The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1882-07-13
Mrs.. Douglas a-Oups.
A Charming Incident Illustrating Her Tact and
Amiabiiify.

Amiabiiity.
A story has been going the rounds OF
the press lately attributed to Mrs. Sena-
tor Bingham-if any historian can re-
member such a senator-that infringes
too closely upon an incident in the life
of Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas to be let
pass unmolested. The tradition tellers
and the legend lovers of Washington
have always remembered the pretty and
graceful ways of Mrs. Douglas, and new
CIR cease to hold her up as the model of
statesman's wife. Her tact and her
amiability were boundless, and although
when she married the Little Giant she
was very young and much his junior,
she adapted herself to the position from
the start so thoroughly that no wife OF
twenty years experience in public life
could equal her. For every friend, for
every constituent, and for every enemy
of Senator Douglas she had just the
right thing ready to say, and, with her
wonderful memory for names, faces,
and places, she was never without some
personal inquiries to make Of each
stranger Her social instinct was as
marvellous as the gift of second sight,
and when she accompanied Mr. Doug
las on his famous journey through the
south to visit his mother there was not
a person encountered in all that tour that
she could not have recognized at sight
and called by name had they entered
her parlor unannounced year later.
Mrs. Douglas popularity was wonder
full at that time, and her face and win
ming ways made friends right and left
for the senator, at that time candidate
for the presidency.
At one of her receptions in Washing
ton a great, shy, awkward constituent
from the most rustic region of Illinois,
presented himself in Mrs. Douglas
doorway, sent up there from the capitol
by the senator, who had assured him
that his wife would be delighted to see
him. The visitor was anything but q
parlor ornament, rude, unpublished son
of the prairie, unused to any of the ways
of society, but power in the politics of
| his home, and a man whose influence
could be of vast assistance to Mr.. Doug
las. Entering the room gave him a
nervous chill, Mrs. Douglas pretty
greeting threw him into fever, and her
inviting him out to the refreshment
room completed case of palsy. Ignor-
ing his trepidation she chatted away to
him herself, paid no attention to his
stammering refusals, and poured out the
| tea into some miraculous little cups of
eggshell Sevres. Grasping the fairy
calyx in his fingers for first sip, the
delicate bit of Sevres was crushed to
pieces and the hot tea poured in a stream
over Mrs. Douglas silken train. With
gay laugh the lady said, elbow brittle
they are! just look at mine,n and with
| q mighty effort she broke another cup
between her fingers. Treasured, the
constituent drew his breath and found
| himself at ease, while that incompara-
BILE hostess talked to him, asked about
his mother, his wife and his children,
| all of whom she remembered so well
home to work for, vote for, and swear
by Stephen A. Douglas, and way back
of his political convictions lay the pieces
of those broken tea-cups.
Some ladies were discussing the Incl
| dent at lunch party the other day, es-
tablishing Mrs. Douglas right to fame
and routing the mythical Mrs. Senator
| Bingham, of whom the perverted story
has lately been told. Said one pretty
woman: Il wouldn't break my best tea
cups for any constituent in my hus-
bands district" Out of the group there
was only one who courageously said:
I'D break my whole dinner set, if it
would send my husband to the senate,
and buy new ones when got to WASH
ington," she shrewdly added. -.St.
| Louis Globe Democrat