OCR Text |
Show TILLMAN MAY flUIT Rumor Says That Picturesque Senator Will Resign Seat. Is III at His South Carolina Home of General Nervous Debility His Stormy Career in Upper House of Congress. Washington The shrill voice oi Senator Benjamin Ryan Tillman of South Carolina may never be heard in the senate chamber again. Senator Tillman is ill at his home, a farm near Trenton, S. C. The rumor that he contemplates resigning his seat is revived, but Mr. Tillman is following the same course he did last summer and refuges to confirm or deny the rumor. Senator Tillman has not fully recovered recov-ered from the attack of partial paralysis paraly-sis which seized him last summer. He tried to cure this by an extended tour of several months in Europe. The health resorts of the continent helped him greatly and he returned to the United States much stronger than he was when he left. While the paralysis has not returned, a general debility from nervousness has made his life unhappy in the last few months. The going of Tillman will take from the senate one of-its most picturesque characters. "Pitchfork Ben," as he is called, is feared of all other senators for the sharpness of his tongue and the keeness of his wit. No man in the United States senate is an abler rough ' "aft, , , vyy Senator B. R. Tillman. and ready debater than Tillman While his remarks have never carried much weight they have appealed to the galleries and looked well in print. His logic might have been poor and his speeches inferior to those of his opponents, but his mannerisms have won the victory for- him in the popular pop-ular mind. Senator Tillman's' brother, the late George R. Tillman, was a congressman congress-man from the Second South Carolina district. In the house he was known as one of the most quiet and unemotional unemo-tional men that ever sat in the body. During his service he seldom talked and when he did he spoke simply and to the point. The name of Tillman was practically unknown until Senator Sena-tor Tillman was elected governor of South Carolina in 1892. He celebrated his election by forcing through the legislature the dispensary liquor law in that state. Always interested in education, he founded his second college in the state after the inauguration. The first school established through his effort was the Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical Me-chanical college at Calhoun's old home, Fort Hill, S. C. The second school is the Winthrop Normal and Industrial College for Women at Rock Hill. The successful canvass for the gubernatorial chair encouraged Mr. Tillman to try for the senatorial election elec-tion against Gen. Butler. The two men canvassed South Carolina county by county, and Tillman won in the legislature legis-lature with 131 votes against Gen. Butler's 21. He took his seat in the senate on March 4, 1895, and has been re-elected twice since. His term of office would expire in 1913 if he continued con-tinued to serve. In his career in the senate Mr. Tillman Till-man has had a stormy time. Always ready with his voice to attack or defend de-fend as the mood was, he got into a wordy war with Senator McLaurin of his state over a new brand of Demo cracy which Tillman preached in South Carolina as "commercial Democracy." De-mocracy." McLaurin dubbed it plain Republicanism. The two senators clashed over some trivial matter in the senate chamber and were soon pummelling each other like school boys. Senator Tillman suffered the worst slight of his career niter this fracas. President Roosevelt had invited him. along with the other members of the foreign relations committee, to dine with him when Prince Henry of Prussia Prus-sia was the guest of honor. When the president heard of the fight in the senate chamber he recalled the invitation invita-tion to Mr. Tillman. The senator never has forgotten the snub and until un-til President Taft occupied the White House never entered the White House grounds. His fight with Roosevelt was long. The president scored in the last encounter en-counter when he replied to Tillman's criticism of his secret service policy by publishing letters which tended to show that Senator Tillman was Interested Inter-ested in a land deal in the west whose Interests were being furthered by hip activity as a senator. |