The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1884-08-30
WHO IS "STEvE" ELKINS ?
A Good Man Who has Become a Target
for Democratic Mud-Slinging.

Ever since the meeting of the Republican Ma
tional Convention many Democratic newspapers
(among them the Baltimore Sum- have taken
particular pains, ON all occasions, to slur Hon.
Stephen B. Elkins, who is the honored son-in-law
of the Hon. Henry G. Davis, Democratic ex-
United States Senator from West Virginia. In
order that the public may know something about
this honored citizen we make some extracts from
letter which lately appeared in one of the lead
ing newspapers of the country.
The letter says that while his slanderers have
slumbered, "Stephen B. Elkins has sprung from
unknown boyhood into the most vigorous and
distinctive type of American manhood. He is
brilliant example of the class which we may be
proud to show to the foreigner as a specimen of
what our American institutions produce, and we
can assure our gentle hermits that unless they
shake themselves awake and sedulously cultivate
Mr.. Elkins, the chances are hundred to one they
will never be in such good company in their lives.
"Mr. Elkins was born in Ohio, reared in Mis-
souri,, and graduated at the University of Missouri,
in the year 1860, at the age of eighteen. He took
the highest rank in his class and bears the degrees
of A. B. and A. NJ from his University. For the
last two years he has been elected to deliver the
Throughout his boyhood and youth he was
surrounded by Southern associations. In spite
of these influences, however with father and
two brothers in sympathy and identified with the
Confederate service, he fought on the side of the
Union. Having studied law he went to New
Mexico to take survey before striking out for
| life, and was sufficiently suited to remain. The
population was SO largely Spanish that young
Elkins found it necessary to learn their language,
which he practically mastered in the first year,
and while engaged in his legal profession. At
| the end of that first year he was elected to the
Legislature.
1riS t ihsse ana corf& ed BIZ By
the Legislative Council as Attorney General of
the Territory. In 1885, at the age of twenty six,
he was appointed United States Attorney by the
| President. In 1878 he was elected to Congress
by the largest majority ever cast for candidate
| for that Office in the Territory. In 1875 he de
| cned being a candidate and went to Europe, with
his newly welded wife, the daughter of Senator
of the United States. Landing at New York on
his return, Mr.. Ekins found that, in spite of his
decl;nation and without his knowledge, his con-
| stituency had again returned him to Congress,
where he served until 1877 with credit especially
for his speech for the admission of New Mexico as
| a State. 1t may be we'll supposed that Mr..
| Elkins will never be nearer the Kingdom of
Heaven than he was when an august B ~ston news
paper declared his to be the only in which a
| single speech carried o measure of so great i'm
| portance.
"During Mr.. Elkins public career his official
integrity was never questioned and no charge was
ever brought against him.
"In 1872 he was made president of the First
National Bank Of Santa Fe, bank which is
Depository of the Public Funds, which is and has
| always BEEN strong and prosperous. Its stock
has paid is per cent. dividend and is now worth
$165 per share. He has very lately resigned this
nresidencv and the Roard of nirectors have pass-
ed and published resolutions expressing their
profound regret at losing him, and their belief
that the great success enjoyed by the bank since
its organization is largely due to the confidence
reposed in him by the business community and
to his ability and prudence in the management
of its affairs
"The parents of Mr.. Elkins were members of
what is known as the Christian church-the same
church to which President Garfield belonged
From a child he had been carefully reared by
pious mother, and in his seventeenth year, while
at the University, he joined her church. When
he went to New Mexico society was crude, there
was little moral restraint, and vice was common.
Though so young, and without home, Mr.. Eikins
never contracted the prevailing habits. He has
honored his faith in his life. While in Washing
ton he regularly attended the Presbyterian church
of which Dr. Mitchell was pastor. In New York
he is vestryman of DR.. Heber Newton's church, a
devoted attendant upon its services, and the in
innate personal friend of its pastor.
"Mr. Ekins is man of gentle manners and re-
fined tastes, of vigorous intellect, extraordinary
tact and energy, of commanding ability, of iron
will and unfaltering courage, of large wealth,
founded on his country's prosperity and destined
to increase with the growth of the country. He
is man of domestic rather even than of social
habits; shrinks from crowds and public places,
is rarly seen at clubs even at hotels except on
business"