Show I JOHN C SPOONER SPOONER 0 u o When this man resigned from the tho I United States senate he left a big space to fin fill When the senate was in academic discussion he was the leader of his party and his party part was the ma majority majority The party and the country will miss him The morning hour with without without out Spooner will appear strange and work on the calendar without Spooner will cost the treasury a pretty penny In my tim at thIs capital now approaching thirty years ears John C the best watch dog dol ot of the whole lot and made mad the least noise of anyone any one of them He was indispensable when big bills were before the senate he was ever present and ever vigilant when little bills were considered Charles Sumner had bad superlative contempt for little things It took what he d I to be s a great moral Idea to put hIm hImin himIn in action The morning hour filled him with ennui the calendar was his special aversion Andy Johnson cl classed hIm among the great men who aint fit for nothing Spooner did not want to leave the senate He loved the work and he knew he was fit for the work Never an ox that labored harder than he nev never uever er a pUblic man mor faithful to his trust He gave his best years to hIs country in the field and in the council and when three score years and four had passed over his head he left the senate n a poorer man than when he en entered entered it either In 1885 or 1897 1891 and set about to make an estate to keep his children in comfort after he shall be gathered to his fathers He had gained the applause of many good men He had commanded the applause even of churls who woUld sooner have con condemned condemned hIm and did backbite him But when history with pen shall make the roll of great sena senators senators tors hIgh on the list will be the name of John C Spooner The town ot of Lawrenceburg in the state of Indiana is within a stones toss ot of KentuckY and Kentucky was a slave state Spooner was born at Law Lawrenceburg Lawrenceburg in 1843 and his father of Puritan stock concluded that Law Lawrenceburg Lawrenceburg was too close to barbarism for him to bring a family up in that community so he moved to Wisconsin in 1859 a state then in judicial rebel rebellion rebellion lion against the United States on ac account account count of the fugitive slave law and the Dred Scott decisIon both of which WisconsIn nullified on the advice ot of Carl Schurz Like everything else In Inthis inthis this country nullification was a local at and pa patriotism at the north Spooner went to the big war as a private and returned a captain He saw arduous service He was major for gallant conduct When peace came he was made private secretary to Governor Fairchild and In 1861 he was called to the bar He had a super superIor br legal mind and lie he was Industrious and loved the profession In a little while his practice was ample and ho he wasn was a rising lawyer He was a mem member member ber of the legislature In 1872 and held other positIons of trust by ap appointment Spooner was elected senat senator r In con congress gress ress to succeed Argus Anus Cameron In 1885 Camerons chief title to fame is that he defeated Carpenter for United States senator iQ ir 1872 Carpen Carpenter ter was then the best lawyer In Amer lea iCI as senator he had shed more luster on Wisconsin than aU all the men preceded hIm in that office He was the first orator in the senate and the most brilliant nt man I do not believe that our political literature contains a finer passage than the opening para pam paragraph graph of Carpenters plea for tor Tilden before the electoral commission It is eloquence e and logic couched in exquisIte Ite English and the utterance ot of a voice simply matchless for beauty clearness and sweetness In debate he overcame Blame Blaine and Sumner and Ed Edmunds Edmunds munds and held his own against Ben BenHill Hm Hill As a master of choice elegant rhythmical English E W Carmack comes nearest to Carpenter of any man manIn manin In either house ot of congress In my day But Wisconsin took Carpenter out of the senate and put Cameron in his place However the first opportunity that offered she returned Carpenter to the senate and he remained there until his death in 1881 Spooner succeeded Cameron and within two years was the most prom promIsing promising Ising senator of all the newer set He had the ability he had the industry and he loved the job Before his term expired there rose up a set in the Lake states known as the A P As Their avowed mission was to show the Cath Catholics olics and the Lutherans how to get to heaven Incidentally they s sought to tomake tomake make our German get along with less beer Now Wisconsin Is full of German Catholics German Lutherans and consumes considerable beer The A P As were Republicans to a man And so In 1890 the Demo Democrats Democrats swept the state carrying every congressIonal dIstrict electing the he gov governor emnor and the legislature The result was that Mr Spooner had to surrender his toga to William F Vilas a man plenty big enough to wear it Unfortunately about that time there rose up in the west an agrarian party and In 1893 the Democratic party joined It But for that the country would have continued Democratic to thIs day Wisconsin along with Illi IIII Illinois nois and Indiana refused to be bound by the merger ot of the Democratic with the Populist party and that gave the Republicans their opportunity which they seized and built up a solid north Thus In 1897 Mr Spooner came in again and succeeded Mr Vilas as a senator In iii congress from Wisconsin The Republicans flushed with vIctory had absolute power They made the DIngley tariff and established what they are plase to can call the gold stand standard standard ard though It has a halt half billion of liO 50 per cent flat fiat silver In it Just as the Arkansaw cabin does oes not need a roof In fall fair weather this flat does not hurt hurtIn In l prosperity Its opportunIty wm will come with the next panic The Republicans also aloo fought the needless and inglorIous war with Spain annexed new territory and bought at 2 a head Of course great questions grew out of I these projects an and Spooner was the Re Rel Republican l publican leader of the senate In the de debate bate Platt ot of Connecticut helped him to cut mit the legislation but Spooner was the man who convinced the tho senate ot of Its wisdom George Georg F Hoar achy Hv ored a speech In Opposition that ranks wIth Websters best efforts but It fell feU fellon on deaf ears The Republican party Was In Inthe saddle and rode down aU all re Thus the PhilIppines are become as nuch uch a part of the public domain as ew England or r Texas About this time John T Morgan had put congress in the notion to the isthmian canal that the had been talking about for yea Mark Hanna marshaled z id a voted the Nicaraguan route toute Then the United States in a sIster republic and tile the canal i io o located In Panama France was bough out Columbia Was kicked out and the big ditch ordered Sp supported the administration nd but for him Morgan Morban might have prevailed In the entire history of f the he Republican Republican lican party there can be named no other man who has fought so many battles battleson on the floor ot of the senate for Republican Republican lican administrations as John C Spon er r and tie lIe never got half thanked for fora iI a single one Mr Spooner resigned life his s seat d return tf to the practice of his He las has two young oung lawers Jb t admitted to the tar bar They have hava an office In Wis Vis Wisconsin cousin and tile the father has entered It to togi gi e his aid ald Another r eon on is or of a poetic and temperament and it may maybe maybe be that t history will wilI find In this chap the greatest r man ot of the family or 01 Course ourse they are going to sneer that Spooner Is now a cOrporation law lawyer lawyer yer by that they mean a man learned in the profession and a help to the court In the tho of jus justice justice tice they fl B t that thatis is not what tHey ni n seek to Insinuate that Spooner will lend him himself self eU to corporations to oppress toe the peo people pIe Why did he leave the senate If I that is his game he could have earned I millions in that body Many was the day that ls absence from the sitting would have been worth large sums to special interests but it is doubtful If there ever was a senator more regular in attendance and anel It Is certain that for forbis his bis length lenth ot of service no other senator I ever knocked on the head so many jobs jobson on the private calendar There were other senators as honest as of love ot of detail Is a gift that few men have hae to the degree deree that Spooner has It There was no real duty of a senator that he did not love that he was not master of and that he dId not constantly discharge We have fallen on times when men who think they are arc fun full and overflow overflowIng overflowIng Ing with political virtue that came down downto to them from Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln two an ac actually persuaded that no lawyer can be an honest man The fact Is that free government in England and andIn andIn In America Is the invention of lawyers lawers i It If there had never been a lawyer lawer in the world every country to this day would be ruled by despots or by anarchists Government itself is nothing but law lawand lawand and that Is the best government whose laws are best beat observed Life liberty lIbert and property have their security In the law There are rights right inherent and in inalienable Inalienable alienable but to preserve them they must be In the law There never was a great lawyer who was not a conservative man John C Spooner is a great lawyer and he Is a conservative His very greatness drew the shafts of little men as did The They saId that Tilden was a corpora corporation corporation tion lawyer So he was perhaps the greatest They said he was a railroad wrecker So he was not He took In hand railroads that others had wrecked reorganized them set them on their feet and made them payIng properties The Republican party had wrecked our great political corporation by 1876 Had they not stolen his job would have rescued that too and WO we wOuld have escaped an all the agra agrarian ian vagaries of the next precedIng double decade I apprehend Wisconsin wm will have hae trouble in finding somebody to fill Spooners shoes is the only man she has hus whose feet are big enough and Vilas party Is out of fashIon in Wis Wisconsin at thIs time Mr Spooner like Mr Ir Carlisle will get more mor satisfaction out of the private station It is as easy to horn hem a sparrow In the corner comer of a worm rail fence as It Is to retain the confidence of a ot the average American commonwealth Cato cIto was beaten for The name or of the successful candidate at that election has escaped mY memory Copyright b by E W Ne Newman man |