Chapter 23

At a banquet in Washington in the winter of 1880-81, a large number of Representatives were present. Among the number were Reed, McKinley, Cannon, and Keifer. These gentlemen were all prospective candidates for the Speakership of the then recently elected House of Representatives. The best of feeling prevailed, and the occasion was one of rare enjoyment and mirth. Each candidate in turn was introduced by the toast-master as "the Speaker of the next House," and in his speech each claimed all the others as his enthusiastic and reliable supporters. The apparent confidence of each candidate in the support of his rivals reminded Mr. Cannon of the experience of an Illinois legislator, which he requested his colleague from the Bloomington district to relate.

That the reader may appreciate the incident then related, some mention must be made of Dr. Thomas P. Rogers of Bloomington. He was a gentleman of the old school, a politician from the beginning, of inflexible integrity and an earnestness of purpose that knew no shadow of turning. He was as devoid of any possible touch of humor as was his own marble bust of Thomas Jefferson. He was the personal friend of Lincoln and of Douglas, and the political follower of the latter. The fondness of a mother for her first-born hardly exceeded that of Dr. Rogers for the party of his choice. Any uncomplimentary allusion to his "principles" was considered a personal injury, and his devotion to party leaders, from Jackson to Douglas, savored of idolatry. Some camp-meeting experiences in early life had given zest and tone to his style of oratory, which stood him well in hand in his many political encounters of a later day.

For three consecutive terms the Doctor had been a member of the Legislature, and his record from every point of view was without a blemish. At his fourth election, it was found that for the first time in a decade or more his party had secured a majority in the House, to which the Doctor had just been elected. The goal of his ambition was the Speakership, and it truly seemed that his hour had now come.

Soon after these facts were known beyond peradventure, the Doctor came one day into my office. After election matters had been talked over at length and with much satisfaction, the Doctor modestly intimated a desire to be a candidate for the Speakership. I at once gave him the promise of my earnest support and inquired whether he had any friends upon whom he could rely in the approaching caucus. He assured me that there were four members of the last House re-elected to this, upon whom he knew he could absolutely depend under all circumstances. Upon my inquiry as to their names, he said:

"Hadlai,"--the Doctor, it may be here mentioned, had from my boyhood kindly given me the benefit of an "H" to which I laid no claim and was in no way entitled--"Hadlai, you take your pencil and take down their names as I give them to you."

I at once took my seat, and pencil in hand, looked inquiringly toward the Doctor.

"Hadlai," he continued, "put down Heise of Cook. John and I have been friends for more than thirty years; I worked for him for a delegate-at-large to the last National Convention, and he told me then, 'Doctor, if there is anything I can do for you, just let me know.'"

To which I replied, "Heise of Cook, dead sure," and his name was at once placed in the Rogers column.

"Now, Hadlai," continued the Doctor, "there is Armstrong of La Salle; Wash and I were boys together in Ohio, and sat side by side in the Charleston Convention when we were trying to nominate Douglas. He has told me more than once that if ever we carried the House, he was for me for Speaker above any man on earth." At which I unhesitatingly placed Armstrong of La Salle in the same column with Heise of Cook.

"Now, Hadlai," continued the Doctor, after a moment's pause, "there is Cummins of Fulton; I helped elect Jim Chairman of the last State Convention, and he has told me again and again that he hoped he would live to see me Speaker, so I can count on Jim without doubt."

I at once placed Cummins in the column of honor with Heise and Armstrong, and calmly awaited further instructions.

"Now, Hadlai, there is Moore of Adams; Alf got into trouble over a bill he had in the last Legislature; he could neither get it out of the committee, nor the committee to take any action, so he came over to my seat terribly worried, and says he, 'Doctor, for God's sake, get me out of this!' I did, Hadlai, and Alf was the most grateful man you ever saw on earth, and told me then, 'Doctor, I would get up at two o'clock at night to do you a favor.' I can safely count on him."

