Quiet Leader

Of course, it was the same Senate-the 69th. There was Sen. Charles Curtis, the Republican leader, getting up from his back row seat and going out with Sen. Reed Smoot, the tall, lean Mormon, who is Chairman of the Finance Committee. When the latter speaks, it is with a dry holy passion for financial soundness. Mr. Curtis rarely speaks, but together they steer, or attempt to steer the Senate. Last week they brought peace into the Republican ranks, placated the insurgents with good committeeships.

On the floor the Democrats scoffed at these peace gestures-and who could scoff better than Sen. Pat Harrison, the jester from Mississippi? Grinning malignantly at the Republican side of the Chamber, he said: You've had political toothache ever since the November elections and now you are applying every remedy to ease your suffering and your pain." Then he looked at Sen. David Reed of Pennsylvania and said, "Mellon's man Friday"; turned to lame duck Senator Harreld with something about a "tall gusher from Oklahoma."

Senators laughed; they always laugh at Pat Harrison when they have nothing else to do. The first week of a Senate session is more vaudevillian than legislative. It helps the new Senators become acclimated. This session there are only four newly-elected ones: Arthur R. Gould of Maine, Republican, 6 ft. 2 in., healthy and 70; Harry B. Hawes of Missouri, Democrat, able fisherman and breeder of pedigreed hogs; David W. Stewart of Iowa, Republican, onetime Marine, portly, bald and 41; David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Democrat, bachelor, with a deep, rich voice (he had been in the Senate before).

Regardless of party, these Senators will soon learn to admire the Republican leader in the dark suit in the back row-Sen. Charles Curtis.

In the blood of this man was the Frenchman, the Indian and the Yankee-to be exact: 7/16 French, 1/16 Indian, 8/16 Yankee. Many years ago, when the 19th Century was an infant, a comely daughter came to White Plume, chief of the Kaw tribe of Kansas. She was the great-grandmother of Senator Charles Curtis; she married a swashbuckling young Frenchman named Conville, who had hammered down his stakes near St. Louis. Their daughter married Louis Pappan, a French trader-from which wedlock sprang the mother of the Senator. Captain A.O. Curtis, his father, had come to Kansas from New Hampshire.

Charles' mother died early and he went to live with his grandmother on the Kaw reservation. There he frolicked with young redskins, taught tricks to puppies, rode ponies. At 8, he was a jockey in a state fair; Kansans cheered lustily for " ol' Captain Curtis' boy." There is a story that he was a Paul Revere at the age of 10; he rode 60 miles to Topeka to bring aid to the Kaws when the Cheyennes swooped down on their reservation. When the Kaws were sent to new lands in Oklahoma, he started out to go with them, but his family said: "No, Charles, you must go to school." So Charles went to school in the winter; jockeyed and worked in a livery stable in the summer.

Then there must have been some mysterious protoplasmic revolution within him, for his New England blood took the upper hand. It suggested that he give up the livery stable for the law. He obeyed. At 21, he was admitted to the bar; at 24, he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Shawnee County. Although backed by many a Wet, Mr. Curtis soon gave notice that he was a Dry, closed the saloons, was reelected. Later, he accumulated a comfortable little income as a criminal lawyer, and in 1893 was elected to Congress, where, except for two years, he has been ever since. In the House he served 14 years; in the Senate he is now on his 17th.

Politically, Mr. Curtis is a man of the party was their faithful watchman. He was an indifferent speaker. He is no orator today; seldom does he speak from the floor. It is in the party caucuses, in the committee rooms, in the cloakrooms that he patches up troubles, puts through legislation. His friends are many; his personality vexes few; the public is not conscious of him.

On the death of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1924, Senator Curtis took over the reins of Republican leadership. Previously he had been, the assistant leader, busy salving the wounds which Senator Lodge inflicted upon his fellow Republicans. As leader, Senator Curtis, for the first time in recent years, succeeded in closing the short session of the 68th Congress on March 4, 1925, without all-night sessions. He kept the calendar clear, the legislative machinery grinding. Nothing roils Senator Curtis more than blocs and filibusterers.

Occasionally, this legislative technician takes a day or two of rest and goes to Baltimore to see the races. Then the poker face of the Senator is metamorphosed into the Paul Revere of the Kaws; the drooping mustache stiffens, his eyes gleam, the dash of blood from the daughter of Chief White Plume swirls.... And, inevitably, the senior Senator from Kansas returns to his caucuses.

*Missouri Pacific, Rock Island, Santa Fe, Union Pacific.