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Show I NEW REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS Contrasts So Their Carcwsl El !:opyrlslit, 1009, by John Blfrcth Watklns Tho new "baby of the houso" has con discovered at Inst. Ho is Politic 31vins Klvins of Elvins, Mo. St. Pnt-iclc Pnt-iclc '.s day eve he "reached tho tender igo of thirty-one, which, however, is lot so tender an it might be, inasmuch ib the constitutional age limit for a nember of tho house is twenty-five. Nevertheless there is no representative ;ounger. Young Elvins has been a hustler sinco o was a boy. Taking care not to lose ren a day on the caloudar of youth, o had hinJcclf licensed by the state npreino court within twenty-four hours fter hiJ; graduation from law school, his was -the year of his majority, and 'hen only twenty-six he had been chos-n chos-n a;? the presidential elector of his strict. After he had east his clee-raJ clee-raJ vote for Roosevelt, and Fairbanks e was chosen by (ho other electors to arry tho state ballots to Washin"--)n. Then at tho age of thirty ho cot lio congressional nomination at the oneral tiato primary. JTo represents 10 district in which ho was born, and iiis lias administered a -jolt, to tho old tlago about the prophet in his own wntry. Two dozen other men in the fresh-an fresh-an class of the house are still in their iirtics. Carl Anderson of Fosloria, :, who is a close second to Mr. Kims Ki-ms tor tho honor of being the "babv c the house," is older by onlv two onths and a half, lie, too, was onlv nrty when elected. Began as a Bootblack. Anderson has had a meteoric career 3 a self-mado man. "When ten ho was bootblack at Fremont. At sixteen ho fid saved enough to buy a little home r his mother, and. after working as lilway conductor, bill clerk and drainer drain-er tho uext nine years, ho packed oil" i Fostoria with a young bride and lough cash in his pocket to open an aderwear factory. Ho now oporat.es ireo of these plants and sinco ho. has sen in their midst, those pastfivo jars, tho Fostorians havo twico elected ;m mayor. As a happv coincidence, s young wifo presented him with a m on the same day that, tho Demo-uts Demo-uts of tho thirteenth district prescnt-l prescnt-l him with the nomination to congress. Iiis date also happened to be tho young other's birthday. Another Buckeyo Bolf-madc of the )uso freshman class is .Tames jr. Cox ' Dayton. After working as a plough-ry plough-ry on a farm near Jacksonbitrg ho be-inio be-inio a newsboy at Amauda and then printer :a devil on a Dayton paper. on he -was a reporter, and soon again was owner and editor of two Ohio lilies, tho Dayton News and tho ringilcld News. And he, too, is only his thirties. Common Laborer Who Came "Up. Still another Ohio farm bov who Drked his way to tho infant class of is tariff congrcso is Adna Romulus innson of Ironton. His widowed rno-er rno-er brought him from Missouri when i was an infant of four. Between the ort terms at tho district school he-d he-d odd jobs' as ploughboy, and then common laborer on tho turnpikes, i the railroads and in an iron furnace, lis Tvas in tho long school vacations, th while ho was pupil and teacher, r he wielded tho rod In winter be-reen be-reen the ages of seventeen and twenty -nr. Thus ho saved enough to go rongh law school, aftor leaving which becamo prosecuting attornev. But Ohio does not rurnish ail of the lf?mado members of tho freshmen iss of tho present house. There is m Gallagher, for instance, of Chi- cago, who came from Concord, N. IT., to tho Windy city when sixteen, and after learning tho iron moldcr's trade becamo a prosperous liatfor, wliich he Mill is. .lohn Bochuc of Evansvillc, Iud., was a farm boy, then a bookkeeper book-keeper and finally a stove manufacturer. manufac-turer. Moss, another new lloosior member, mem-ber, was a poor farm boy, as was Ma-guiro Ma-guiro of Nebraska. 'Latin of Nebraska walked across the state of Iowa, crossed the Missouri river and took up a homestead in tho thou territory of Nebraska. This whs before the ovef-land ovef-land railways were built ami ho was still in his teens. Previously ho had been a poor farm boy in eastern Iowa. Studied by a Pine Knot Fire. But when it comes to self-made careers ca-reers low can beat that of John Grant, now member from the tenth North Carolina Car-olina district. Born in a. log' cabin, seventeen miles from t lie nearest town, this young tarheel saw his father go out to light tho union troops and come back to find all his possessions swept away by tho war. John was then six. lie and his three brothers set to work, from daylight till dawn, to win another farm from the mountain wilderness, lie had not been to school when ho married mar-ried at eighteen and settled down on a corner of this property. But now. feeling the need of an education, ho bought a dictionary, a "blue-back" speller and a Davios' arithmetic, and after working all day ho would tote a load of pine knots homo at night and, whilo the tired wifo and youngsters young-sters woro asleep, he studied theso books. Soon ho was ablo to read the newspapers, and. diclionar3- in hand, ho studicdtliem. letting not a strange word escape. These books wore John Grant's onlv teachers, bur. they served him so well that he was sent to tho legislature legisla-ture when only thirty. Then ho was sheriff for two terms 'beforo coining to tho Sixty -first congress. Son of Head of Cabinet. This name. Grant, calls to mind another an-other man who has just made his debut in tho house Hamilton Fish of New York, son of that Hamilton Fish who was another Grant's secretary of stnie, and who also was governor of tho great Empire state. This new member's career ca-reer