New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-12-25
Oaleb Cushing.

Seventy years Of age is the learned CusA-
ing, the universal attorney for and against
the government. His income is not less
chan ~. 600 year, and his expenses are
twenty-five sents day, bis clients paying
forstationery. He receives 325, 900 per annum
from the Mexican Republic to defend it be-
fore the existing commission. besides co
pious clerk hire. There is q wellAccredited
superstition here that he makes his clerks
work, and that he sets them the example.
Besidee this fat thing which gives him free
office rent, Gushing is literally the eltipan
ssosso voguus Of the federal government.
Mr.. Alderman, coming from the wiids Of
Ocmnlgee, and knowing nothing Of the
State Department cases, flies to Mr.. Cush-
ing and retains him in forty or more. Mr..
BristOw, the new Solicitor General, seee no
other alternative. The Democratic election
frauds in New York demand somebody to
represent tho administration, and the Pres;-
dent of the Baltimore Democratic Ccnyen-
ton IL the man.
Mr.. Seward leaned upon the arm OF the
delightful Caleb, and the latter was WI
carly alleged here to 4" run the state De-
partment He IL still the benevolent legal
encyclopedias of this anti:judicial period--a
political time when 1.-THE party" proposes to
will not upset tho President into the bears
den of Congress-and there appears to be
nobody in the country who is 90 close to the
official elbow. Iwrite all this without mis-
chief Gushing II the Administrations only
trusted legal adviser. Politics has gained
20 much upon law in the last few years that
General Grant has to reach into past eivili-
cation and fetch out John Tyler's Commis-
sioner TO China and Franklin Pieree'e At
torney General. Who can explain this
necessity. except on the ground that Evarts.
Curtis, Trumbull, Hoar and other large
national men, make tie administration
uneasy by their "muchness" of character
and Judgment, and that fine old hack
iawyer is preferred, to whom all generations
:sre the same, whose manner never varies and
who universally disbelievos in everybody
Cushing's character is what might De ex-
poeted from o man of New England birth
md domestic education, who began life by
= renunciatiOA Of every conventional pa
triosism, and resolved simply to be very
learned. without any principles, except a
few business rules; his decalogue ten gen
e3al antipathies, covering everything hu-
man: no ballast but industry, and, over all,
the ftscile complexion Of affability; he has
descended to ~ through seventy active
ysars, and fer forty five Of them he has been
In incidental public lite. He has had FOR
,diepts nine administrations. His only de-
Light Is work. It is his repose. his worship.
his substitute for faith. To see him rice at
five o'clock, breakfast frugally, and then.
With almost sensual ayidity, repair to hls
tabor. il TO teach US the divine economy of
application rs o substitute for every ideal
efement. It answers for soul with that
anwearing scavenger, the fy.
1t gives almost = human interest to
Yankee clock, and it links Caleb Gushing to
his .pecies. His only enjoyment ia to go
fishing, all alone, about twice a year, and he
fishes with the intensity Of full moon
drawing high tide by his assiduity. At O.
State dinner he Is q delightful guest, ful! OF
anecdote. "reminiscences and suavity. but
few suspect that all this is sheer employ
ment with him. He writes for the great re-
yiews-the North american, Forney's Chr"'s-
iele, etc., with abundant learning, but only
"A an attorney, affirmed or concealed. He
vent to the Mexican war for employment
but he had no belief in it. Willy, sly, wise,
whatever he may be, he has no definite no
hon of tho result which he influences. He
is simply an automaton library and univer-
AL gazetteer, worked BY perpetual motion
in the unknown interest of Caleb Cushing
As . pleader in court, Gushing 10 without
brilliancy. He will give an owl the blues
to listen to him. His three elements OF sue
~ees are learning, tho long renewn 81 nearly
half a centurys prominence, and almost
-eonseienceless teaacity to 'he cause of his
client. He had been eight years in Cen
grees in IS43 He had been tutor in Cam
bridge, . Supreme Justice in Massachusetts,,
snd time and again in the State Legislature
aimee 1913. Author, codifier, foreign traveller.
prince in high society, wire-puller IN poll
tics, the moderator in that pandemonium
after the angel Michael had defeated tho
alive party, Gushing has descended to US .
political atheist, and it is general remark
among the lawyers here that his judgment
10 not worth an Office boys.
Thus it is to enter public life without in.
tentions or sympathies, those two grand
virtues-the ono in man, the other in
wOman-which make the political son OF
Hermes. Solomon tried it longer than
Caleb Gushing, and wound up his career
with the same words: VANITY of vanltles,
saith tho lawyer. There is no reward to
mere industry, but industry. A clock exists
no more when it ceases to run. Put it IN
the town steeple or on the family mantel,
and to its application is superadded senti-
ment, duty, . beneticence. But Caleb
Gushing runs entirely to himself. He
neither tells tho time nor knows it. He
ehews law books for fuel, and he runs with
GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND.