Ridge Stormed

Consternation and chagrin filled the bosoms of the great Senate commanders of the tariff armies of the Republic last week. In one determined charge, the Democratic forces of fox-sly Field Marshal Simmons and the bold irregulars under Generalissimo Borah charged up the barren ground of Flexible Tariff Ridge and, smiting the Republicans hip and thigh, captured their strategic position, 47 votes to 42. The echoes of the Olympian voice in the White House, telling the Republicans that no such thing must be permitted to befall, had barely died away when the thing did befall. To Republicans it seemed little short of sacrilege, for though they had possessed Flexible Tariff Ridge for only seven of their country's 140 years, already they had come to look upon it as ground sacred to Republican Presidents. The Republican chieftains tried to hearten their followers by predicting recapture of the Ridge when the great armored tank of the Republican forces in the House should come into action. But grave observers viewed the situation otherwise. The day after the battle, they heard Generalissimo Borah exult: "If we had enough votes to withstand the pressure that was here yesterday, we can withstand any pressure!" They heard Lieut. Col. Thomas, a new warrior from Oklahoma, confer with Field Marshal Simmons about the Low-Tariff army's next, greater maneuver--a flanking attack on the Republican's most treasured positions of all in Manufacturing City, Textile Town, Brick- opolis, Fort Cement, etc., etc. (see Tariff War Map, TIME, Sept. 30). This action would be designed to benefit the neutral farm lowlands, whose condition occasioned the whole great Tariff War. Sage observers even went so far as to say that unless the Republicans would recapture Flexible Tariff Ridge, the Democrat-Insurgent position thereon might prove important enough to end the whole war in bootless armistice.