POLITICAL NOTES

POLITICAL NOTES A Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry in action at Manila during the Spanish War was awarded last week to Rice W. Means, sometime Lieutenant in the First Colorado Infantry. Rice W. Means is now a Republican U. S. Senator from Colorado, elected last fall.

"I am going to try to make the Senate interesting. ... I am going to make a fight to have everything done in the open and aboveboard. I want no secrecy. I will try to have executive sessions abolished entirely." So spake Senator-elect Cole L. Blease, ebullient Democrat from South Carolina, as he was looking over Washington, preparatory to taking office on Mar. 4.

The U. S. Embassy in Mexico City stands on ground half of which the U. S. Government "bought" from Edward L. Doheny for the sum of $1. Across the street from the Embassy, stands the home of Frank Seaver. Last week, the Seavers gave a reception, attended by the city's elect, for Mr. and Mrs. Doheny. According to reports, every one of the U. S. Embassy sent his regrets.

Two Senators measured their stature on the floor of the Senate, comparing the extent to which they were sons of the soil. Quoth Senator Caraway, drawling Democrat from Arkansas:

"I was born and reared in a two-room house with a dirt floor in the front and I don't know what in the back.

"I worked" on the farms for $3 a month and when older I worked as a railroad hand until I was fired for talking more than I worked."

To this Senator Heflin, great spokesman-Democrat from Alabama, made answer:

"Why, when the Senator was just growing I was cutting cotton. Cutting cotton on the farm, and I worked on the farm until I was nineteen years old. I love the farmers and speak for them."

Mr. Caraway stuck his hands into his customary pockets and, eyeing the tailored vestments of his opponent, drawled: "Well, the farmers I knew didn't wear long-tailed coats and white vests."

John W. Davis, ex-candidate for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket, became General Counsel of the United Rubber Co. and was elected to its directorate.

In Nebraska, Robert E. Hines, youngest member of the State Legislature, proposed a bill to promote prolificacy among the upper classes: annulment of all marriages after three years if no offspring has been born, cases of impotency excepted. The Chicago Tribune commented, "The only thing we lack here in America is a law making the immortality of the soul compulsory."

The House paid tribute to two deceased members, father and son, Sydney E. Mudd Sr. and Jr., both of whom represented the same district of Maryland.-- Representative Frederick N. Zihlman paid the chief tribute saying:

"It is seldom in the annals of the republic that two members, father and son, have left so marked a page in the history of their native state as these two. For more than three decades, the name of Mudd was a household word in the Fifth Congressional District of Maryland."

*The senior Mudd represented his district from 1890 to 1892; the junior from 1915 to 1925.