is in bold contrast with those which aavo been pictured above. Ho was born in the executive mansion in Albany Al-bany while Iiis father was governor, was educated in Switzerland and at Columbia college and then ho was a social favorite m Washington, where he was private secrctarv to his father "when the Jatlcr was head of tho cabinet. Returning to New York, he settled down to law and served, eleven years in tho legislature, where he was twico elected speaker. When elected lo con- , gross last fall he was serving his sec- ond term as assistant treasurer of the United States, directing tho big sub-'x treasury at. the metropolis. Another scion of a distinguished fam- , ily to etitcr this congress is John Motley Mot-ley Morehcad of North Carolina, the grandson of that John Motley 'More-head 'More-head who was twice elected Whig governor gov-ernor of that stnto back in tho forties. While John Grant was teaching himself alongside his pine knot tiro, down there in tho backwoods of North Carolina, the j able young grandson of a governor was ' plodding Iiis way through military school and through tho slato university, univer-sity, yet both have arrived at the same goal at the same time. Undertaker and Baseball Star. Indeed, it seems as though all roads lead to congress if trod -fh steadv step. There, for instance, is Daniel Driscoll, an undertaker of Buffalo, who lias made his way to this house, climbing climb-ing over coIHns and cooling boards. He has been an undertaker since he was a boy and his father was in the samo grim business before him. And he never held public office beforo his election elec-tion tothe iiouso last fall 1)3' tho Democrats Demo-crats of Buffalo. The first professional baseball player to enter the house is .lohn Tenor of Charlcroi, Pa. Ho is an Irishman, born in County Tyrone, and ho landed in America when onh nine. Ho went to Pittsburg, clerked "in the plants there, played the national game at spare moments mo-ments and became a professional. The old fans remember him as a star on the diamond from JS to ".)0. lie played with the Chicago National Leaguo club, became well known as a pitcher, and was selected to tour tho world with the picked Spalding team in 1SSD. Since then he has been engaged in banking at Charlcroi, first as cashier and then as president. Three other onc-limc immigrants entered en-tered 1 hothouse the other day with Teufr. Graham of Springfield, III., came over from Ireland when in his teens, taught school in Illinois, studied law while teaching, entered the legislature legis-lature and becamo the law partner of Senator John M. Palmer, tho third Iinrty candidate for president in 'OH. iichard Young of Flatbusll, N. Y., came from tho Emerald Isle when only five, went to school in Philadelphia, learned tho leather trade, became a wealthy leather manufacturer in New York, was mado park commissioner for Brooklyn and Queens and transformed the barren sand wasto at Coney Island into the beautiful seaside park. Lundin of Chicago Chi-cago came over from Sweden, became a manufacturing chemist and climbed to congress b' way of the stato senate of Illinois. Two-Thirds Arc Lawyers. So we have new men of all stripes sitting down in this congress to help revise our tariff for us. to attend to tho infant industries and raiso spending spend-ing mono' for our uncle with tho long, leau legs and bewhiskercd chin. It is enough to blast the hopes of those lads who have set their caps for a congressional con-gressional career, for tlic.y lenow not which highroad or byroad to turn into. It may be trite to sa3", as has been said over and over again, that the surest guide through tho circumbendibus circumbendi-bus is that sheep-covered volume writ IJ3- the one hand of one Blackstonc, and that the best kit to carry on 3'our back is 'the green bag. Statistics of the freshman class of this sixt3'-first houso of ours bears this out. Two-thirds aro lawyers. There arc seventy-six. of these freshmen ;and forty-six have sailod in over tho bar. This makes 05 per coat plus, wliich is near enough to two-thirds for moral statistics. Of those twenty-five have boon prosecuting attovnc"s, district at-torueys, at-torueys, state's, county "or city attorneys attor-neys more prosecuting attorneys than . 3 9 tho others and seven have been .liiuges. Here we havo thirty-four noarly three-quarters of our new lawyer-members, who have come in by wav ol public legal office. The figures speak for themselves. Other Stopping Stones. Then thcro is also tho legislature. Twenty-soven over a third of our j new members, lawyers and laymen, have come by this route. Three havo been mayors; three, aldermen; three, ' city councilman; three, postmasters; two, Hlicriff.i. Tho soldier class, too, is small totaling six four Spanish war, one Union and one Confederate vet- :J cran. j The farmers rank next to the law-vers law-vers in present occupations, but num- C nor only eleven. (An equal number t-have, t-have, been teachers in past years.) Then come eight manufacturers," seven newspaper men, two bankers, a merchant, mer-chant, a real estate man., a mine own- u or, a grocer and tho hatter and under- i taker mentioned before. ,' And what about education? Dividing Divid-ing these members into three classes, we find the college graduates far in tho ) lead, with thirty-four; those with com- j. mon school educations with twent'- v,'. five, thoso with high school and aoa- " demic education with sixlocn, tho en-ti en-ti rely self-educated with one. So the line of least resistance in the congrcssward career seems to bo by way of the college to law school and thence to tho legislature, the bench or the elective attorneyship. .JOHN KLFIvETIL W ATKINS. |