Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-28
BRIGHT, WITTY MEN.
Character Sketches of National Chair
men Carter and Harrity.
MANY ATTRIBUTES IN COMMON.
Both Are of One Religion and the Same
Type Of Citizenship.
THEY WORK WITHOUT GLORY OR PROFIT

| IL
Of course the religious preferences Of
candidates and campaigners have nothing
to do with politics, yet politicians will talk
about them. It is not strange, therefore,
that in the cloakrooms of the Senate and
House, as we'll as in other places where poll
ticiaus congregate, there should have been a
great deal of comment during the past week
on the fact that the two leading candidates
for the Presidency, both adherents of the
Presbyterian Church, and one of them rul-
( ing elder in it, should each have selected or
approved Roman Catholic, and Roman
| Catholic Of Irish descent at that, for Chair
man of the National Committee which is to
conduct the campaign.
Some of the older Senators and Repre-
sentatives who still bear the scars of the
| terrible fights in the old Knownothing days
are disposed to believe that the millennium
is not far off. as they, think of Thomas
Henry Carter managing the Republican
National Committees work and William
Francis Harrity managing the Democratic
National Committees work, with the GER
tainty that there will be no illusions to
Carter and Harrity as Specimens.
Both Carter and Harrity, by the way, are
excellent specimens of that fine type OF our
citizens-the Irishman born in America
They have both the best qualities of the
Celtic character, and in addition some of
the best traits of "Young America" In
correspondent of the Boston Herald, they
are more like Americans than Irishmen.
Either would be taken for Yankee in any
part of New England without his eye
glasses, and, as all the world knows, Chair
man Carter looks more like the pictorial
"Brother Jonathan" than the orig
inal Brother Jonathan Trumbull
himself Both Chairman Carter
and Chairman Harrity are full of wit and
humor, coming honestly by them from their
forbears. Both are such thorough business
men that when they have business on hand
the casual observer might not think they
had any fun in them, Chairman Carter par
ticularly having very solemn appearance,
sucha we usually associate with the judge
on the bench, and which has been very USE
tul to him in concealing the fact that he is
only in the 30's vet, but when he has time,
and especially when he gets away from his
desk, he is funny, meaning thereby as en-
tertaining as any man I know.
No guest at the dinners of the Gridiron
Club last winter was wittier than Chairman
Carter, and when have said that 1 have
said everything that could be said on that
score, for all the wits of Washington were
there at one time or another. Carter's
humor steals quietly out, sometimes even
when he is talking business, as when he
said the other day in discussing what house
should be taken for the National Committee
n No To Mt of Swords
who was to engage it, that he must be sure
that there wasn't "a dead Indian under the
house" before taking it, alluding to the be-
lief of the gamblers in Helena that bad luck
resides in houses built over Indian graves.
Harrlty Hus a Modest Wit.
Chairman Harrity's wit is more modestly
kept than Chairman Carter's, but it flashes
out every now and then in delightful
partee better than his reply to Lieu
tenant Governor Sheehan when the
latter came to him at Chicago
the Sunday before the convention
met, and when it was still possible to nomi-
nate somebody else beside ex-President
Cleveland, and said to him in his most in
sinuating manner: ''Mr. Harrity, what
would Pennsylvania do if New York should
cast her y votes on the first ballot for Gov
ernor Pattison of Pennsylvania" 'Gov-
ernor," replied Harrity ut once, in his low,
distinct tones, and with slight smile on
his face, "PennsyIvania would return the
by casting her 81 votes for
Grover Cleveland of New York.
To be fully appreciated this remark ought
to be framed in the circumstances which
made it as wise as it was witty, and as
courageous as it was either. The Cleveland
movement really turned on the Pennsyl-
vania delegation, which, with its GA votes,
almost counterbalanced the y votes Of the
New York delegation. The Pennsylvania |
delegation was for Cleveland if he could be
nominated upon the first or second ballots,
but two-thirds of the delegation were per-
sonal friends of Governor Pattison, who, if
their choice had been absolutely free, would
have preferred his nomination to
that of Cleveland.
No Salary in the Position.
These men had made it thoroughly we'll
understood in Chicago that if Cleveland
was not nominated on the second ballot on
the third ballot they would take the delega-
tion's ga votes to Pattison. Of course Shee-
han knew all this (and Harrity knew that
he knew it) when he went to Harrity to try
to persuade him to do on the first ballot |
what he would have to do on the third If
HdTTlty ldu ldlIeTcu VI pdiIcIcu lutndI Ouc- |
minute interview Cleveland might not have
been nominated.
The popular impression that the Chair |
men of the party National Committees get |
large salaries is all mistake. They get no |
salaries at all. Senator Quay said to me the
other day in speaking of this: II wish it
had been true, as was reported in Pennsyl- |
vania, that I got salary of $4,000 a
year as Chairman of the Republican |
National Committee. If I had 1 don't
believe would have resigned, but, as a
matter Of fact, I never got dollar of
salary, and neither did any other Chairman
Of any National Committee Why, no
Chairman ever had his necessary expenses
paid until I insisted that mine must be
paid. Instead OF getting o salary the
Chairman of the National Committee
usually has to put his hand down in his
own pocket at the end of the campaign to
paw debts of the committee
Senator Quay, like Senator Brice, thinks.
here is neither glory nor profit in National
Committee Chairmanships, and that all
that the Chairman of National Committee
IS sure of is the ingratitude of the candi-
lates and the party, whether he is successful
Or unsuccessful.
Nevertheless men will always be found,
,ven though, as in the Republicans case
his time, the search be a long one who will
AXE the place for whatever power and
prominence there is in it, and take the