It is needless to say that Moore of Adams rounded out the quartette of faithful supporters.

"Now, Hadlai," remarked the Doctor, after contemplating with apparent satisfaction the list I had handed him, "if you will give me some paper and envelopes and a pen and some stamps, if you have them handy, I will write to all of them now." The articles mentioned were produced, the letters written, stamped, and duly mailed, and the good Doctor departed in an exceedingly comfortable frame of mind.

Time passes, as is its wont; but for some weeks I neither saw nor heard from the Doctor. Meeting him on the street at length, I at once inquired whether he had received replies to his letters.

"Come into the office, Hadlai, and I will explain." Pained to observe that the tone and air of confidence so perceptible in our last interview was lacking, I followed with some misgiving into his office.

"Yes, Hadlai," he slowly began, "I have heard from all of them. Heise of Cook [the familiar appellations of the former interview were wanting] writes assuring me that there is no man living for whom he entertains a more profound respect then for myself, Hadlai; but that owing to unforseen complications arising in his county, he has reluctantly consented _to allow his own name_ to be presented to the caucus."

The name of Heise of Cook was immediately stricken from the head of the list. Then a reverie into which the Doctor had fallen was at length disturbed by my inquiry, "What about Armstrong?"

"Yes, Hadlai, Armstrong of La Salle writes me that in his judgment there is no man living so deserving of the gratitude of the party, or so well qualified for the office of Speaker as myself, but that the pressure from his constituents has been so great that he has _finally consented to allow his own name_ to be presented to the caucus."

"Fare-you-well, Mr. Armstrong," was my hurried observation, as the name of that gentleman disappeared from my list.

Arousing the Doctor at length from the reverie into which he had again fallen, I ventured to inquire as to the state of mind of Mr. Cummins.

"Yes, Hadlai, Cummins of Fulton says that in a certain contingency _he will himself be a candidate,_ and Moore of Adams writes me that _he is a candidate!"_

It may not be out of place to supplement this little narrative by relating an incident that illustrates the fact that a man wholly devoid of any sense of humor himself may at times be the unconscious cause of amusement in others.

Imprimis: The Doctor, while a member of the General Assembly, voted for a measure known in local parlance as "the Lake Front Bill." The criticisms which followed vexed his righteous soul, and he patiently awaited the opportunity for public explanation and personal vindication.

Now it so fell out that at the time whereof we write there was much excitement--a tempest in a tea-pot--in the little city of Bloomington, over a change in "readers" recently ordered in the schools by the Board of Education. After much discussion on the streets and at the corners, a public indignation meeting was called for Saturday evening at the east door of the Court-house. Meanwhile the indignation against the offending Board intensified, and there was some apprehension even of serious trouble. At the appointed time and place, the meeting assembled and was duly organized by the selection of a Chairman. Calls at once began for well-known orators at the bar and upon the hustings. "Ewing," "Fifer," "Rowell," "Prince," "Lillard," "Phillips," "Kerrick," "Weldon," were heard from the crowd in rapid succession. It was like "calling spirits from the vasty deep." No response was given, no orator appeared; and, as is well known, an indignation meeting without an orator is as impossible as "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark omitted.

But sure enough--

"Fortune sometimes brings in boats that are not steered."

At the auspicious moment, from the rear of the crowd Tom Hullinger called out, "Doctor Rogers, Doctor Rogers!" The hour had struck. Without waiting further call, the Doctor promptly took the stand and waiving the formality of an introduction, began:

"I am deeply gratified to have this opportunity to explain to my fellow-citizens who have known me from my early manhood my vote upon the Lake Front Bill," _and a two-hour vindication immediately followed._ No allusion being made to the object of the meeting, or the change of school-books, of which the Doctor knew as little and cared as little as he did of the thirteenth century controversy between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, with the waning hours the excitement subsided. The change of readers became a dead issue; the era of good feeling was restored; and to this blessed hour, except in a spirit of mirth, _the school-book question has never been mentioned._

XX A LAWYER OF THE OLD SCHOOL

JUDGE ARRINGTON, THE IDEAL LAWYER--EULOGIZED BY OTHER JUDGES--BOOKS HIS EARLY COMPANIONS--BECOMES SUCCESSIVELY A METHODIST PREACHER, A LAWYER, AND A JUDGE--WRITES SOME SKETCHES OF LIFE IN THE SOUTHWEST --HIS APOSTROPHE TO WATER RECITED BY GOUGH.

