Lodge

As it must to all men, death came to Henry Cabot Lodge, in the 75th year of his life and the 32nd of his service to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the U. S. Senate. Seemingly successful operations for a prostatic obstruction were followed by a stroke, from which Senator Lodge rallied only temporarily.

As Editor of the North American Review (1873-76), he purchased the first article ever sold by Woodrow Wilson, then a Princeton undergraduate. Originally, these two were strongly attracted intellectually; but their interest in each other ripened, in more mature years, into one of the notable politico-personal antagonisms of their generation.

Among undergraduate faces that looked up to Professor Lodge's history lectern at Harvard was that of Theodore Roosevelt, U. S. President-to-be. To him Mr. Lodge was, early and late, "a valued political mentor," a close friend.

His early years at Washington were happy, a Golden Age. There was a threshold, at 1603 H Street, which was "sooner or later crossed by everybody who possessed real quality"--the threshold of Henry Adams, sardonic New Englander, connoisseur of life and all its arts, a man who said of himself: ". . . as far as he had a function, it was as stable-companion to statesmen, whether they liked it or not." Over the Adams threshold daily came John Hay, "the roving diplomat," Secretary of State to Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, Adams' great friend. Here came Clarence King, a professional geologist of rare spirit, who "knew more than Adams did of art and poetry . . . knew America west of the 100th meridian better than anyone . . . knew even women--even the American woman, even the New York woman, Which is saying much." Here also came the young President Roosevelt, "of infinite dash and originality," glad of admittance. Here Richardson, the architect; Saint-Gaudens, the sculptor; LaFarge and Sargent, the painters. Here also Senator Lodge, the learned historian, man of letters in the old New England tradition.

In this circle, Mr. and Mrs. Lodge were intimates. John Hay had built his house next door; but most of the gatherings (breakfasts) were at 1603--feasts of spirit and intellect in a world where politics constituted but one interest among a score. "Nowhere in the U. S.," says Hay's biographer, "was there then, or has there since been, such a salon." Being in Washington, it was a salon culturally and temperamentally more cosmopolitan than it could have been in contemporary Boston, less worldly, less bizarre than it might have been in contemporary Manhattan.

Publicly, Lodge worked with the Republican machine. He served his Party better than he served his own abilities. He went into politics as a profession and accepted it as he found it, played the game as it was being played. In turn, he gained the rewards of such service--the smaller rewards of public life, not the greater. Eventually, he clashed with President Wilson over the League of Nations. It was a clash between the two extremes--the learned man in politics, who plays the game according to the accepted formula, and the learned man who bows to no formula. President Wilson lost as Senator Lodge never could have lost; and President Wilson won as Senator Lodge never could have won.

Lodge, the winner, and Lodge, the loser, died when the Party which he had served was going on into new paths.

Governor Cox of Massachusetts will probably appoint someone to fill Mr. Lodge's seat for the next two years. An attempt to elect a new Senator at this time would be too dangerous for the Republicans, after the unusual showing made by Senator David I. Walsh, who has just been defeated by Mr. Gillett for Massachusetts' other seat in the Senate and who would doubtless jump at the chance of a new contest. The Republican senior member in the Senate is now Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming; but the floor leadership will probably go to another without any objection on Mr. Warren's part. Mr. Lodge's other important post, the Chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, will, according to the seniority rule, go to Senator William E. Borah of Idaho.