The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-05
INGALLS,.
A Pen Picture of the Kansas Member Of the
United States Senate.

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United States Senate.
Washington Letter in Cleveland Leader.
There is not a more scholarly man in the
United States Senate than John j. ingalls,, SEN
asor from Kansas. He is full of ideas and he
expresses them fuently, and in sentences where
every word tells. He has a wide knowledge of
affairs, and his views are broad and liberal. He
is full of .pugnacity, and is ready to fight for his
rights and those of his party and his State at the
drop of a hat. And he fights well, too! The
other senators are very careful how they knock
the chips off Ingalls's shoulders. His courage is
known and his sarcastic tongue can cut like a
two-edged sword in heartleSs repartee.
This Kansas senator is a curious-looking man,
and you would take him for q Boston swell rath-
er than for the practical Westerner that he is.
He is tall and thin, with a form as straight as
that of a West Point cadet, and clothes which fit
as though made by a Broadway tailor. His head
ID long, his forehead rather high than broad,
and his eyes bright and piercing. He has iron
gray hair, which falls to his forehead in a sort of
bang, and his thin mustache and whiskers are
OF the same color. Senator ingalls, is now fifty
one years old, and is in his prime. He is a Mas
sachusetts man by birth, and comes of old
Puritan stock-the best stock in the world if
you can get 1T away from Boston and transplant
1T IN some new frontier soil, where it
viii have to fight to grow. 1t was in a little
Massachusetts village that ingalls, was born in
the first year OF Jackson's second term as Presi-
dent. Here. surrounded by Abolition ideas, hard
Puritanical manners and Yankee common sense,
he spent his boyhood. He was educated at
Williams College, and was there at the same
time as Garfield. After this he studied law for
two years, and a year later he went to Kansas,
which, at this time, was the bone of coLten-
ton between the North and the South. Massa-
chusetts was closely connected with Kan
sas In the latter part of the ffties, and
four years before Ingallss arrival, an emf
grants aid society had been formed in Massa-
chusetts, to help colonize Kansas in the aid of
free soil. This society sent out emigrants and
furnished them with arms to protect themselves
and their rights against the pro slavery settlers
from Missouri and Arkansas, and in 1858, when
Mr.. ingalls, moved to Kansas, the whole country
looked upon the Territtoy as the seat OF riot and
were burned, and half a dozen different Govern
ors had failed to bring order out of the chaos
into which the Territory was plunged. Here it
was that young ingalls, decided to start his
life work. He settled at a little town near
Atchison and hung out his shingle. The
next year he was elected a member of the con-
stitutional convention; in 1860, secretary Of the
Territorial Council, and in the year following
secretary Of the State Senate. In 1862 he was a
Kansas legislator, and at that and the following
elections was the anti Lane candidate for Lieu
tenant-governor He then became editor Of the
Atchison Champion. and Ben: Perley Poore says
that he is better fitted to be a great editor than
any man in the country. He was practicing
law at Atchison at the time OF his election to
the United States Senate. His record here at
Washington is free from stain, and he sits in the
Senate, surrounded by millionaires, an example
of what brains and courage can do, unaided by
the almighty dollar.