litics--he
landed in the Senate from an Idaho law office in one pyrotechnical
leap when he was only forty two--and by the fact that in his make-up
he is singularly unpolitical. Disassociating him from his
senatorial environment it is much easier to imagine him as a
devotee of academic culture, a university professor, a moral
crusader, even a poet, than as a politician.

There is in his make-up an underlying Celtic strain which may
account for his moodiness, his emotionalism, and his impulsiveness.
These characteristics are constantly cropping up. For many years he
has buried himself in a somber suite of rooms in the Senate office
building as far away from his colleagues as he could get. There he
lives in an atmosphere of academic quiet. There he reads and
studies incessantly, far from the maddening crowd of politics. This
detachment has probably bred a suspicion that marks his actions. He
has no intimates, no associates who call him "Bill." He is not a
social being. He is rarely seen where men and women congregate. He
is virtually unknown in that strange bedlam composed largely of
social climbers and official poseurs called Washington society. He
neither smokes, drinks, nor plays. What relaxation he gets is on
the back of a western nag in Rock Creek Park where he may be seen
any morning cantering along--alone. He does not ride for pleasure;
his physician ordered it and it is a very businesslike matter. If
he experiences any of the exhilaration that comes to men in the
saddle he contrives to conceal it.

On the floor of the Senate he is quite a different person. There
his unmistakable genius for oratory is given full sweep and when he
speaks his colleagues usually listen, not because they agree with
what he says but because they are charmed by the easy and melodious
flow of his words. There is a hint of Ingersoll in his speeches
which are full of alliteration and rhythmic phrases. He has a sense
of form sadly lacking in his stammering and inarticulate
colleagues, for oratory in the Senate is probably at its lowest
ebb. But, strangely enough, it is only occasionally that he makes a
lasting impression. His eloquence ripples like water and leaves
scarcely more trace.

Mr. Borah's entire political career has been characterized by an
impulsiveness which has given him a halo of popularity but has
never enabled him to garner the fruits of plodding labor. At one
time or another this has led him to break with nearly every fa