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The Liberalism of Senator Norris

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

David Fellman
David Fellman
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
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Extract

Senator George W. Norris was a doggedly righteous man who never stopped battling for the Lord and the common people in a world of sinful men. His long political life, which included seven years as a district judge in Nebraska, ten years in the national House of Representatives, and thirty in the Senate, was a grim and sustained bout with what he regarded as the forces of evil. He tilted his lance against dishonest and corrupt men, political schemers, monopolies and “special interests,” religious and racial bigots, lobbyists and other special pleaders, the “power trust,” and the superheated zealots of partisanship. His autobiography, so long awaited, bears ample witness to the fact that for him life was real and earnest, and usually somewhat sad and despairing as well. But it had its rewards, for Senator Norris was a reflective man, and out of the bitter juices of human experience he always managed to distil a residue of homely moralistic wisdom. He learned that democratic government is pretty largely a process of compromise, and that in that process one must give as well as take. He also learned that, with enough courage and persistence, virtue is often rewarded, and that in the long run the masses of ordinary people can be trusted to reach tolerably reasonable conclusions. There were many disappointments in his life, and a great deal of heartache, but there were also many triumphs, and the net impression of his book seems to be that he felt his life had not been spent in vain. He was richly entitled to this feeling, for it will be conceded generally that he had been a very useful public servant indeed.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 1946 , pp. 27 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1946

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References

1 Fighting Liberal; The Autobiography of George W. Norris (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1945. Pp. xv, 419. $3.50). Senator Norris completed the dictation of his memoirs eight weeks before his death. The manuscript was edited and seen through publication by his old friend, Mr. James E. Lawrence, editor of The Lincoln Star, who contributed a brief introductory essay to the book. Senator Norris remarks in his prefatory acknowledgement that Mr. Lawrence, whom he regarded as “one of the ablest editorial writers of the country,” was largely responsible for inducing him to undertake the writing of his autobiography, and greatly assisted him in the gathering and arrangement of materials.

There are two full-length biographies of the Senator: Lief, Alfred, Democracy's Norris; The Biography of a Lonely Crusader (New York, Stackpole, 1939)Google Scholar, and Neuberger, Richard L. and Kahn, Stephen B., Integrity; The Life of George W. Norris (New York, Vanguard Press, 1937).Google Scholar A good short sketch will be found in Salter, J. T. (ed.), The American Politician (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1938)Google Scholar, Chap. IV, by Claudius O. Johnson.

2 For a lively account of the “Grocer Norris” incident, see Beard, Charles A., “Conservatism Hits Bottom,” New Republic, Vol. 68, pp. 7–11 (Aug. 19, 1931).Google Scholar

3 William Allen White once noted, with his customary shrewdness of insight, that Senator Norris was “a brave, honest man in public life who never compromised with himself and so had no temptation to dally with ambition or treat with his enemies. His career, by its very monotony of selflessness, lacks climax, and except as a study in a monotone of decency, it has no drama…. When Norris went to the Senate, he took with him a profound conviction that government is something more than a policeman. His senatorial career has been based upon the theory that government is a policeman and a social worker with a talent for super-engineering and a lust for justice.” Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. 16, p. 5 (July 10, 1937).

4 “What Democracy Means to Me,” Scholastic, Vol. 32, p. 29 (Mar. 19, 1938).

5 “Ireland Will Respond,” Nation, Vol. 154, p. 129 (Jan. 31, 1942).

6 “The One-House Legislature,” Annals, Vol. 181, pp. 50–58 (Sept., 1935).

7 “Why I Believe in the Direct Primary,” Annals, Vol. 106, p. 22 (Mar., 1923).

8 “Secrecy in the Senate,” Nation, Vol. 122, pp. 498–9 (May 5, 1926). See also “Boring from Within,” ibid., Vol. 121, p. 298 (Sept. 16, 1925).

9 In an article urging the people of Pennsylvania to vote against Vare, the Republican candidate, he wrote: “If elections are controlled, through the manipulation of machine politicians and political bosses, by the use of immense quantities of money, the result is the same as if they were determined by military force at the point of a bayonet. Self-government ceases to exist.” “The Pennsylvania Patriot's Duty: Elect a Democrat,” Nation, Vol. 123, pp. 28–9 (July 14, 1926).

10 “Mr. Dawes and the Senate Rules,” Forum, Vol. 74, pp. 581–6 (Oct., 1925).

