Morris tribune., 1885-07-15
HOW GREAT MEN WRITE.
The Penmanship of the President and Hi
Cabinet-A Look at a Lot of Sena-
tOrial Autographs.

President Arthur writes big up-and'
down hand which sprawls and Jumps
from one word to the next without leav'
ing the paper. He is evidently glad
when the end of his name is reached,
for he closes it with flourish, and the
final ''r" takes a shoot right through
the arthur" and across the st. The
presidents figures are we'll made, trick
which he had to learn when he taught
school, and his penmanship is quite leg
ible.
No one would imagine Secretary Ere.
inghuysen's autograph was written by
a man. 1t looks like the signature of a
palsied old woman. The letters are
small and grabbed, and foreign policy
modelled on that autograph would be
weak indeed. Hugh McCulloch, old as
he is, writes far steadier than Freling-
huysen, and Secretary Chandler has a
good round hand. Robert 7. Lincoln s
Signature has an "R'' bigger than all
of the rest of his name, and the ''T, y
the middle initial, is monogramed with
the IL" Atty. Gen. Brewster writes
in the same loud way that he dresses.
The ink flows in rivers, and every curve
says This is the great Brewster, with
his coat-of-arms, his frilled shirt, his
white plug hat, and his aristocratic
noodle Judge Gresham pens his
name in big black curves, and his sig
nature, like himself, is plain, common
sense, and outspoken.
In the same way the characters OF
some of the senators may be seen in
their autographs. Lucius Quintius
Lamar writes as though he were monk
in some old monastery of the fifteenth
century. The letters are small and neat
and made in the up-and-down strokes
in vogue before Spencer invented his
curves and loops. 1t is a scholarly
hand, and is warmer, think, than that
of George Frisbie Hoar, which stands
upon the paper as cold as Massachusetts
and as reserved as Boston, without a
period or a redundant flourish, and alb
breviated at every point.
The late Senator Anthony wrote a
hand modelled on the tracks In the mud
of his big turkey farm in little Rhode
Island. The '.y'' at the close of his
autograph has flourish like big tur-
keys claw, and it ends in knob like
the bone end of the same. The hand
of David Davis is as heavy as himself.
He uses blue ink and punctuates pro-
fusely. Howell Jackson, of Tennessee,
writes an old-time hand. Senator
Pugh, of Alabama, scribbles in acute
angles, and Isham G. Harris throws his
pen about boldly as if he knew the gov
eminent was paying for the ink.
John A. Logan's signature takes up
half page, and it is like nothing out
side of the hieroglyphics in the subter-
ranean tomb of III. 1t is as bold and
aggressive as Logan's own character,
and he closes it with dashing curve
half as big as the sword which he car
ried during the war.
Senator Edmunds has also an illeg-
ible signature, but it looks more like the
sign on q Chinese tea box than the
Egyptian scrawl of Logan. Senator
Frye writes his name, state, and date
without taking his pen from the paper
An emblem of quickness on the part
of the senator. Camden of West Vir-
ginia and Jones of Florida have the
same style of handwriting, and ingalls,
of Kansas. Ransom of North Carolina,
Bayard of Delaware, and little Gen.
Hale of Maine all use up-and-down
strokes, and write as if they were not
ashamed of their names. Senators
Sherman, Vest, and Angus Cameron all
have small, finely-written signatures,
but voorhees, writes with bold goose
quill flourish clustering hand, and
Ben Harrison evidently uses steel pen.
Philetus Sawyer, the millionaire of
Wisconsin, prints his signature; Warner
Miller uses goose-quill; Plumb, of
Kansas, writes hand which would de-
light the old printers who set type for
him when he was editing country
newspaper, and Senator Sewell, of New
Jersey, uses more ink than any other
man in the senate.
Mcmillan, of Minnesota, puts a long
flourish under his signature, and pens