Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-12-26
Mr. EvAGTS.

bore the DlDncal name OF EOeneZer. On his
mothers side Quaker blood entered the family
To her doubtless the ex-senator owes his
heritage of intellect. From his father, who
was a good deal of Barebones and argued
stTenuously. it is said against tea as a harmful
beverage. came his keen insight into human
nature and his punctiliousness. Mr.. Evarts
came also OF devout parents. His father
jeremiah Evarts, was graduate of Yale and
for twenty years secretary of the American
board. He was eminent in his time for his in
terest and knowledge in mission work in all
parts of the world He was especially Jealous
In urging the conversion of the various tribes
of American Indians. His wife. Mehitabel,
was a granddaughter Of Roger Sherman who
not only signed the Declaration of lndepend-
ence but was a member of the committee with
Jefferson and Franklin to draft that precious
document Mrs. Evarts was a most devout
woman. whose clear intellect was a tower of
strength to her hard-worked husband. 1t was
not strange that such father and mother
should desire to bend the growing mind of
their son toward the life work to which they had
devoted themselves.
One night few winters ago. when had &C.
casion to interview Mr. Evarts he reverted APP
parently with good deal OF pleasure to this
circumstance. He sat alone in his library. his
slippered feet on the fender before q glowing
fire All the jokes about his weight seemed
justified by his appearance at that moment. He
sat In low rocking chair that made him seem
even less than he was. His rusty brOadcloth
coat, the careless cravat ends. the old-fashioned
turnover shirt collar, the absence OF the ordi-
nary ornaments of dress that the average man
wears were vigorous strokes in the picture he
made as he sat therein, but they were thrown
in the shade entirely by the magnificent head
that rose above them. In his old age-he will
soon be seventy-four-Mr. Evarts is q wonder
fully handsome man. His profile is severely
classic il every line. The great sweep Of fore
head, the aquiline nose, the mobile lips the
firm. projecting chin, the smooth-shaven though
wrinkled cheeks and the keen penetrating
eyes, taken with the grand contour of the head,
form splendid subject for painter or sculptor.
1t is not strange that men compare him to
Cicero, especially when the likeness extends
beyond physical characteristics.
CHOOSING A PROFESSION.
"In my time" said Mr.. Eyarts, cit was not
so easy to choose profession as it is now"
We had beer talking about my old college
president, who was Mr.. Evarts' classmate at
Yale, and for fifty years a noted clergyman in
the vest. Every likely boy was bent and
fashioned for years before his education was
finished either for law or the ministry / con-
fess had no very decided choice Of my own
and was good deal Impressed with a sense
OF obligation to my dead fathers blessed mem
DRY when my mother and her friends urged
me to enter the ministry. That was then the
profession toward which the godly ambition of
most of our college boys turned. 1 think
large majority OF my class went into the minis
try. 1t was either that or the law, for then
science was In its most impotent infancy; there
was no such thing as journalism and literature
was only possible with men who had fortunes to
enable them to indulge their tastes. fingered
quite a while. remember, on the thought Of
Journalism and its possibilities as path up
ward into literature. But it would make the
freshest newspaper tyro in these days roar to
see the men who made newspapers in those
days or note their surroundings and the Jour-
mails they put forth. They were for tie most
part job printers, especially in the provincial
press, and they printed newspapers chiefly for
the incidental commercial advantages con-
nected with them. They wrote no editorials
They spent more time getting up their ship
ping lists than In securing the news of the day.
and the greater part OF their space was given
up TO miscellany sheared literally from other
papers and from European periodicals. The
newspaper OF 1857 was useful to tell you when
the stage would start or arrive, what mer-
chandise had been received from Liver
pool or shipped to that port what time
the moon and sun would rise and set
or what Henry Clay or Tom Benton had
said in speech two months before
in some pioneer community in the Mississippi
valley. As a great daily engine of political
influence, c dissemination of the news of the
whole world day by day. the newspaper was as
much thing of the future as aerial navigation
IS now. was not job printer and did not
become journalist. i did not feel that / was
sanctioned to enter deliberately upon the min
istry as a life work. therefore turned to the
law as my only recourse, and, whether wisely
or not l cannot say. put forever behind me all
thought Of literature or journalism"
HIS POLITICAL CAREER.
Mr.. Evarts' political career always suggests q
comparison with that Of the orator of Arpinum
Cicero, his splendid intellect giving him an i'm
portance in every situation, was not unlike the
first lawyer Of America whenever he entered
politics His legal career, one of the most
brilliant in history, earned for him thirty years
ago full recognition IN the republican party.
Thurlow Weed used him as a foil in 1861 to
thwart Horace Greeley's ambition to enter the
Senate. The old firm OF Seward, Weed 4 Gree
ley had dissolved and Greeley's secession edito-
rails had girded Weed to q determined hostility
to the editors political desires. Evarts barely
led on the first ballot in the senatorial contest;
then Greeley steadily gathered Roadway and
Weed had to surrender to the suggestion Of
Henry ]. Raymond and turn his forces over to
elect Ira Harris What Mr.. Eyarts' career
might have been il he had been successful in
this contest can only be conjectured. But it
Is reasonable to make the retroactive prophecy
that he would have been less a lawyer and advo-
cate and more a statesman. In 1850 he was
forced by the influence OF rich clients into
making the famous Castle Garden speech de-
Tending the fugitive slave law. Ten years later,
in the Lennon case. lawyer-like. he denounced
| what he had said in 1850.
IN THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL