The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-17
Pen PICTURE OF PETER.
4 Refreshing Breeze Across a PaTChed
Desert.

Smells of widowed Newspaper
Clippings When PETER Gets Up.
Nym Crinkle. in the New York World.
Senator PETER Of Kansas is the least
distinguished but the most incorrigible in
the unique collection of philosophers and
lawmakers who are now discussing
finance. He comes from a state that was
Graded in interneciue blood and that has
not been ashamed to celebrate its ma
turity with blatherskite Everything
that is radical goes in Kansas 1t is the
great experimental tract of every ism
that will not take root in less fertile but
| better cultivated soils. Senator PETER
reminds you of the western belt of that
state, where there are still great wastes
of calm, immutable alkali, frescoed with
| tangle-grass, and nature assumes an air
| of dry, imperturBale and everlasting
| WEAKNESS at her own work. AT first sight
| Of him, you think of Ahasuerus, and
wonder If he wasn't reading the musty
| pahmpsests TO the sanhedrim in awful
| continuity before obscene and interesting
history began.
| lie IS as Unconditional as a Babylonian
| brick His humOr is as arid as last years
water-course in his own state. He is
| never confused, never disconnected. He
! has the same mobility of temperament
| that have noticed in a slate quarry. l
| doubt if blood would come into his face if
one of the metaphorical slaps that he re-
| celVeS should turn out to be physical His
| circulating system is incapable of distill-
| ing anything but argument. His venOus
ana arterlal apparatus carry words. He
/ is stuffed full ofnewspaper Clippings-Old,
| dead, rusJling scraps The moment he
nnUlnE n IN l9 -
| turning musty and forgotten files, and
! smell the sceptic aroma of old leaders and
| grizzly interviews and Cadaverous re-
! ports-GOd rest their souls.
! When he has a set speech to make he
| begins to get in his chestnuts the day be-
| fore. They are piled up on his desk; Off
claI tones, ScrapbOoks, of all sizes and
| shapes; newspapers, reports, novels,
| travels, Bcnton's Thirty Years" and
! Barnum's autobiography. He always
| has plenty of empty desks about him,
| and to see him wander from one to the
| other in search of a citation or a few
! chapters, leaving a gap OF silence while
! he leisurely hunts for the particular
! book, is one of those calming expert
| ences that make YOU think that you
are in the English court of chancery
| When he begins to speak it is in tones
| that remind you of COleridge's river,
| live miles meandering with mazy
| notion" with no other purpose than to
reach the caverns measureless to man"
! Something fOrebodingly and invinciby
| intermiuable there is in his mere ASPECT:
a juiceless, inhumau perspective of Peff-
er, the purpose OF whom bears the same
relation to the method as the nucleus of a
| comet bears to the tail He squeezes out
! his whiSkers with pitiless deliberation
| takes a drink of water from the tumbler
| without tremor, and places it perilous-
| ly on the edge of the desk, as if to show
| that it is the acme Of oratory not to knock
| it off.
The ability, however, to stretch one
| idea over the ages; to find all history and
| literature and legislation focusing them
! selves upon it; to be willing to sacrifice
| the race for that idea and to glory in be-
| ing continental bore for its sake, was
reserved for PETER If ever the unwrit-
! ten instinct of the Senate is apprehended
it will be found to be that PETER is a faith
| omless bore. That is no doubt cOmpati-
bic in the alkali sense with being a great
| and good man. Goodness is very often
only another name for density. PETER is
| honest but supertuOus, and mistaken hon
| esty has caused more ennui and suicide
| than violent mendacity. l think myself
| that John Calvin, who was a great man.
| caused more misery than Capt Kydd,
! who wasn't. Nothing is so uneventful
and prOsaic to the Kansas mind as a log
| floating with the stream. But let it once
| get one end stuck in the mud and the
other end bobbing All, chen resistance
becomes picturesque aud things are liable
| to happen!
Mr.. PETER conscientiously believes
that it IS heroic to make Kansas block
! the will of the republic. Mr. PETER does
not in his soul believe that the govern
ment can fix the intrinsic values of metal,
J but he always talks as if he did He
/ knows perfectly well that at this moment
| there is Il general consensus of opinion
among the American people that congress
/ has one specific duty; that all other du-
ties are secondary, however urgent. But
to acquiesco in~this demand would detract
! from the conspicuousness of PETER.
| So long as he is an Obstructionist, Kan
/ sas has a show. and he can keep on max
/ ing sCrap-bOOks. In some way il is the
duty of the republic TO protect Mr.. PEI
/ fers private industry. In 50 large
/ family there is always some radical small
I boy who, if he cannot help on the car of
/ progress, can at least throw stones at the
/ train.
What struck me with peculiar force
| was the magnificent and reticent magma
nimity that puts up with PETER. IL not
only tO!erateS him; It presents his con-
/ Stunning nav with hours for the degluti-
/ ton of his own Authorizations. 1t isn't
necessary for anybody but the Presiding
officer and the clerks to be present when
he uncoils himself and swallows his
blanket, but he is allowed TO perform the
ceremony to the desks.
In these speeches there is trace of
animosity; it is not an emotion, it is
an intregal motion. 1t is like the
arsenic in a stuffed owl. Put concretely,
it is the ineradicable belief that
sin entered into the world by the way
Of Wall street; that Satan IS a banker;
that finance is the Mephisto of our coun-
try, and Kansas is the bleeding Margue-
rite; that panics are manufactured to or
der, and that the President of the United
/ States is a cO-cOnSpiratOr with the
moneyed magnates of the east to degrade
/ silver and Cypress the people. All Mr.
( PETERS oratOrIcal roads lead to this
| Rome. His attempts to discuss finance
are dOctrinaire and pragmatic; his ar
! raigument of Wall street has the earnest
/ ness of a sermon. He would plow and
SOW Broad street with salt and plant
/ corn in the stock exchange on high
moral grounds. Honesty is question of
/ longitude.
! Being tedious, superhuOus and false,
/ we might yet put up with all this if it
/ were not also unbearably provincial The
/ town pump sticks out of it. The indefin-
/ able structure of it reminds you of a log
] 40 1a roA 70 hn u5g of