The Forrest City times., 1893-05-19
A BORDER POLITICIAN.
one or the Prominent Characters of Early
 Kansas.

Kansas.
 The emigrants from the north were almost without exception from civil iffe, laborers, farmers. mechanics and artisans young men of the middle class, reared in toll and inured to pow erty, unused to arms and unschooled in war They were intelligent. devout and patriotic. They came to blow and plant. to open farms. erect mills, to saw lumber and grind corn, to trade, teach school, build towns and construct free state. But one of them-James Henry Lane-had any military expert ence. He had been d colonel in the Mexican war, of an Indiana regiment, and was afterwards democratic lieu tenant-governor and member of con gress from that state. He had an ex- traordinary assemblage of mental. moral and physical traits, and with even rudimentaIy perception of the value of personal character as an ele ment of success in nptblic affairs, would have been a great leader. with an en- during fame. But in arms he was Captain Bobadil, and in politics d Ritt- meiter Dugald Dalgetty He proposed to settle the veXed question and save Kansas from further outrage" by a battle between one hundred slave-hold- CTS, including Senator Atchison. and one hundred free-state men, including himself, to be fought in the presence of twelve United States senators and twelve members of the house of repre- sentatives as umpires.
 He was the object of iBexplicable idolatry and unspeakable eNecration. With his partisans the supcrlatives of adulation were feeble and meager. With his foes the lexicon of infamy contained no epithets sufficiently lurid to express their bhorrence and detesta tion. They alleged that he never paid a debt or told the truth save by acci- dent or on compulsion, and that to reach the goal of his ambition he had no convictions he would not sell, made no promise he would not break, and had no friend he would not betray.
 A lean. haggard and sinewy figure with a mephistophelian leer upon his shaven visage, his movements were alert and restless. like one at bay and apprehensive of detection. Professing religion, he was never even accused of hypocrisy. for his followers knew that he partocll of the sacrament as polit- ical device to secure the support of the church; and that with the same non chalant alacrity, had he been running for office in IIindostan, he would have thrown his offspring to the crocodlles of the Ganges or bowed among the Par sees at the shrine of the sun. His energy was tireless and his activi- tv indefatigable No night was too dark no storm too wild. no heat or cold too excessive. no distance too great, to delay his meteoric pilgrimages, with dilapidated garb and equipage. across the tracllless prairieS from convention to convention. His oratory was volu- ble and incessant, without logic, learn ing. rhetoric. or grace; but the multi tudes to whom he perpetually appealed hung upon his hoarse and harsh haran- gues with the rapture of devotees upon the oracular rhapscdies of a prophet, and responded to his apostrophes with frenzied enthusiasm.
 lie gained the prize which he sought with such feyered ambition; but after many stormy and tempcstuous years, Nemesis. inevitable in such careers, de- manded retribution He presumed too far upon the federation or constitu- ency which had hoRored him so long and forgiven him so much. he tran seconded the limitations which the greatest cannot pass. lie apostatized once too often; and in his second term in the senate. to nvoid impending eN- posture. after tragic interval of de spain. he died by his own hand. surviv- inc ten days after the bullet had passed throuph his brain.-John James h. calls. in uarper's Magazine.