The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-08-13
MEN WORTH WRITING OF
THEY COME FROM THE MOUNTAINS
AND SLOPES OF THE PACIFIC COAST.
Statesmen That Have Made Themselves
Felt Who Have Represented a Section
That Webster Thought Ill of in the
National Legislature.
Especial Correspondence

National Legislature.
Especial Correspondence
| WASHINGTON, July /. Even great men
sometimes make great mistakes. About
fifty or ffty-fve years ago Daniel Webster
rose in his place to oppose bill making an
appropriation for mail route from indie
pendence, Mo-, across 1900 miles of noun
tain and desert to the mouth of the Co
lumbia river in Oregon. What do we
want with this vast. worthless area?" he
exclaimed as only Webster could ex-
claim. This region of savsges and wild
beasts, of deserts of shifting sands and
whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie
dogs? To what use could we ever hope to
put these great deserts, or these endless
mountain ranges, impenetrable and COW
cred to their very base with eternal snow?
What can we ever hope to do with the
western coast, a coast of 5000 miles, rock
bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a
harbor on it2 What use have we for this
country"
Yet, so rapidly is history made in this
country, and 30 quickly are predictions
COMPOUNDED, within a dozen years or so
after the utterance of these words the
western Constituencies, uninviting, with
out harbor-had contributed two states
to the Union sisterhood, and now, forty
years later, there are three more, if we
count Idaho, the youngest, as belonging to
the Pacific coast. How the great west,
which Webster so mistakenly sneered at,
has sent state after state to demand ad-
mission every one knows who has noted
the addition Of star after star to the flag.
With these words Of Webster's before
my eyes, one recent day, l let my mind
wander into recent history, inquiring for
my own satisfaction, if the Pacific coast
has sent to the capital many statesmen
whose fame has lived. OF what the region
has done in the way of contribution to the
material growth and wealth of the country,
there was no need of inquiry. Twas amazed
! to find that it had done equally we'll in
men. 1t is true the coast has had no pres-
dent, no vice president and few members
of the cabinet, but there has never been a
time since California and Oregon were adj
mitted to the Union when the statesmen
of the coast were not at the very front in
public interest. Many of them have bean
leaders of parties and holders Of politics.
California was admitted in 1649 Her
first two senators were General John O.
Fremont and DR.. William NJ. Gwin. Ere
mont's place in history is we'll known, and
it is not necessary to recount his expert
ence and accomplishments. He remained
in the senate but short time, and the two
men who first attracted attention to the
Pacific coast as factor in the statesman
ship and legislation of the times were DR..
Gwin and David L. Broderick. They -four
ished in the decade Immediately before the
war. DR.. Gwin represented the southern
element in the California of that day. He
had been in his youth physician in Mis-
sissippi and was sent out by President
Pierce in 1854 as land commissioner or
something of the sort. He was a man OF
force and ability and soon secured foot
hold in California, partly through his fam
ily's connection with Andrew jackson,
OWNS father having been in Jackson's
army at New Orleans.
The senator was stalwart man, 9 feet
inches HIGH with the voice of a lion and
the frame or Hercules Even at the age
of eighty he was as straight as grenadier,
and to this day the old timers about Wash
ington speak Of Duke Gwin as the most
magnificent man in physique ever seen in
the United States senate In 1891, as was
Citations, Gwin sympathized with the
south. When Napoleon sought to imperial
ize Mexico with Macmillan Dr. Gwin,
who knew the emperor personally from
frequent visits to Paris, proposed to colo
nize the northern state of Mexico $50
nora) with Californians and southerners
who might be eager to seek their for
tunes, shattered by the war, in a new
ha
cause was on the wane, the doctor offered
an asylum to all who might wish it in
Sonora, which he promised to make bios
som as the rose. Believing that this
would be done and his cause be thereby
greatly strengthened, Macmillan created
Gwin, by virtue of imperial letters patent,
Duke of Sonora" At the same time Ed
McGowan a famous old pioneer in Cali
fornia, noted for his many duels, was
made Duke of ZacatecaS."
DR.. Gwin never went to Mexico to claim
his ducal honors, for shortly after the let
ters patent were issued Macmillan was
taken out of his palace and shot. Gwin
had his rebel disabilities removed through
the influence of Samel J. Tilden, and in
the presidential campaign of 1876 he was
Tilden's leading Pacific coast adviser To
called, remained a power in political cir
cles. He died at a ripe fourscore leaving
behind him large fortune, which happily
came TO him late in life through the owner
ship of gold mine in Calaveras county
His son and daughter are still prominent
in California society
Quite different was the career of David !
L. Broderick. A New York fireman, a
politician Of the old Stanvix Hall coterie, !
a bOyhood rounder with Bill Tweed, and /
the friend and associate of Bill Poole the /
prize fighter who was shot in barroom /
quarrel early in the fifties, his early asso- :
Citations were certainly not conducive TO /
after greatness as statesman or lawyer. /
But it appears there was something better .
in him, and after narrowly escaping the 4
penitentiary through some of the tumul- +
tuous incidents of those days he migrated /
to California, figured in the vigilance COM I
mittee tragedies, and happily for him was
on the side of law and order His force (
and dash, his adherence TO friends through .
danger and trouble. and his hatred OF what
was known es southern chivalry," as rep
resented by Gwin, Calhoun, Benham, Dave .
Terry and others brought him speedily 10
the front as the idol of the northern ele- ,
ment The bitterness of those days bore 1
fruit ultimately in q duel between him !
and Terry, which resulted in Broderick 5 (
death, and led one of his contemporaries to /
say of him, somewhat cruelty, The man
who killed him made him famous"
Next came McDougall and CONFESS.