The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1888-12-20
Stories About Quay.
SOMETHING OF THE CHARACTER OF THU
GREAT SENATOR.


GREAT SENATOR.
Even I'D to election time many we'll
posted persons in this country were in
doubt whether to call his name Kway or
Key or Kay. says the New York Press III
speaking of the Pennsylvania Senator.
When the biggest Pennsylvania of them
all took his seat in the United State Senate
last December people outside of the Key
stone. State knew little about him and
when he came to New York to be chair
man of the Republican National Commit
tee it was only the working politicians Of
his own party who knew what was to be
The Democratic politicians had
word from their friends in the Keystone
State that this man Quay" must be looked
out for. They kept realizing that more
and more as the campaign progressed, but
they failed all through to guage the full ex.
tent and fiueness of his movements. They
don't know to this day exactly what struck
them. They only know that something
struck them very hard.
A stray story or two of the now great
silent man had found place in the news
papers OF the summer, but they had mostly
been forgotten. Some related to the fu-
ture practical politicians boyhood. This
son of a Presbyterian preacher-the off
spring of runaway match between coun-
try storekeeper and the daughter of Rev
OH fol a nnol- lot Rih1a nd
a tin sword with red hilt brought home
one day. He could have bis choice. His
sister was to take what was left. The
youngster. with perspicacity which ar
gued well for his future success, even in
New York city politics, chose the Bible,
because he knew that his sister would have
no use for the sword, and that it coulc
eventually be appropriated for his own
uses,
While he was yet young enough to
admire new pair of copper toed boots,
with pictures of gilt dogs on the tops, his
father one Sunday kept his congregation
waiting. The youDgster in the family pew
went up into the pulpit. turned the leaves
of the big Bible and rearranged the book
marks carlessly, merely to divert attention
from the delay, and of course, said nothing.
Thus early, it appears, he knew the golden
value of silence. He learned to play seven
up before he was IL. He left pack of
cards one day-a borrowed pair, he always
maintained-in the pocket OF his jacket.
That night at supper, his mother CHANGED
to deliver lecture on the evils of gamb-
ling, and young Matt knew it would never
do to have her find the cards about him. So
he threw what appeared to be the pack
which he had wrapped carefully in paper
under the fence. ous of the way. A week
after, when he thought the storm bad
blown over. he went to find them. 1t was
the pocket Bible and not the cards that
was done up in paper! His mother had
put it nicely in the jacket pocket, and it
was that which he had thrown away.
Young Quay ran stereopticon in Lou
isiana, tried to start paper in Shreveport.
but couldn t raise the money; taught school,
in Texas, fought the Comanehes who we're
CliO OoLOCl ACGul LIEU w l)CdtCi
Pa, (where he has lived ever since) was
admitted to to the bar and made prothono-
tary. all before the war. Before the war,
too, Quay carried his county delegates for
the nomination of gallant old Governor
Curtin. He went to the front as Col
onel of the One Hundred and Thirty-fourth
Pennsylvania Infantry. On his surgeon s
orders he quit in '62. for typhoid fever.
He had resigned his command but prepar.
ations for Fredericksburg were making,
and he determined, in spite Of the protest
Of brigade commander and surgeons, to
stay and see it through.
Il would rather die like fool, . he said
to somebody, than live like fool" and
he went through the fight with haver-
sack and $a5 900 in cash for the soldiers
in his old regiment on his shoulder.
Then for the next twenty years followed
the wonderful political campaigns of Col,
Quay In Pennsylvania, His successes
were brilliant; his defeats always in the
end turned to advantage. He was the
Curtin candidate for Speaker of the House
in 1866, but the CamerOns won.
Then Quay was secretary of the State
Committee, Secretary Of State. now Re-
corder of Philadelphia, now winning, now
losing, but learning all the time from the
elder Cameron that enemies had best be
conciliated and friends rewarded, and
from the younger that some enemies are