The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1879-05-08

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States, whose portrait accompanies this
article, is Allen g. Thurman, of Ohio,
who was lately chosen president pro
tempore of the United States Senate.
By the terms of the Constitution, when
there is vacancy in the Presidential
and ViCe-Presidential office, as there now
is-Messrs. Samuel ]. Tilden and Thorn
as A. Hendricks having failed to qualify
and assume the duties of the offices to
which they were respectively elected
the president pro tempOre of the Senate
becomes theacting President of the Unit
ed States. To this office Mr.. Thurman
was chosen.
Mr. Thurman is now in the sixty-sixth
year ofhis age, and in the thirty-fourth
year of a nearly continuous public serv-
ice, either as a maker or an expounder
Of laws. Born at Lynchburg, Va, in No
vember, 1918, and removing with his pa
rents to Ohio In 1919, his early training
was substantially that of pioneer; not,
indeed, of the school whose disciples
carried their lives in their hands and
their fortunes on their backs-the first
settlers of the great West-but rather of
that class who followed in the footsteps
of conquest to build the palaces of peace
full civilization upon the ruins of the red
mans wigwam. When Thurman first
saw the soil Of Ohio he was a child of
six years, and it might not be an inapt
simile to say the incident was the Join
ing Of two destinies-that of the future
man and the future commonwealth. One
of the best abused phrases of our vernac-
ular is growing up with the country )"
a phrase which, in Mr.. Thurmans case,
has as literal meaning as it is possible
to convey in words. The growth. in this
instance, has been almost exactly paral-
lei, and to carry the analogy to its con-
clusion it might be added that as stands
Ohio in the list Of States, so stands Thur
man on the roster of statesmen-with
but one step more to reach the head. 1t
is not our purpose, in the present sketch,
to deal with dry details of biography.
The character of Senator Thurman is a
topic of greater interest than survey of
his career would be.
Taking Mr.. Thurman as he stands we
find man somewhat above middle
stature, with the traces of sixty-six years
mainly confined to his hair and whisk-
ers, and owing whatsoever of enervation
that may be his lot rather to the tax of
intense labor than to the ravages of
time or the inroads of disease. He has
shared the common fate of those who
sacrifice the body to the mind in. the
shape of a legacy of small ails and little
ills which do not shorten ones DAYS so
much as they lengthen ones nights now
and then with temporary suffering. But,
barring these, Mr.. Thurman is the
youngest man of his age now prominent
in our public life. The cut which accom-
panies this sketch, though accurate from
Its point of view, does not fairly convey
the expression of the man. The best
view of Mr.. Thurman's face is the full
front, and even that is superior to the
art of portraiture. We have never seen
any picture of Mr.. Thurman which did
not represent him as an austere man,
grave at all times and under all circum-
stances, not one of them ever conveying
the slightest intimation of what is really
the most salient element in his compost
ton - his overflow of quaint humor,
which would be cruel if it were not quite
so droll, and which at times would ap-
proach cynicism if its conceits were not
50 queer: In point of fact, gravity is-one
of Mr.. Thurman's studies. He has, in
deed, acquired the status of thinker
and a logician in public life, but those
who know him well know that not the
least of his efforts has been to suppress
or keep in hand levity of conception
and a drollery Of notion which, under
other schooling, might easily have given
MN MN the less commanding, though per
haps not less comfortable reputation of
wit and satirist. Occasionally the roll
licking instinct gets the better of the
studied thought, even in the Senate, and
there is flash of humor from the ordi-
narily sombre front of the Democratic
leader.