Show AN OLDTIME STATESMAN Reminiscences of the Late Senator George His Great Independence The death of United States Senator James Z George of Mississippi removes a notable figure from public life He was great as an orator and not great as a statesman but he was one of the purest and most characteristic representatives repre-sentatives of his section and he did not know what physical or moral feat was He did not say whar and thar or cyart and gyarden like some of the olderstyle Virginians but he had the soft slurring voweislided southern accent more strongly than any public man I know In the heat of debate this would cause the galleries to smile Son he would say to his committee clerk caint y1 shut th do Pears t me in reason y could f yd try right hahd With the accept he had something of the manners of the old southern school but he was a rough man by nature and the veneer of social usage rubbed off sometimes I and showed the gnarled grain of the wood underneath He had plenty of I temper which was not under steady control and he believed always In call ins a spade a spade His disposition led him into many altercations with contemporaries but It cannot be said of him that he ever showed an unwillingness I ingness to combat or a disposition to retreat In person he was heavy and clumsy He had a leonine head and his voice was harsh He was idolized by his people and will be mourned sincerely sin-cerely Senator George was a man of earnest earn-est convictions and one of the soundest constitutional lawyers the country has produced say a writer in the Chicago TunesHerald Perhaps his most noticeable no-ticeable trait was independence He was a living refutation of the Byronic maxim that every alan has his price Nothing could buy him When Jlr Cleveland called congress into extraordinary ordinary session in 1893 with the purpose pur-pose of repealing the Sherman coinage act and thus utterly demonetizing silver he withheld all important nominations nom-inations with the design of whipping congress into line and he did wlup them Into line American history furnishes fur-nishes no more pathetic instance of men surrendering their most cherished convictions for the sake of spoils Senator Sen-ator George would not be led or driven He was much interested in the candidacy candi-dacy of TV H L Hemingway to be district attorney for New Mexico In order to placate him Mr Cleveland appointed I ap-pointed Hemingway but he would not he placated Then Walter Q Gresham a man whom he loved was I sent to him with a request that he call at the White House You tell the big beef from Buffalo was his bluff answer that it Is no nearer from the capitol to the White House than from I the White House to the capitol I getup get-up at 5 oclock every morning eat my breakfast come down here and go to work I he wants me he knows j where to find me j When Mr Cleveland nominated Judge I Peckman to be one of the justices of i the supreme court a nomination which was subsequently defeated by D B I Hill he again requested Senator George j Ito I-to call This time both Gresham and Lament were the emissaries George went I know Mr President what you want with me he said 9 he entered en-tered the executives room You want me to vote for Peckman Well I a going to do it but I want you to understand un-derstand that I a not going to vote lor him because you want me to vote for him I am going to vote for him because Judge Peckman believes in the unconstitutionality of a tariff ta and in states rights I h didnt I would see him farther in sheol than a pigeon can fly with a grain of corn before he could have my vote The result of the Interview was that Senator Walthali j got all of the patronage going to Mis aiaaippi I Though I learned lawyer Senator George knew little of the ordinary things of life He did not mix in society sO-ciety and held i rather in contempt I An apocryphal story is told of him He I dined at a swell restaurant In Wash I I Jngton with a party or MississIppians One of them glancing at the top of the card saw the word Menut What kind of a dish is menoo T he asked The senator laughed heartily Go back to the Tazoo delta Bob he said and stay there Eat cracklin bread and drink buttermilk Its all youra fitted for After the repast he caJlel one of his companions aside Say he whispered anxiously what kind oC truck is that menoo anyhow The dead man was eminently domes tic and passionately loved his wife who was one of the most charming women In a land of charming women They were always together and nearly all of his success in life was due nearl His high Ideals of duty to ones self and ones country came from her and she saw that he lived up to them Ho had a beautiful home two miles from Carrolton where when not in Wash ington he lived the simple life of a country gentleman There in a build ing apart from the family residence he had one of the largest libraries in the south Mrs George was deeply re 1 ligious and the Ig senator had been an agnostic She placed a neighboring Baptist minister upon his trail and hi got no peace At meal times in hiM library in the fields on his visits ti the county seat the minister bobbed up serenely and exhorted him to come cme into the fold He grew tired tred Once riding slowly home from Car rollton and reading his mail the preacher burst out of the woods on his right hand and began They came to a creek and crossed it It was in the I senators sen-ators language saddle pocket deep On the further bank he dismounted Git down ra he said fiercely The min ister looked at him doubtfully He feared j fear-ed c personal encounter Git down He got down Now said George Im tired o beln harried around the kentry like I was a cotton tail rabbit an tal rabbi YOU was a pack o l nigger dogs Baptize ma right here I was winter time but the venerable statesman would not be denied de-nied The two men waded Into the Icy water up to their armpits and the ceremony cere-mony was performed Senator George climbed into his saddle and looked down on the shivering evangelist Now he said you go home and stay home Im through with this foolishness foolish-ness nessHe was more than 70 years old when he died and therefore the following will not be believed but its the truth I called on him some years ago proposing to interview him I found him in his library and he would not talk for pub lication He was feelin vey poly vey poly Indeed suh Haint had a well das fr a week Dinner was servedat midday and I went in with him After grace was said he reached for a dish of boiled boied cahbage and heaped heap-ed his plate with it This he drowned In vinegar and devoured with eagerness eag-erness Two glasses of rich buttermilk followed the cabbage There was apple pie on the table Over it he poured a pitcher of honey It disappeared Then he went to the front gallery and stretched himself in a rocking chair I suppose that but for his peculiar diet Senator George would have reached his century |