The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-12-03
khsy~onS Gentlemen Have Held
M oilos During Fifty-one
Congresses.
Horny Clay Served Six Terms and
Several Speakers Were
Thrice Elected.
What Becomes of Ex-Spcaksrs ?-Not a
Political GrAvcyard-One suicide.
One Death In once.

HpAAkHE Oh inc mouse Oh representatives WI
BIZ chosen next Saturday. We have hat
tiftY-ons congresses. but only thifty-on.
speakers. That is because such men as
Henry Clay and James G. Blaine ant
Samuel u. Randall and John G. Carlisle arr
NOT numerous. When one ia found he il
kept iii tho speakers chair more than one
term. Mr.. Blaine WIS the twenty-siIth
speaker. He had three terms; 40 did
Schuyler Collar, who was Mr.. Blaine's i'm
mediate predecessor. Three terms seem to
be considered about tho thing for q first
nlasz speaker. Mr.. Randall, the twenty
ninth speaker, was three times elected
speaker, and do was Mr.. Carlisle, who fol-
lowed him Immediately. Another three
terms speaker was Nathaniel Macon, Of
North Carolina. He was the fifth speaker,
bnt the first from the south. Henry Clay
broke the record; he was six times elected
speaker. In one congress he resigned the
spaakership to 70 to Europe to arrange the
treaty Of peace with Great Britain. But he
came back to the next ongress and re-
ceived the speakership again.
by the rules ofluckt the thirteenth speaker
should have been ~'thoodooed' the rest of
his life. But in fact no was the only speakor
who ever reached the presidency. OF course
the namo ID Ruessed-James Il. Polk. And
was elected president against Henry
Clay. another ex-speaker. More b one
man has left the spsakership with the presi-
dental bee in his bonnet. John Bell, of
Tennessee, twenty-five years after he had
been speaker for one session, became the
Of tho constitutional union party
in 1860. Bell and Everett, the ticket was.
Az q stepping stone to the presidency, the
d peakership hasn't worked well. But it is
by no means a political graveyard. There
Id q future for ex-spoakers. Two of the six
living ex-speakers are now doing well-Mr.
Blaine in tho cabinet and Mr.. Carlisle in
the senate. The first speaker Of the houae
q Lutheran clergyman-Rev. frederick
A. g. Muhlenberg. He had four straight
terms in congress-, and III the first and
third congresses he was speaker. He died
after. Then came Jonathan Trum-
bull. who went from the speakerahip to the
and then was elected governor of
Connecticut eleven terms, dying in office.
Jonathan Dayton, OF New Jersey, was
Of the Fourth and Fifth congresses.
and then senator.
Theodore Sedgwick, of Massachusetts,
lied almost Immediately after the expira-
ion Of his single term as speaker.
Macon, who was the fifth speaker, has
mentioned. He was kept in congress
his service as speaker until he was 70
1ears old n declined 10 continue.
Joseph d. Varnun, of Massachusetts,
Tert from the speakership to the senate.
Clay was three times a candidate for the
sat in the senate twice and
in the cabinets
- y, rEaU, T M III MI - Co-4h Ca.zJs-, I
Tohn w, Taylor, Of New York. and Phillip
Z. Barbour, OF Virginia, we're ad interim
80 to speak. That is to say, they
we're Bandwiched III during Henry Clay's
.welye years. holding the Office while Clay
vas cut attending to other business. They
lever became distinguished.
Andrew Stevenson, ths eleventh speaker,
a three-time winner, but he went out
before the enc of his third term to become
to Spain.
Bell, who has been mentioned, was q sem
tor after he was speaker. He was also
ecretary of war under William Henry Har-
iGon.
Robert NJ. I. Hunter, Of Virginia, took
lp the gayel which James K. Polk laid
Town. For twenty years afterwards MI.
Hunter was considered presidential timber.
lis name was often mentioned in oonyen-
ions, and in 1860 he was considered among
he available men for the head of the
outhern confederacy. Then for twenty
ears he was forgotten, and in the midst of
Ar. Cleveland's administration the country
7aB astonished to learn that this once emil
.ent democrat still lived and was holding a
title $500 office.
John White. Of Kentucky. John w. Jones,
I Virginia, and John w. Davis in success
ion had one term each. White went on the
in Kentucky after Icing speaker and
He'd himself-the only suicide among the
x~-speakers. Jones and Dauis died in their
Robert G. Winthrop. of Massachusetts,
be protega of Daniel Webster, was speaker
+ the Thirtleth congress, in 1843. and went
Ito forty years' retirement afterward.
Then Howell Cobb, of Georgia, and Linn
oyd, Of Kentucky, had each a term of the
oeakershlp. Cobb was secretary of the
afterward under Buchanan.
Nathaniel p. Banks came back to con-
forty-four years after he had been
oeaker. Between times he had been gov
rnor OF his state and a major general in
army.
Jamos T.. Orr. of South Carolina. and
Pennington, of New Jersey, we're the
of the next two congresses, bring
~ the record down to the beginning of the
ar. They were scarcely heard of after
went out of congress.
A. Grow was the speaker of the
which came in with Lincoln, and after
i'm were in succession Colfax, Blaine,
.ichael @. Kerr, of Indiana, Randall, J,
larren Keifer, of Ohio, Carlisle and Reed.
e. Kerr was tho only speaker who died
lille holding the office.
THE THIRTY-sECOND.