In the old Supreme Court-room at Ottawa, almost a half-century ago, I saw and heard Judge Alfred A. Arrington for the first time. For two hours I listened with the deepest attention to his masterly argument in a cause then exciting much interest because of the large amount involved. The dry question of law under discussion, "as if touched by the enchanter's wand," was at once invested with an interest far beyond its wont. As I listened to the argument of Judge Arrington, and witnessed the manner of its delivery, he appeared in the most comprehensive sense the ideal lawyer. He seemed, indeed, as he probably was, the sole survivor of the school of which Wirt and Pinckney were three generations ago the typical representatives. His dignified bearing, old-time apparel, and lofty courtesy toward the Court and opposing counsel, all strengthened this impression. He had a highly attractive appearance, and as was said by a contemporary, "to crown all, a massive Websterian forehead, needing no seal to give the world assurance of a man."

"Sage he stood, With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or summer's noontide air."

Since then I have listened to advocates of national renown in our great court and in the Senate sitting as a High Court of Impeachment, but at no time or place have I heard an abler, more scholarly, or more eloquent argument than that of Judge Arrington in the old court-room at Ottawa, Illinois, on that day long gone by.

The most eminent members of the Chicago bar were the eulogists of Judge Arrington when he passed to his grave, near the close of the great Civil War. Judge Wilson, in presenting resolutions in honor of the deceased, voiced the sentiments of his associates when he said:

"For more than thirty years at the bar and upon the bench, I have been associated with the legal profession; and I may say without offence that of the many able men I have known I regard Judge Arrington, take him all in all, as the ablest."

The venerable Judge Drummond said:

"I have rarely heard a man whose efforts so constantly riveted the attention from the beginning to the close of his discourse. For while he trod with firm and steady steps the path of logic, his vivid imagination was constantly scattering on each side flowers of fragrant beauty, to the wonder and delight of all who heard him. He was a great lawyer in the highest and largest sense of the term --great in the extent and thoroughness of his legal learning, in the vigor and acuteness of his reasoning, and in the power of his eloquence."

The Hon. Melville W. Fuller, the present Chief Justice of the United States, said:

"When he arose to discuss a question, he exhibited a perfect knowledge of every phase in which it could be presented; and men never grew weary (especially if the argument involved Constitutional construction, in which department he stood _primus inter illustres_) of admiring the amplitude of his legal attainments, the accuracy of his learning, the compactness of his logic, and the majestic flow of his eloquence, and more than all, that firmness and breadth of mind which lifted him above the ordinary contest of the forum.

"It is a source of the deepest consolation that he found peace at the last; that the grand spirit, before it took its everlasting flight, reposed in confidence on the Book of Books; that its departure was illumined by that precious light which ever renders radiant the brief darkness 'twixt mortal twilight and immortal dawn."

And yet, alas, his name has now almost passed from the memories of men; the veil of time has settled over him; no distinct image is recalled by the mention of his name. How suggestive this, of the ephemeral fame of even a great lawyer:

"Swift as shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightning in the collied night."

Words long since uttered by an eminent jurist have not lost their significance:

"There is, perhaps, no reputation that can be achieved amongst men that is so transitory, so evanescent, as that of a great advocate. The very wand that enchants us is magical. Its effects can be felt; it influences our actions; it controls and possesses us; but to define it, or tell what it is, or how it produces these effects, is as far beyond our power as to imprison the sunbeam. In the presence of such majestic power we can only stand awed and silent."

