Political Notes: Nov. 19, 1923

When Representative Graham of Illinois, Republican, heard that Secretary of the Treasury Mellon had advocated tax reduction, he exclaimed :

“I am not in accord with Mr. Mellon, and it was darned poor judgment to express his views at this time. The people in my country are against reducing income taxes on large incomes.”

Governor Pinchot, campaigning against liquor in Pennsylvania, passed the word along to the State Board of Motion Picture Censors. Hereafter, no pictures of drinking parties, hip flasks, violations of the Volstead Act, or pictures ridiculing enforcement agents will appear on the screen in Pennsylvania.

What sort of fathers are Senators? A statistical Washington reporter decided to take a census of Senatorial offspring, with especial regard to twins. In this respect the greatest father of all is Dr. Edwin Fremont Ladd, senior Senator from North Dakota, progenitor of eight children including two sets of twins. William H. King of Utah confesses to one pair of twins, born last Summer while he was abroad with Senator Ladd. Lynn J. Frazier, the other Senator from North Dakota, has one modest set of twins to his credit. Earle B. Mayfield of Texas, elected by the Ku Klux Klan, but not yet seated in Congress, is in a like case. Representative Arthur Monroe Free of San Jose, Calif., matches Senator Ladd’s record with two sets of twins. But he totals only five children.

Charles A. Culberson, for a quarter of a century Senator from Texas, has taken his pen in hand to write the memoirs of one of the few living oldtimers, Southern style, of the Senate.

During the last Congress there were just five Senators who had begun their service in the last century: Lodge of Massachusetts, Warren of Wyoming, Nelson of Minnesota, Culberson of Texas, McCumber of North Dakota. Lodge and Warren will see the next Congress. Knute Nelson is dead. McCumber fell before the radical onslaughts of Lynn J. Frazier and Culberson succumbed to Earle B. Mayfield and the Ku Klux Klan.

Now Mr. Culberson, grievously stricken in health, but still possessed of his fund of humor and anecdote, has begun to set down the experiences of his 30 years in public life —from the time when as Governor of Texas he put a stop to one of Bob Fitzsimmons’ prize fights by calling the Legislature to prohibit, it —to last November when the Ku Klux Klan unseated him.

Senator Hiram Johnson’s Presidential aspirations underwent some strange evolutions. He attacked Secretary Hughes’ offer to join in a reparations conference (TIME, Nov. 12). It was believed Mr. Johnson had found his issue. Then, last week, the conference apparently fell through (see page 6)—and Mr. Johnson was without an issue.

About the time of Mr. Johnson’s strictures on Mr. Hughes’ policy, Ralph Beaver Strassburger of Pennsylvania announced that Mr. Johnson would probably soon announce his candidacy, and intimated that, after all, Ralph Beaver Strassburger was a bigger and better financial backer of the Senator than Albert D. Lasker of Chicago.

Last week Mr. Strassburger appeared in Washington. In his pocket was a letter full of ” blistering words.” As between Strassburger and Lasker, it seems the Californian prefers the latter. So Mr. Strassburger went to call on Calvin Coolidge at the White” House.

The brass band of the steamship Aquitania played The Star Spangled Banner, and Colonel George Harvey, retiring Ambassador to GreaBritain, walked down the gangplank onto Manhattan Island. He said a good word for Secretary Hughes’ offer to participate in a solution of the reparations problem, a good word for his successor —” Kellogg is the type of man the Britishers like”— and a good word for his black silk knee breeches—” They will be good to play golf in—say at Palm Beach this Winter—for they are not very thick.”