(4 of 5)
Senator Borah last week did just the sort of thing that makes his critics call him a trimmer, and the Insurgents despair of him as a member of their group: Before the Senate were the Tariff Commission nominations. Senator Borah arose to say: "What kind of hybrid monstrosity are we creating by constituting these special commissions to deal with expert subjects and placing upon them men who are in no wise qualified as experts? Congress is rapidly delegating its power. We are surrendering the duties imposed upon us by the Constitution. ..." But when the vote came on Commissioner Edgar Brossard, accused of representing the beet sugar interests, Senator Borah was found paired for him, presumably because Idaho produces sugar beets. Senator Borah has said: "I am proudest of my 'Nay' votes."
Two kinds of speeches does he make, the long exposition of a large subject, the short explanation of his own position. The latter always begins: "I want to say something in regard to my vote." Thus did he open a fine-drawn justification of his vote fortnight ago for the recall of the Power Commission nominations. He reasoned that of course the Senate had no legal power to take the nominations from the President but that he assumed the President would welcome an opportunity to resubmit them to the Senate to clear himself of the suspicion of befriending the "Power Trust."
Of German and Irish ancestry, Borah was born 65 years ago in Wayne County, Ill. His father was land poor. The boy read Shakespeare, saw Edwin Booth, yearned to go on the stage. Instead he went to Kansas, studied law there, moved on to Boise a year after Idaho's admission to the Union (1890). There he began a general law practice ultimately worth $30,000 per year. He married the then Governor McConnell's daughter Mamie. His professional reputation grew when he prosecuted the Coeur d'Alene dynamiting case and the case following assassination of Governor Frank Steunenberg in his own yard. In 1907 the Idaho legislature sent him to the U. S. Senate where he has remained ever since.
A non-social character, Senator Borah divides his time between his Connecticut Avenue apartment and his dark, ground-floor offices on The Hill. He rarely attends parties or theatres. As Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he refuses to allow himself to be lionized by the diplomatic corps. He is suspicious of Washington Society. Once he thundered: "It is far simpler to agree than disagree in Washington. If there is an atmosphere in God's world that weakens a man's backbone it is the atmosphere of Washington. The diluting process is constant and drastic." An explanation by Mrs. Borah: "Billy would be so happy if it weren't for the pleasures of life." Because he did not think he was entitled to it, Senator Borah has refused to draw more than $7,500 of his $10,000 salary.
His greatest fights have been against the 18th Amendment (though he is crusading Dry), the 18th Amendment, the Child Labor Amendment, the League of Nations. Charles Beecher Warren as Attorney General, Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. Constructively he worked for the Income Tax Amendment, the creation of the Department of Labor, the Kellogg Peace Treaty, the direct election of Senators.