There was much of romance, and somewhat of mystery, that gathered about the life of Judge Arrington. Born of humble parentage in the pine forests of North Carolina, with no advantages other than those common in the remoter parts of our country a century ago, from the beginning he apparently dwelt apart from the conditions surrounding him. At an early age he removed with his father's family to the then wilds of the Southwest.

There, upon the very border line of civilization, his associates for a time were the advance guard, the adventurers and soldiers of fortune that in a large measure constituted the civilization of the southwestern frontier during the early years of the last century. With his early environment, his subsequent career seems a marvel. It can only be explained upon the supposition that through with them, he was not of them.

"His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."

His companions were his books. Denied the advantages of early scholastic training, he was, from the beginning, an omnivorous reader. He cared little for the allurements and excitement of society. At the age of seventeen, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was soon after licensed to preach. For four years he rode the circuit, enduring all the discomforts and dangers then and there incident to his calling. His field may be called the _Ultima Thule,_ bordering upon the Rio Grande and inhabited by Indians. Untutored audiences were stirred to the depths by his fervid appeals. Church buildings were yet in the future; the congregations assembled in God's first temples, and listened with rapt attention to the fiery eloquence of the delicate, youthful messenger, whose soul seemed on fire.

A gentleman who had heard Arrington writes:

"He was then young, delicate, as brilliant as a comet, and almost as erratic. Without research or mental discipline, he could electrify an audience beyond all living men, and arouse in the minds of those who heard him the wildest enthusiasm."

For some cause, possibly never to be explained, he suddenly abandoned the ministry, began the study of the law, and when a little past the age of twenty-one, was admitted to the bar. After some years of successful practice in the rude frontier courts of Arkansas, he removed to Texas, where he was soon appointed a judge, and assigned to the Rio Grande circuit. In addition to his judicial labors, he now wrote and published some graphic and interesting sketches of border life, vivid pictures of conditions then existing in the Southwest among a people the like of which we shall not see agin, a people upon whom the restraints and amenities of civilized life sat but lightly, who were in large degree a law unto themselves, and with whom revenge was virtue.

One of his publications, "Paul Denton," still has a place in many of our libraries. It is, in part, a narrative of the thrilling experiences of an early Methodist circuit-rider--presumably himself --upon the southwest border. In this will be found his marvellous apostrophe to water, which, as was said by Judge Dent, "was so familiar to the lecture-going public of the last generation owing to its frequent declamation from the rostrum by the temperance lecturer, Gough."

The hero of the book, Paul Denton, had been announced to preach at a famous Spring, where "plenty of good liquor" was promised to all who would attend. During the sermon, a desperado demanded: "Mr. Denton, where is the liquor you promised?"

"There!" answered the preacher in tones of thunder, and pointing his motionless finger at a spring gushing up in two strong columns from the bosom of the earth with a sound like a shout of joy. "There," he repeated, "there is the liquor which God the Eternal brews for all his children. Not in the simmering still over the smoky fires choked with poisonous gases, surrounded with stench of sickening odors and corruptions, doth your Father in heaven prepare the precious essence of life--pure cold water; but in the green glade and grassy dell, where the red-deer wanders and the child loves to play, there God brews it; and down, low down, in the deepest valleys, where the fountains murmur, and the rills sigh, and high upon the mountain-tops where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun, where the storm-cloud broods and the thunder-storms crash; and far out on the wide, wild sea, where the hurricane howls music and the big waves roll the chorus, sweeping the march of God--there he brews it, the beverage of life, health-giving water.

"And everywhere it is a thing of life and beauty--gleaming in the dew-drop; singing in the summer rain; shining in the ice gem till the trees all seem turned to living jewels; spreading a golden veil over the sun or a white gauze around the midnight moon; sporting in the glacier; folding its bright snow-curtain softly about the wintry world; and weaving the many-colored bow whose warp is the rain-drops of earth, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checkered over with the mystic hand of refraction.

