Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-13

~ v &l for SO many years
E past has stood, Of
rather sat in the
grounds facing the Eastern front of the
Capitol.
This statue, which perhaps has been more
criticised than all the other works of art in
the city, was designed and executed by the
American sculptor, Horatio Greenough, al
Florence, and was finished in 1S43, after
many years labor.
Congress gave the order for the work, mainly
through the influence of the novelist, James
Fenimore Cooper; and while not entering
very closely into the consideration of models,
specifications, or plans, the members of that
body naturally expected that the forthcoming
work would represent the eminent subject
in the garb and pose of modern life-some-
what as they had been accustomed to regard
him in the life and times of which he had
been so potent and prominent factor.
AN ARTISTIC SURPRISE.
Imagine then, the surprise, to put it
mildly, of the worthy Solons. and indeed of
the whole country, when, upon the reception
of the statue, it proved to be, not a repre-
sentation of the great soldier in the costume
of the Virginia gentleman of the eighteenth
century, but work of heroic size, almost
naked, and designed after the antique statue
of Jupiter Tonans.
Think of it, oh, my masters! The man
who apart from the great work of his life,
for which all Americans hold him in CRATE
full remembrance was individually, and
personally, the most digniied and un-
approachable of men, doomed to
sit there in the broad glare of day,
through this eminently practical and utili-
tartan age clad in nothing but Roman
sword, blanket thrown across the knees
and pair of sandalsl
Viewed as a work of art, it is said by those
who profess to know about such things, to be
our grandest possession, as it is the most
criticised. This may be true-if we could,
somehow, come to think of the great man as
a contemporary of Julius Caesar; but as things
90, it somehow doesn't seem to fit, and the
public at large will not be sorry for the
boarding up.
Aside from its failure to find place in
the esteem of the populace, it has long been
kind of white elephant on the hands of the
local authorities.
The trouble has been to find place for
its location. When ordered, it was expect
ed that it would be put in the rotunda of
the Capitol, but 10, it was found too pom
derous to go in at the door.
A hole was made through the wall, and
the mighty structure was taken in through
that. Then it was found that the great
weight of the granite pedestal, II feet high,
surmounted by the heavy statue, was about
to cause the floor to give way, and so it was
taken down from there. Finally it was To-
Gated in its present position.
Here some vandal relic hunter climbed up
the pedestal and carried away in triumph,
one of the great toes. A local artist
"sculpted'' out another toe. but in splicing
it on, he discovered that the weather was
beginning to play sad havoc with the work
itself. The freezing and thawing of winter,
it was believed, were particularly damaging
hence the bosrding-up.
AN INTERESTED SPECTATOR.
There is one man in this city to whom the
duadrennial season of hustle, preparation
and expectation, intervening between No
vember and March, may be supposed to
have peculiar interest, and especially may
we suppose this interest to attach to what
ever pertains to the important Office of Pri-
yate Secretary to the President.
His name is George q. Rose, and he now
holds a position in one OF the depart
ments.
We may suppose that he feels an interest
in whatever pertains to the office of Private
Secretary, because he came near once filling
the place himself.
1t was under President Garfield, and the
circumstances were these: For many years,
he had acted as Secretary to the Ohio states
man, probably during almost the whole of
the latter's Congressional career. He was
with him at Mentor, during the campaign
of 1880, and after the election, everybody
expected, as a matter of course, that he
would go with his chief to the White
House.
Perhaps the appointment was even given
out to the press. However that may have
been, there is no doubt that up to certain
time the two parties most nearly interested
fully expected that the place would be his.
But mark the curious thing that now oc-
CURED.
, OF course, during the winter of 1Ss0-S1,
it was the proper thing for the Republican
statesmen to journey to the home of the
President-elect, just as they are now en-
gagged in making pilgrimages to the politi-
cal Mecca further West. In the confer
ence between these visiting statesmen and
the coming President the faithful Secretary
gathered enough of what was to be the pol
icy of the incoming administration in GER
tain directions to give him the grayest
alarm.
HEARD IT AFFAIR OFF.
It is bootless now to inquire who origin
ated or who was most to blame for the quar-
rel that few months later convulsed the
Republican party, and especially as both
the leaders thereof have gone to other
scenes; but certain it is that Garfeld's Sec
retary saw and heard enough in the Mentor
conferences to give him forebodings of
trouble.
And he warned his principal-there is
Just where he made his mistake. What the
Congressman might have tolerated from the
secretary and friend of many years, the
President-elect could not brook.
1t was the end. 1t was not many DAYS be-
fore Rose received notice of his appointment
to place in Washington, and also an init
nation from Garfield that perhaps he had
best accept it.
He went. j. Stanly Brown became pri-
vate secretary, and later son-in-lsw in the
family.
And all for few words honestly spoken,
1 repeat, it is useless now to inquire who
was to blame for the origin or prosecution
of the trouble in which, few months later,
Garfield and Conkling stood arrayed against
each other; but if Rose was right in his fore
bodings, and did say to the former: "Mr.
President, YOU cannot do so and so without
destroying the Republican party" then it
becomes an interesting study to consider
what might have been the aspect of affairs
during the past eight years, if that word of
caution had been needed.
In all human probability Mr.. Garfield
would, just now, be in the closing m, .nths of
his second term, preparatory to dropping his