Wichita daily eagle., 1884-12-23
INGALLS, OF KANSAS.
His Characteristics and His Career
In the Senate.

Among the distinguished Republican lead
ers whose faces and characteristics are from
| time to time sketched in the columns of tn,
Chronicle, we have more than common
pleasure in introducing the name of the sen
| ator from Kansas. During the past weel
| Mr.. ingalls, has introduced from his place il
the senate resolution to make the day o
Inauguration national holiday. By SO do
| ing he has called fresh attention to his figure
| in the senate as well as TO his services to The
country and his state and to those rendered
| this district, over whose senatorial commit
| tee he presides. No man appearing in re
cent years in the United States senate ha.
had career more singularly marked
and more steady in its rise
than Mr.. Ingalls,, and his course from the
| beginning has been attentively watched
| Curiosity was early attracted towards him
| by certain peculiarities of personal bear.
| ing as well as by his obvious possession OF
talents unusual in the body where he had
entered. 1t is a confession which must still
be made that man appearing in the upper
| house of the American congress with quail
ties other than those of lawyer and the
politician is the legitimate object of amaze
ment. On the part of the senator from Kan.
| sas it is the play of these extra senatorial
qualities, added to the ordinary e9uipmen,
of legal and public accomplishments re.
quired for success in that body, that has
marked his course and won him favor and
prominence as a legislator 1t has been said
that New England man. weaned early and
sent out west, makes the best type Of the
American. The truth of the assertion If
without doubt the partial secret of Mr.. In.
CALLS well-poised talent.
A native of Massachusetts,, coming at an
/ early age from one oi her foremos: literary
schools, he was transplanted quarter of q
C entury ago into the crude soil Of Kansas,
where fighting as a pioneer abolitionist the
stiff battles Of her heroic epoch against Dor
| der ruffianism and slavery, the favor OF
| learning quickly changed to the intenser
SAVIOR of life. Tried in that period Of storm
| and stress, however the veneer of learning
| was not rubbed off the young lawyer, but
rubbed in; and Mr.. Ingalls,, with the expert
ence of the freer west in his methods,
and its SAVIOR on his garments, has kept his
| instinct of culture from the cast, and
remained scholar and student to the last.
1t is, as we have said, combination rare
and singularly effective in the qualities of a
public man. Since the novitiate of his first
term here, the Kansas senator has advanced
rapidly in credit with the public and in the
body where he sits, giving exceptional
weight and prestige there to his state and
section. In recent years he has come to be
regarded in the senate as the legitimate sue
| cessor Of the stalwRrt orators who went out
| with Blaine and Conkling; and perhaps no
man in the chamber has better earned the
reputation of such successorship. Ii has at
least come to pass that no one rising there is
listened to with more expectation and atten-
ftor hap this NJ T.. -
periods are as incisive and graphic as his per-
sonal appearance. And what is uncommon,
his rhetoric is as direct ard fluent as it is
scholarly. In epigrammaiic point and finish
even Conkling was not his master, while in
purity of style and in q certain sting Of the
attic wasp in his sentences, the Kansas ora
tor has the advantage of the Utica states
man. Mr. Ingalls,, if he chooses, makes a
rapier and even stiletto of his tongue. Ii
was said of D'Israel that more than any
speaker in England he had achieved the ar.
Of adjusting the conceits of bis fancy to ex-
temporaneous rhetoric, and OF bringing the
closet to the forum. Some such suggestion
applies 10 the diction of the senator from
Atchison. One of the field scene. in these
latter days in the United States senate i. an
uureconstructed Bourbon wincing under the
refined application Of his rhetorical lash.
The discipline Is merciless. THAT chap
down there" said an Idaho visitor looking
down from the gallery on one of these char
acteristic castigstions by the Kansas senator,
ais the whip Of the senate"
In matters of general legislation, Mr.
Ingalls,. tracing his political traditions to
the radical instinct of the abolitionist, Is in
the severest sense n stalwsr. and Republic
can.
During his later term in the senate he has
gained reputation from rather uncommon
attention TO the claims and interests Of the
hate Federal soldier
Under the coming regime Of Democracy,
should the body in which he serves be so
fortunate as to retain his presence, he is
likely 10 do his chief service TO the country
in the exercise of his unusual gifts as . de-
batter, and in restraining with his pungent
rhetoric the too exhuberant conccits of
plantation poli;ics.-Washington Chron-
icle