11 His leading speech on this subject was delivered in the Senate on May 16, 1934. Cong. Rec., 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. 78, Part 8, pp. 8935–54. He declared that “the electoral college is like a fifth wheel to a wagon. It is useless, and everybody wants to get rid of it.”

12 Cong. Rec., 58th Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. 38, Part 1, p. 728.

13 Schechter v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935).

14 United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936).

15 Cong. Rec., 74th Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. 80, Part 2, pp. 1882–7.

16 Cong. Rec., 58th Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. 38, Part 4, pp. 3253–8, Mar. 14, 1904.

17 Norris thought that one of the strongest arguments for the direct primary was that it tended to lower party responsibility and decrease the party spirit, and to substitute individual responsibility. “A public official,” he once wrote, “should in the performance of his official duties be entirely non-partisan. … The country owes most of its progress to the independent voter.” “Why I Believe in the Direct Primary,” Annals, Vol. 106, p. 23 (Mar., 1923). On this point, see also “Hope for Progressives,” Nation, Vol. 127, pp. 679–680 (Dec. 19, 1928).

18 See his article, “Put Not Your Faith in Parties,” Nation, Vol. 188, p. 369 (Apr. 2, 1924). “Under our electoral-college system it would cost millions of dollars to start a new party and before it was four years old it would have settled down and become as bad as the old parties. Unless its leaders were Christ-like men—in which case they would not be political leaders—its candidates would be dictated by a few bosses conferring in private, just as in the old parties.”

19 On this point, see Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1942), Chap. 8.Google Scholar “It is not intelligent to compare the evils of partisanship with an idealized condition of Olympian aloofness inhabited by congressmen insulated against passion and greed. That is not the alternative. The real choice is between a strong party system on the one hand and a system of politics in which congressmen are subjected to minority pressures.” An exception should be made for Senator Norris, but the exception does not disprove the rule.

20 Quoted in Neuberger and Kahn, op. cit., p. 253.

21 See his speech in the Senate on “The Spider Web of Wall Street,” delivered February 22 and 23, 1933, Cong. Rec., 72nd Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. 76, Part 5, pp. 4769–80.

22 In the spring of 1944, he wrote: “The TVA idea has gone round the world. Its fame has spread to every place where men have struggled with the problems of nature, for it is a blue-print turned into a reality. Actually, it is a very simple idea, based upon the principle of preserving the natural resources of the country.” “TVA on the Jordan,” Nation. Vol. 158, pp. 589–591 (May 20, 1944).

23 Characteristically, he recently wrote of the fight over the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence seaway and power development that it was “a contest between human happiness and human greed.” “Pattern for the Welfare of All,” New Republic, Vol. 105, pp. 145–6 (Aug. 4, 1941). He was especially indignant about the efforts of private power companies to influence the schools. See “The Power Trust in the Public Schools,” Nation, Vol. 129, pp. 296–7 (Sept. 18, 1929).

24 Cong. Rec., 59th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 40, Part 1, pp. 509 ff. (Dec. 16, 1905).

25 Senator Norris always believed that one of the great difficulties under which American farmers labor lies in the high cost of distributing food products, and that therefore coöperatives should be encouraged by law. “The Tariff and the Farmer,” Nation, Vol. 123, pp. 192–3 (Sept. 1, 1926).

26 The Senator made an exhaustive analysis of the inheritance tax in a Charter Day address at the University of Nebraska on February 15, 1935. For the text, see Cong. Rec., 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 79, Part 2, pp. 2180–3.

27 See his speech of March 7, 1941, Cong. Rec., 77th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 87, Part 2, pp. 1975–9.

28 In one of the very last articles he published, Senator Norris advocated the creation after the war of some sort of League of Nations, open to all countries who pledge in good faith to maintain the treaty, including Germany. This league should have force at its disposal to carry out the treaty. All nations should be admitted on the basis of equality, and the doctrine of the superiority of any race should be suppressed. We should be “the good Samaritan” in assisting a defeated Germany to get on her feet again, and the peace treaty “must be one without hate.” “Germany after Defeat,” New Republic, Vol. 110, pp. 703–5 (May 22, 1944).

29 For example, see the speeches given by several distinguished men at a testimonial dinner in Washington December 10, 1942, on the eve of Senator Norris's retirement from public life. They are printed in Sen. Doc. 292, 77th Cong., 2d Sess.

30 Wecter, Dixon, The Hero in America (New York, Scribner's, 1941), pp. 482–7.Google Scholar

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