The sixty-third congress ushered into this body eleven new Democratic senators, and among them were several men of unusual capacity. New England, so recently hide-bound in its republicanism, sent Henry Hollis of New Hampshire, a young man of constructive ability and progressive principles. New Jersey contributed a second Democrat in William Hughes, a radical, and an ardent supporter of the new president. Little Delaware turned again to a distinguished Democratic family which had previously been represented in the senate and sent Willard Saulsbury, who was known to be in hearty sympathy with the Baltimore platform. From Kentucky appeared the eloquent Ollie James, the idol of the progressives from coast to coast, and from Illinois the equally eloquent and brilliant James Hamilton Lewis, in whom equal confidence was felt. From Colorado, Governor Shafroth, a veteran in the battles for reform; from Montana, the scholarly, clear-thinking and progressive Thomas J. Walsh, destined to become a pillar of strength to the cause he had always stood for; from Mississippi, James K. Vardaman, who had been nominated over his predecessor in the senate on the issue of progressivism; from Louisiana, Joseph E. Ransdell, concerning whom no fears were entertained; and from Kansas, William H. Thompson, uncompromisingly progressive. Of the eleven new Democratic senators there was not one whose record and principles did not harmonize with the program the party had promised the people in the platform adopted at Baltimore. And [Illustration: KERN ON HIS WAY TO THE CAPITOL] the Democrats who had entered but two years before--men such as Kern, O’Gorman, Lea, Williams, Ashurst, Pomerene, Reed, Myers and Johnson--were looked to with equal assurance. These twenty men, all fresh from the people and temperamentally progressive in their principles, together with some of the older senators in point of service, like Shively of Indiana and Stone of Missouri, were expected by the rank and file to hold the Democratic senate true to the Democratic platform, and to sustain the president in his program.