The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-07-23
John Sherman.
His Public Life and Private Character.

Edmund Hudson, the well-known Washing
ton correspondent of the Boston Herald fur
nishes to that journal sketch of Secretary
Sherman, from which some extracts are sub
joined. Mr.. Hudson is an accomplished cor
respondent, and has a wide acquaintance with
public men, all of which adds greatly to the
interest and value of the sketch:
1t was, perhaps natural that Mr. Sherman,
taking the place in the Senate of the United
States to which Mr.. Chase had been chosen in
1861, should have taken the lead on financial
questionsin that body. But he could not have
done this if he had not already led off as an
economist and financier in the House of Rep
resentatives, and he could not have taken the
lead which he did in either house without
great intellectual aptitude for
THIS BRANCH OF sTATEsMANsHIP.
He could not know in 61-'65 that it would fall
to him fifteen years later to complete in the
treasury department the work which Mr..
Chase was then laying out for the future. But
II he had known that such was to be his task,
he would have proceeded to concentrate his
attention, as he did, upon the finances. Hav-
ing been chairman of the committee on ways
and means in the Thirty-sixth Congress, it was
natural that, on his promotion to the Senate,
he should have place on the finance commit
tee. When Mr.. FeSSenden, the chairman on
that committee, was appointed Secretary of the
Treasury in place of Mr.. Chase, Mr.. Sherman
became chairman of the committee, and when
Mr.. Fessenden returned to the Senate in 1866
MIR. Sherman gave up the position to him. In
1869 Mr.. Sherman again succeeded Mr.. Fessen-
den as chairman of the committee, and held
the position up to the time when he became
Secretary of the Treasury in 1877-a period of
eight years. No other man in Congress con-
centrated his attention ON this one subject as
Mr.. Sherman did, and no one else welded
larger influence. Mr.. Sherman alone, of all
the statesmen of the period, since the death of
Sumner, has been able to make printed vol
ume of his speeches. He is the only man in
the United States government whose views on
any question of public affairs in erte1SO are OBJ
tainable in book form. The distinction is one
that deserves to be emphasized. So few of our
public men ever print anything outside OF the
pages of the Congressional Record. So many
of them never read anything, apparently, ex-
cept the Record and the newspapers. There
were many reasons why, when Mr.. Hayes be-
came President, he desired to have Mr. Sher-
man for his Secretary of the Treasury. If
there had been no other reason, his personal
fitness for the place was sufficient one.
Mr.. Sherman has the respect and, in large
measure, the confidence of the business inter-
ests and the wealth of the country. He is
identified in the popclar mind with the re-
sumption OF specie payments, which has turned
out to be nothing but the Punishment of a
doubt and debate. We were down to hard
pan before. All that needed to be done was to
convince a lot of foolish people of the fact.
Mr. Sherman has the credit of doing this. The
refunding of the debt, which was the newt
able result of the abolishment of the premium
on gold, has followed and astonished the coun-
try 1t has been managed with the greatest
vigor by the secretary and the recognition of
his agency i'll the business is universal There
is another side to his administration of the
treasury department, which the public does
not see. AS an executive officer Mr.. Sher-
mans equal has not been seen in the treasury
department during the last quarter of the CEN
tury, which is the same as saying during mod
ern times. His power of concentration and of
rapid work is extraordinary. His comprehen-
sion of the working of the department is per-
feet, and his knowledge of its development
during the war period is complete. He has
watched every part of this machine as it has
grown to its present enormous proportions.
He is, in fact, as
FAMILIAR WITH THE DEPARTMENT
as if he had been secretary for the past 20
years. 1t will be noted that since he has been
at the head of it, there have been no scandals
in the department. Abuses have been cor
rected, and the great machine has been put in
excellent order. Every person in the depart
ment feels that nothing can go amiss without
the knowledge of it coming to the secretary.
The discipline, if that is the word to use, is
therefore better than it has ever been since
the department reached its present proper
tions.
