cklish situation. The Republicans had a bare majority in the
Senate and if any of them deserted the organization it might mean
Democratic control. The leaders were disturbed and tried to mollify
the defiant Senator from Idaho with every means at hand even giving
assurance that the Senator from Pennsylvania would vote against the
Peace Treaty and the League of Nations which was supposed to
represent his vital interest at that time. He refused to compromise
and announced that Penrose must go. He was offered every committee
assignment that he or his friends wanted, and accepted them, but as
a matter of right.

Penrose was determined not to be displaced to satisfy what he
regarded as a colleague's whim. He sat silent in his office
receiving reports from hour to hour on Borah's state of mind. On
the day before the caucus Borah whispered that he intended to make
charges against the Pennsylvania leader that would provide a
sensation regardless of any effect they might have upon the party
or the country. The report was brought to Penrose. Instead of
trembling he sent word to Borah that he might say what he pleased
concerning his political career but that if he made any personal
charges he would regret them to his dying day. Borah appeared to
understand. He did not even attend the caucus and Penrose was duly
elected. Whether he was trading for committee assignments or
initiated the fight on political grounds is a question he alone can
answer, if anyone should have the temerity to ask it.

The same violence of his likes and dislikes is shown in his
attitude toward the British and his espousal of the Irish cause. At
the time of the visit of the British mission to Washington,
Vice-President Marshall designated Senator Borah a member of the
committee appointed to escort the British visitors into the
chamber. This Borah resented as a personal affront.

"Marshall has a distorted sense of humor," he said. "He knows I
dislike the British and that I despise the hypocrite Balfour." This
feeling was probably due in large measure to the Irish lineage
which Borah can trace in his ancestry as well as a temperamental
dislike of the British methods of maintaining control over subject
peoples.

It is difficult to label Senator Borah from a political standpoint.
His most striking characteristic is his inconsistency. For a long
time in the early days of the progressive movement he displayed a
marked inclination to be "irregular" and he is to