The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1890-10-16

~ NV eA IS mora farr var
SENATOR P. E. rLUMs. like than the
horniest handed granger in the State OF
Kansas, and if the Farmers Alliance
ever gets bill through Congress appro-
typical farmer to be erected in the CEN
terof the Capitol lawns, Preston B. Plumb
will be selected as the model. Hayseed
in the hair would not give the average
Gifted Senator one-half the rusticity
which marks the junior Senator from
Kansas.
His very walk, to say nothing of his
conversation, must be worth thousands
of votes to him, revealing as it does a
seeming acquaintance with plowed fields
of many years standing He wears
very good clothes-expensive clothes
made up by skilled tailors. fine linen
shirts, and pretty flowing scarfs Of deli
cate tints, and dainty shoes. Yet there
is something in the way he wears them
which makes them as rural as his col
leagues clothes are urban. You would
say, to look at ingalls,, that he had spent
the whole morning getting up the par
ticular sympathy in gray, which he is
now wearing; and you would say, to
look at Plumb, that he had slept in his
clothes the night before, and made his
toilet in the shake of lambs tail. In
gals parts his hair with the minute pre-
cision Of his own epithets. Plumb parts
his hair-well, if he parts it at all, no
one is the wiser half an hour afterward.
He has the granger habit of running his
fingers through it. and one of his IA
vorite gestures is to tumble it all ND
. roughly. George, of Mississippi, is the
only other Senator whose hair waves so
picturesquely. He seems to have bor-
rowed Plumb's comb and lost it. But it
is another of Plumbs unique gestures
which gives him such a grip upon the
farmers Of Kansas. It is one of which
he is, am convinced, entirely uncon-
scious, and therefore can not be accused
of using for effect
Throwing down the big linen handlzer-
chief with which he has been mopping
the sweat Of toll off his brows-for lie
works his whole body when he talks
he runs the thumb of his left hand in at
the left armhole Of his vest and under
issuspenders-no" galluses and, Jerk
ing it up an inch OIL two, lets it suddenly
drop. The effect on the granger in the
gallery is electrical in it's power and sud
denness. Tt absolutely forces out the re-
luctant admiration Of that conservative
nearer.
Fortunately for him, Plumb has been
able to edge along from one seat to an
other since he came here in 1877, until
now he has the best seat in the chamber
for muscular oratory. It is on the mid
die aisle IN the rear row, and gives its
occupant the full length and breadth Of
the middle aisle (Which divides the Re
publican sheep from the Democratic
;goats) to exercise in Roscoe Conkling,
the greatest poseur in our history, who
sat just in front of Plumb, in the seat
now held by the progressive Dawes, used
that middle aisle as no other man could
or would. Great actor as he was, he
made that narrow stage the Senate while
he was con, " and he strobe its length
and breadth like q COLOSSUS beneath the
admiring eyes in the gallery. Plumb is
Conkling in the rough-Conl1ling in the
role Of Cincinnatus. He has none Of
the airs and graces OF the Apollo Of the
Senate. lie scorns airs and graces, like
Il true man of the people. But lie goes
at his work SO vigorously and enthusias.
tically, that after pounding his desk for
a while he finds that too combining for
him. and moves out into the broader
field Of that middle aisle, where lie can
get elbow room, and then, in full sight
4 Of both sides and Blair, the wandere1,
who sits just across the aisle, in the
Democratic corner, he pounds the life
out of the offending proposition
lie is a very fluent speaker-one of the
most fluent in the Senate-but lis
thoughts come out in such hurry that
he can not find words to express himself
even in his ready vocabulary. So he is
becoming one Of the "ur-ring brethren, )"
as Blair says, pour out stream Of
thought, stop for a word" ur rlr-ur''
until they find it-and then pour on
again. His words arr always modern
words, for all his education until he be-
gan to read law was in the common
school and at the case in the country
printing Office, and his reading since he
came to the bar has been Of a current
kind. But he uses good terse English,
mixed with alittleg good expressive slang,
and he never leaves you in much doubS
as to what lie means to say. Of course.
he has all tile frankless or the Western
talker-brutal frankness sometimes for
Y lie speaks with the utmost direetness,
and he believes in calling spade spade.
He hates hypocrites and delights in un
masking them, and he is just as lnerc-
less to hyTocritical propositions as x,
llypocritical persons.
8tH THIS plain speaking is what malsesIi,n
s'iclA Il terror to thehypocrites OH his sid
45s the Senata. His independent and
courageous pain speaking On the tariff,