If Mr. Sherman gets into the White House
he may do many things that are not yet thought
OF. LII he does not get there, he may go back
to the Senate again from Ohio in 1881, the
prospect being that his party will control tie
election OF Mr.. Thurmans successor. Unless
he shall become President his fame must rest
with his achievements in the Treasury. Out
side of his connection with the finan-
ces, it is difficult to make much out of
his career in Congress. Always strong and
d1gnlted figure, he seems to have had a happy
faculty of concentrating his powers ON practi-
cal questions of affairs, and has let others do
the political slang-whanging. He entered the
House OF Representatives in 1855, at the first
session of the Thirty-fourth Congress. He
had been conservative Whig, and had repre-
sented that party in its conventions in 1S4S and
1852. He succeeded a Democrat named Linds-
ley in the thirteenth Ohio district and was
elected to the three succeeding Congresses, not
serving out his term in the Thirty-seventh
Congress on account of his election to the Sem
ate. His first vote was cast for N. p. Banks
for Speaker, and he supported him warmly.
In this Congress he was member of the COM
mittee on foreign affairs. Being new men,
Der it was impossible for him to take very
prominent part. He mingled in the debates
occasionally, and figured as
DETERMINED OPPONENT OF SLAVERY
from the first, following in the footsteps of his
colleague Giddings, and of Wade and Sum
ner in the Senate. / notice, however, that he
took a considerably more prominent part than
Mr. Bingham who entered Congress at the
same time. The greater struggles over the
slavery question in the House were already
ended in that body, for in the election of Banks
after two months struggle the Southern
Democrats saw their power passing away
From this time onward to 1860 the House of
Representatives was more like camp in which
two hostile armies stood facing each other,
with nothing but a dead line between them
Those were the days when men on both sides
carried revolvers and knives and Missed muir
derous threats at each other across the middle
aisle of the Representatives hall. Sherman
came In too late to take very prominent part
III the slavery debates, but he was always
game" as the boys say, in all the conflicts
that arose. A gentleman who served with him
in the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Con-
crosses narrated to me an incident that shows
the sort of feeling that prevailed in those ex-
citing years. One day in the House. a men,
ber from Tennessee named John " Wright,
took exception to something that Mr. Sherman
had said, and walked over from his seat to the
Kepubllcan side, proceeding up the aisle in a
threatening manner toward Mr.. Sherman who
was IN his seat He made some offensive re-
mark as he came within earshot of the Ohio
member, who instantly grasped box of waters
such as was then daily placed on every men,
ber's desk, and threw it in the Tennesseean's
face. The occurrence attracted attention. and
1t was expected by all who saw Sherman's act
that there would be fight, but the Tennessee
bully, after hesitating moment, shook the
waters from his head and shoulders, turned
about and walked away The incident has
never got into print before, and it is said that
Mr. Sherman never liked to refer to it.
IN THE THIRTY-sIxTH coNNREss
Mr.. Sherman became the Republican leader
and was made the candidate for Speaker. The
contest that ensued was as long and as exciting
as that which resulted in the election of Banks
| four years before Mr.. Sherman had indorsed
Hinton Rowan Helpers book ''The Impending
| Crisis" He claimed not to have known what
| were its contents. The Free Soilers from the
Middle States would not vote for him, and his
friends were finally obliged to abandon his
name and to unite on Pennington of New Jer.
sey. The contest ended in Pennington's elec.
| ton Feb. l, 1860. Fourteen months later the
Southerners were leaving Congress and max.
| ing ready for war, and Mr.. Sherman was elected
| to the Senate. That Mr.. Sherman should have
been taken up for the Speakership shows that
he had already gone to the head. Had he
| been elected Speaker of the House, he would
probably have held the position through sever
al Congresses-unless he had chosen to give il
| up for place in the Senate. After twenty
| years OF arduous political life, Mr.. Sherman
seems to be again becoming as prominent as
| he was III the winter of 1S59-60.
| When Secretary Sherman went info office he