"Still it is beautiful, that blessed life-water! No poisonous bubbles are on its brink; its foam brings not murder and madness; no blood stains its liquid glass; pale widows and starving orphans weep not burning tears into its depths; no drunkard's shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in the world of eternal despair. Beautiful, pure, blessed, and glorious. Speak out, my friends, would you exchange it for the demon's drink, alcohol?"

In Calvary Cemetery, Chicago, rests all that is mortal of Judge Arrington.

"Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, for he was your kinsman! Weed clean his grave, ye men of goodness, for he was your brother!"

XXI HIGH DEBATE IN THE MOUNTAINS

COLONEL WOOLFORD, A HERO UNDER GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR--HIS MANNER OF FIGHTING--HIS DEFENCE OF A YOUTH CHARGED WITH MURDER--HE MAKES A SPEECH THAT INFURIATES GENERAL FRY.

One of the men not easily forgotten was the Hon. Frank Woolford, a member of Congress from the mountains of Kentucky nearly a quarter of a century ago. He was without reservation a typical mountaineer. He practised law in the local courts, and was prominent in the politics of his State. His style of oratory bore little resemblance to that of the British House of Lords. He had been a soldier in two wars, and his dauntless courage and inexhaustible good humor made him the idol of his comrades. He had been of the heroic band of "Old Rough and Ready" that repelled the charge of twenty thousand lancers under Santa Ana at Buena Vista. He was as brave as Marshal Ney, and it was said of him that the battle-field was his home as the upper air was that of the eagle.

He promptly espoused the cause of the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War and was chosen Colonel of a mounted regiment gathered from his own and adjacent counties. He knew how to fight, but of the science of war as taught in the schools he was as ignorant as the grave. It was said that his entire tactics were embraced in two commands: "Huddle and fight," and "Scatter." When the first was heard his men "huddled and fit"; and when retreat was the only possible salvation, the command to "scatter" was obeyed with equal alacrity. Each man was now for himself, and "devil take the hindmost" for a time, but the sound of Woolford's bugle never failed to secure prompt falling into line at the auspicious moment. "Woolford's cavalry" was the synonym for daring, even at the time when the recital of the deeds of brave men filled the world's great ear.

Woolford and his troopers were in the thickest of the fight at Mill Spring, where Zollicoffer fell; later, they hung upon the flanks of Bragg on his retreat southward from the bloody field of Perryville. More than once during those troublous times our hero was a "foeman worthy the steel" of John Morgan, Forrest, and the gallant Joe Wheeler of world renown.

At the close of the war, Colonel Woolford returned to his mountain home and was in due time elected a Representative in Congress. Years later, with life well rounded out, he met the only foe to whom he ever surrendered, and lamented by all, passed to the beyond.

Some faint idea of Colonel Woolford's style of eloquence at the bar may possibly be gathered from the following. He was retained to defend a half-grown, illiterate youth under indictment for murder. The crime was committed near "Jimtown," but by a change of venue the trial took place at Danville, in the neighboring county of Boyle. Danville, it must be remembered, was the Athens of Kentucky. It was the seat of Centre College, of a Presbyterian theological Seminary, and of more than one of the public institutions of the State. It was the home of men of prominence and wealth, and for three generations had been renowned for the high character, attainments, and culture of its people.

In his speech to the jury in behalf of his unfortunate client, the Colonel insisted that the poor boy at the bar of justice, born and reared in the mountains, without any of the advantages of churches and schools, was not to be held in the same degree responsible as if his lot had been cast in Danville. In his argument he said:

"Here you have your schools, your Centre College, your Theological Seminary, your churches. Every third man you meet on the streets is a minister of the Gospel, and the others are all teachers in the Sunday school. Here you have your great preachers, Young, Green, Humphreys, Yerkes, Robertson, Breckenridge--in fact, Presbyterianism to your hearts' content in the very air. But this poor boy has known nothing of these things. O gentlemen, what might not this poor boy have been, and what might not poor Jimtown have been, with all these advantages?"