States differ in the number of politicians of this type, and the same State may vary from year to year.
It may at the same time send a demagogue and a statesman to the Senate.

Men are permitted to hold offices, both national and state, for longer periods than formerly, and, as a result, in recent Democratic Congresses Southern men have held the most important chairmanships.[1] [Footnote 1: North Carolina, for example, had in the 65th Congress, the chairmanship of the Committees on Finance and on Rules in the Senate, and on Ways and Means, Rules, Judiciary, and Rivers and Harbors in the House, besides other chairmanships of less account.

Seldom in the whole history of the country has the representation of any State been so powerful.] That the Southern representation in Congress is equal in ability, culture, and character to that of the Old South or to that of even thirty years ago can hardly be seriously maintained.

There are in Congress a few men today who recall the best traditions of Southern leadership; there are more who are mediocre and parochial.

For the most part they come from law offices in country towns, and have the virtues and the limitations of their environment.