Death of Madden

The snowy crown of Representative Martin Barnaby Madden of Illinois shone as usual one day last week in the subdued light of the House. Dryly, vigorously he defended the right of a minority member to register opposition to a proposal which he, Chairman Madden of the Appropriations Committee, had endorsed. After his speech, Mr. Madden went from the floor to his Committee's suite, where he sat chatting with a friend about the ecent Illinois primary in which he had been nominated for a 13th consecutive term in the House. A few minutes later, the cloakroom stirred with a grave excitement. Debate on the floor dwindled and the House fell silent. Representative Williams of Illinois entered and announced that Martin Barnaby Madden had died, suddenly, of heart disease. Speaker Longworth appointed a funeral committee of 27 members and the House quietly adjourned.

Of great Congressmen it is said that the longer they serve their districts, the less they serve their districts and the more they serve the nation. Of Representative Madden this was unusually true. His rise to dominance in the House was speedy after his first election in 1904. He measured up to make a trio of the famed Illinois couple of that time, Joseph Gurney ("Uncle Joe") Cannon and James R. Mann. His district in Chicago was and is mostly populated by Negroes. Occasionally Mr. Madden would introduce a bill, such as one prohibiting "Jim Crow" cars, to please his own constituents specially. But his main efforts were expended towards national legislation, such as raising the pay of postal clerks and letter carriers, and enlarging the Panama Canal. Last month he got up from a sick bed at President Coolidge's request, to fight for moderation of the "extortionate" Flood Control Bill.

A heart attack in 1923 left him, his friends thought, less equable of temper than before. Perhaps this contributed to his defeat for the Speakership in 1925. Failing health did not, however, impair his capacity for work. He continued at the head of the Appropriations Committee, devoting even his recesses to study of the

Budget. He found that it was his duty for the most part to prevent appropriations rather than provide them. Last week, wondering whom to put in Mr. Madden's committee chair, Republicans could think of no one possessing comparable knowledge and integrity. Choice seemed to lie between Indiana's Wood, Michigan's Cramton, Idaho's French.

However his abilities may have outgrown his home district, Mr. Madden's popularity at home had not diminished. His constituents were disgusted with his political associate Mayor William Hale (-'Big Bill") Thompson, and some of them had determined to nominate a Congressman of their own race, a Negro. But Thompsonism could not touch him nor could race pride overcome so long and fine a record as his. Mr. Madden was comfortably renominated. Appointment of a Negro to succeed him was expected, the first Negro to go to Congress in 25 years, the first ever from the North.

On Sunday the House members went to their chamber for Mr. Madden's state funeral, a rare honor that was accorded him. Mrs. Madden took the body for burial to Hinsdale, Ill. So ended the career of an immigrant boy from England who, working in a stone quarry, lost his foot and instead of suing the company rose in it, became president, grew rich, entered politics, stayed honest, gained fame.