aloud when its name was changed to Hoover Dam. On foreign relations he is the Senate's isolationist ramrod. Rich, aloof, he plays at home with his many dogs.
New-line Insurgents: