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Show he feels like it, but at every one else. The Kansas senator is as stalwart intellectually in-tellectually and in his fighting qualities as he is physically, and the world knows him as a broad shouldered, muscular man, who looks like a farmer or blacksmith, black-smith, and not very much like a lawyer or statesman. Plumb is not a drinking man, but I have discovered that he has one little weakness. It is champagne. There is no man in congress more fond of champagne cham-pagne than ho. Champagne in his panacea. pan-acea. When he does not foel just right, niontally or physically, he slips down to the senate restaurant, orders a quart bottle of the best, a lot of cracked ice and a bottle of bitters and enjoys him self all alono. He ifl the only man I ever knew who habitually drinks bitters bit-ters with champagne. With or without his favorite tipple Senator Plumb is one of the quickest, most independent and forcible men in the senate. His self reliance, re-liance, his bluntness, his habit of hooing his own row without much care what this man or that man is going to think of him, make him one of the most interesting inter-esting of our public characters. Sonator Edmunds has the reputation of being about tho ugliest customer in the senate. In a sharp debate he certainly is a formidable antagonist. Edmunds does not drink champagne old whisky or brandy being good enough for him; and when he has had three or four nips, and ban reached the stage in which he appears ap-pears to be asleep in his chair, or if awake, preoccupied with twiddling his fingers, thon ho is most dangerous. Then ho is most likely to thruiit himself into a debate in which no one had fancied he was taking any interest, and with his terrible ter-rible sarcasm, his merciless ridicule, con-fonnd con-fonnd his opponent and convulse his hearers. But Edmunds does not do this out of malice. Ho does it simply for the fnn of the thing, simply for the sport of impaling his victim and holding him up for a few moments beforegbo fire. Then, as if satisfied with himself and all the world, tho rigor relapses, his stern old face breaks into smiles, and he settles himself still further down in his seat to hear and enjoy his antagonist's rejoinder. No matter how savage or personal this may bo it is all the same to Edmunds. Even allusions to tho three or four drinks of old whisky which he is supposed sup-posed to have taken before making his onslaught do not rufflo his calm exterior. exte-rior. . Ho has had his fun, and he is perfectly per-fectly willing now to let some ono else have fun with him. And after it is all over there is no rankling in his heart. His eyes twinkle as merrily as ever, and at the first opportunity he will shake hands with his late combatant and ask him to go down stairs for a few moments. One of the frankest senators is Mr. Farwell, of Illinois. Senator Farwell makes frankness one of the rules of his life. He has fewer secrets than any other successful politician. "I find it pays in the long run," he says. "Once in a while I get into some sort of trouble by being frank with 'everybody, but I know that one's confidence is not so likely like-ly to be abused if he makes it a rule to be frank and open, as if he has the habit of concealment of thoughts and facts. Logan used to tell me that I didn't know any more about keeping a secret than a woman, and not half so much as a certain cer-tain woman he knew, and told me over and over again that I would never amount to anything in politics if I didn't learn how to keep my mouth closed. But I have been doing business this way all my lifo, and it is too late for mo to start in now and try to change my habits." The senator who has the driest and most delicious sort of humor, when ho is humorous at all, is Mr. Blair. People who are not aware that Mr. Blair is a good deal of a joker in his quiet, dignified digni-fied way do not know him. A few dayB ago the legislative, judicial and executive appropriation bill was under consideration iu the sonate. There had been some talk about the employment of a needless number of men in the senate stables. Mr. Blair astonished the sonate by rising and remarking, when the paragraph containing appropriation for the senate stables was read, that he had been informed the number of hostlers hos-tlers employed in the stables was greater than the number of horses kept there. An hour or two later Mr. Blair again rose and solemnly said: "Mr. President, I find I was mistaken in a statement which I made a short timo ago concerning the senate stables and the number of men employed therein. there-in. It was not my wish to overstate the facts. I think senators will agree with me that I am as careful about my statement state-ment of facts usually as any senator here. I very much regret that I should have been misled into making before the senate a statement which was not accurate, accu-rate, which was, in foot, exaggerated. The most I can do is to offer a correction here and now, and an apology as well. Having stated to tho senate that I had understood, on what seemed to be credible credi-ble authority, tliat the number of hostlers hos-tlers in the senate stables exceeded the number of horses kept there, I now wish to withdraw that exaggerated and inaccurate inac-curate statement and to substitute for it this: Thenmuberof hostlers employed in the senate stables exactly equals tho number of horses kept there one host lor to each ho6s." ' Walter Weluian. among wmm . Walter Vellman's Letter Prom The National Na-tional Capital Mr. Oockrell of Missouri. THE WATCHDOG OF THE SENATE. s . Senator Butler and Hia Smile-Senator Plumb a Good Tighter Farwell and Blair. WA6HTOOTOK, July 24. In" the senate we find some interesting superlatives and contrasts. Senator Cookrell, of Missouri, is the greatest nagger in the body. He does love to quibble over terms and definitions defi-nitions