The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1889-09-29

OF all parties were the very qualities which
barred for him the path to political promo
ton. 1t is known that Mr. Cox had been
for years an ardent aspirant 10 the speaker
ship. Perhaps, also, ambition may have
led him to look higher even than that post.
But that he earnestly desired the speaker
ship, and that he sincerely and zealously
iabored to attain it, the reading public has
long been aware. Yet from the beginning
his hopes in this direction were rendered
vain. When, in 1875, at the time of his en-
trance on his fourth term in the House of
Representatives from New York. after hav
ing already served four terms from Ohio,
Cox's party secured majority in that
body, the prize was given to Michael {.
Kerr, of Indiana The New York menu
Der, il is true. was chosen speaker pro tenn
for the period of kerr's illness, bat when,
after kerr's death, the House was called on
to fill the speakership regularly, the office
was given To Samuel J. Randall. who held
il during the next two congresses. Subse-
quentiy. when the Democracy again came
into power the post was conferred on John
q. Carlisle.
OF the three men who were successfully
elevated over Cox's head not one had the
qualifications for the speakership which the
brilliant New Yorker possessed. He
had a longer, more varied and more
active experience in public life than any of
them. while in scholarship, breadth of view
and knowledge of political questions he
was vastly superior to them all. But he
was handicapped in his race for political
preferment by the possession of the rare
combination of the intellectual faculties
mil sfot.
variously called humor, and wit. His wit
was not the SORT which like Times scythe.
cuts down friend and foe" Ii was polished,
genial and inspiring. and contained not the
slightest suggestion of malevolence. From
his presence melancholy shrunk away, ard
the petty spites, jealousies and rancors OF
public station vanished. To his mind
things presented themselves in relations
and took on phases neither realized nor
comprehended by the more plodding and
prosaic mortals.
With Cox the duty of being cheerful and
compelling the world TO be cheerful had
all the force and fervor of religious creed.
But although life appealed to him in its
SUMMER expressions, his record of more
than quarter OF century of active and
honorable political work proved that he
was at least rs sensible as any OF his col
leagues 10 lis grsver and more serious as
poets. Indeed, the yividness OF imagina.
ton and exuberation of fancy which he
possessed gave him, from the very neces-
sites OF the case. an insight into questions
and grasp of the more complex and in
tricate phases OF problems which men less
happily constituted could never hope TO
attain. His party. however-even that
portion of his party which was thrown into
daily compsnionsh, ? with him, and which
should have e. mated him justly-eon-
tinued TO misjudge him 10 the end. Be
cause he did not have the pompous dull
ness which commonly passes for wisdom,
bat possessed instead a sunny temper and
genial disposition, the world. which is not
accustomed TO nice d-scriminat. ons in such
matters. voted him shallow and frivolous,
and men with infinitely less ability than he
were placed ahead of him in the race for
political honors-