[Illustration: GREY SILVER, THE MAN BEHIND THE FARM BLOC] As Congress becomes more important better men will be drawn into it. There will be a gain to public life in this country from emphasis upon the parliamentary side of government. As it is now only one prize in American politics is worth while and that is the Presidency. And there is no known rule by which men may attain to it. Candidates for it are chosen at random, from governing a State, from an obscure position in the Senate, from the army, it may be; in no case does it come as the certain reward of national service. And if, as happened when Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson were made President, really able men attain the office, they may serve their country only four years, or eight years at most, and then must retire from view. In England, for example, similar men are at the head of the government or leading the opposition for the greater part of a lifetime. English public life would inevitably look richer than ours even were it not richer, for when they breed a statesman in England they use him for years. We discard him after four or eight years. We have not the system for developing statesmen and when by chance we find one we waste him. We put our faith in the jack-of-all-trades and the amateur. We have the cheerful notion that the "crisis produces the man." This is nothing more than the justice illusion which is lodged in the minds of men, an idea, religious in its origin, that no time of trial would arrive unless the man to meet it were benignantly sent along with it, a denial of human responsibility, an encouragement to the happy-go-lucky notion that everything always comes out right in the end. The world, in going through the greatest crisis in history has controverted this cheerful belief, for it has not produced "the man" either here or elsewhere. No one appeared big enough to prevent the war. No one appeared big enough to shorten the war. No one appeared big enough to effect a real peace. And no one appeared big enough to guide this country wisely either in the war or in the making of peace, which is still going on. Only in parliamentary life is there enough permanency and enough opportunity for the breeding of statesmen. We shall never have them while the Presidency with its hazards and its wastes is stressed as it has been in recent years. And Congress itself must be reformed before it will encourage and develop ability. The seniority rule, to which reference has been made before, must be abolished before talent will have its opportunity in the legislative branch. One of the first things that aggressive minorities would be likely to do is to reach out for the important committee chairmanships. Already the seniority rule has been broken in the House, when Martin Madden was made Chairman of the Appropriations Committee instead of the senior Republican, an inadequate person from Minnesota.