and details. Once Cockrell gets after a brother senator look out for a war of word lasting a whole afternoon. The Miseourian is as alert as a cat for opportunities to display his peculiar abilities. He has already become known as the watchdog of the sonate. When an appropriation bill comes up he makes a thorough study of it, and it is a perfect bill indeed in which Mr. Cockrell cannot can-not find something to criticise. He has a way of making things exceedingly uncomfortable un-comfortable for the senator who may be in charge of the bill, and who is, therefore, there-fore, looked to for explanations. One of Senator Cockrell's peculiarities ig that he does not care whom ho attacks. Bo his victim a Republican or one of his fellow Democrats it is all tho same to him. The tall, thin, sharp faced, shrill oiced senator from Missouri is the finest fin-est example in congress of the genuine old fashioned controversialist. Ho would rather have a word war any day than itit down to a feast. He is a good fighter, too, for he never fails to give fair play. Ho always yields for a question, and never pprmit himself to take any advantage ad-vantage of his opwnents. He will be utopped right in the midst of a sentence to answer a question which is designed to puzzle him, and if tli question becomes be-comes an argument he does not object, but waits patiently for the end. Then he resumes as if nothing had happened. - It is wiid about the senate chamber that if Cockrell makes a speech and no one interrupts him he is disappointed. Like the true controversialist that he is, an absence of queations and close fighting renders him positively unhappy. Senator Cockrell is also the most excitable ex-citable roan in the senate. He in the Joe Cannon of the north end of the Capitol. His gestures are studies in gymnastics. His sharp voice soars and soars and exhibits ex-hibits marvelons degrees of shrillness in the effort to roach emphasis. Like Cannon Can-non lie has a habit of shaking his fingers nearly off,, and of approaching as near to self decapitation as is prudent. In debate de-bate he is a flint from whom fire can always be struck, but in committee room he is said to be one of the mildest and most pleasant of men. This shows courage, for a man who will fight like a tiger in the publicity of the chamber, where the shorthand man is putting his , words in the record of congress, where the public eye is upon him and where a core of veteran debaters and shrewd old lawyers are waiting for a chance to take his hide off, must have courage of no common quality. Many senators are totally different from Cockrell in this. They are mild mannered or silent in the senate chamber, whore tho risks are great, but in the seclusion of the committee com-mittee rooms they Income quarrelsome, severe, sarcastic and controversial. What they do and say there rarely reaches the public ear, and there is less danger of being caught up and jacketed by ono of tho voterans. There is no doubt of Sonator Cockrell's Cock-rell's courage. Ho comes from a family noted for its courage and its recklessness. One of the senator's brothors was adao-devil adao-devil cavalryman in the Confederate service, a man who was fond of mounting mount-ing his horse and taking his life in his handa Another brother started wrong as a youth, and bocame one of the desperate des-perate men of Texas. Ho was just such a fighter with guns as his senatorial brother is with words. Jack Cockroll killed about a dozen men who foil under his displeasure or roused his ugly temper before fate overtook him. For a year or t wo it was his boast that the sheriff or nrnrshal did not hve who could take r)m, but a tall, awkward Yankee tenderfoot ten-derfoot who drifted into Texas and lie-came lie-came marshal of one of the frontier towns nndortafk the job. Cockrell , whipped out hia gun aud opened fire, and in a few minutes was riddled with bullets. There is one senator whom Cockroll fears. Senator Butler and Senator Cockroll, Cock-roll, though now good friends, will probably prob-ably fight a duol some day. They sit side by side. Whenever Cockrell gets up to make a speech, which is as often as he can gain recognition of the presiding presid-ing officer, Butler turns his chair around, looks Cockrell straight iu the eye and smiles. Occasionally he laughs outright, and his laughter always comes at tho moment in which Cockrell is most serious seri-ous and earnest. When Cockrell walks np and down behind his desk, shaking Ids fists and rolling up his sleeves now and then as if he were going to fight SsticnfiCs rather than with phrases, Butler's But-ler's glee knows no bounds. To good n attired and popular Senator Butler a speech by Oockrell is comedy. It is an amusing speotacle which he never misses if he is anywhere about the Capitol. Notonry does he smile to himself, but ho is so much amused that he wants to hare his delight with others, and by turning to Vest, to Oorham, to Voorhees and even to sober old Reagan, the South Carolinian often manages to get up a wave of smiles and titters at the expense of the passionate and energetic orator from St. Louis. Some day or other, the observing ones are predicting, Cockrell will lose his temper, turn on his smiling tormentor and make a scene that will go down to posterity in the annals of the senate. Senator Plumb is another good fighter. fight-er. He is one of the few frank, blunt men who carry their frankness and bluntness into the senate chamber. Plumb is a pretty good politician, but lie never learned the art of dissembling. He believes in saying what he thinks, and iu a vast majority of eases feels what he says. He does not seem to know what fear is, and he is not at all timid about whose toes he steps on. Perhaps Plumb is the only man on the Republi. can side of the senate who has the courage cour-age to tackle old man Edmunds, of whom everybody is afraid. Plumb not cnlj, atrjkes ont.at Edmunds whenever |