The differences in the conditions of election are enough to bring it about that the personal make-up of the two Houses, as had been originally intended, give very different impressions. The dignity of being Senator is granted to but few, and to these for a long time, and as it is bestowed by that somewhat small circle of the legislators of the state, is naturally accounted the highest political honour; it is thus desired by the most successful leaders of public life and the most respected men of the several states. The ideal condition is, to be sure, somewhat frustrated, since in reality the members of a state legislature are generally pledged, when they themselves are elected, to support this or that particular candidate for the Senate. Thus the general body of voters exerts its influence after all pretty directly; and, moreover, this distinction depends not a little, in the West and especially in the thinly populated states, on the possession of great wealth. Since, however, in these cases such wealth has generally been won by exceptional energy and keen insight, even in this way men come to Washington who are a good deal above the average voter, and who represent the most significant forces in American popular life earnestly, worthily, and intelligently.
In the last Senate the average age of ninety Senators was sixty years, and seventeen were more than seventy years old. Sixty-one of them were jurists, eighteen were business men, three were farmers, and two had been journalists. As to the jurists, they are not men who are still active as attorneys or judges. Generally men are in question who went over early from the legal profession into politics, and who have lived almost entirely in politics. Indeed, not a few of these lawyers who have become legislators have been for some years in commercial life at the head of great industrial or railroad corporations, so that the majority of jurists is no indication whatsoever of any legal petrifaction. All sides of American life are represented, and only such professions as that of the university scholar or that of the preacher are virtually excluded because circumstances make it necessary for the Senator to spend six winters in Washington. It will be seen that politics must have become a life profession with most of these men, since many are elected four and five times to the Senate. Among the best known Senators, Allison, Hoar, Cockrell, Platt, Morgan, Teller, and several others have been there for more than twenty-five years. Of course the conservative traditions of the Senate are better preserved by such numerous re-elections than by any possible external provision.