The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-05-26
SENATOR ALDRICH.
The Republican Tariff Leader Well
Equipped for His Work.
Philadelphia Record.


Senator Nelson wilmarth Aldrich. of
Providence, r. l., joint author OF the Nc
kinley law and tariff leader OF the Re-
publicans, is still the handsomest man on
his side of the Senate. although he has
lost good deal of hair since he put the
Mckinley law on the statute book, and
what he has left is rapidly turning white
like his fine mustache. In fact, he is get
ting bald although he is still able 10 part
his hair in front, unlike his rival in manly
beauty. Senator Apollo, of the Democratic
of Edgefield. S. c., whose front hair has
quite disappeared, and who is therefore
really out of competition with the Rhode
Island Senator. Aldrich is nearly six
years younger than Butler, however, and
he will not be fifty-three until next No
vember. His face is so full, his complex
ion so fresh, his eye so bright and keen,
his teeth so white and strong. his form so
muscular and agile that he looks younger
than his years.
Mentally, Senator Aldrich is in his full
prime He has been steadily growing ever
since he entered public life, and especially
during the thirteen years since he sue
ceedei General Burnside in the Senate.
Aldrich is not college graduate. nor is he
a lawyer, as so many people suppose. He
started OFT as a clerk in store. after
receiving an academic education, and was
a business man. rising to be partner in
a wholesale grocery house In Providence
before he came TO Congress. He is one
OF the few business men in politics who
have been able to hold their own with
the lawyers, who constitute so large
majority in most legislative bodies.
Aldrich has remarkable intellectual gifts,
most of them of the practical kind, which
bring success in money making and in Leg
islative work 1t is only recently that he
orally believed by his colleagues to be
millionaire at last, as result OF some clev-
er financierirg which he did last year in
connection with street-railway systems in
New England. But he has exercised his
faculties with great success In getting meas
ures through Congress all through the last
decade. and, indeed, from the day he en-
tered Congress-, seventeen years ago,
member of the House of Representatives
His mind is quick, his judgment good, his
memory accurate, and he has that knowi-
edge of just how much is practicable and
as intuitive as though it We're given by a
sixth sense.
He has a sense of humor and a good
hun1ored If not humorous way which en-
able him to wait and to work with more
facility than men who have them not ana
to carry his point in bantering. laugh
ing way when il would be difficult, If not
impossible, to carry 1T in any other way
He is equally successful in the committee
room ana IN mt the Senate enamper ne ans Is
a thorough diplomatist, who knows how TO
bargain, when to. insist and when TO yield,
eloquent speaker on his feet.
He is one of the best debaters in the
Senate. He has all the quickness. the skill
delicate fencing, as we'll as for rough-and-
tumble wrestling. Sometimes. like all brill
liant men, he Is too brilliant, and over
reaches himself as he did last month when
he tried to bluff the Democrats by ask
ing them whether they would vote on a
tariff bill at o'clock that day. If he had
stopped with proposing that they should
vote on the Wilson bill IL came from
the House, as he had evidently planned,
he would have had the Democrats hard
and fast in his trap. for they could not
afford to vote on the Wilson bill without
opportunity to amend it, since probably ten
of them would have voted against it and
Ii would have been beaten. But Aldrich,
becoming too bold under a tempting In
vital ton from Lindsay, of Kentucky, amend
ed his proposition by suggesting a vote on
the bill with amendments, and this the
Democrats were able TO take up, and so
his plan failed and he was left in his own
make such blunders, and a rule he
makes the point he has in mind.
On the tariff question he is an encyclo-
pedia, either having every fact you can
ask for already in his memory, or having a
memorandum there pointing to a particu-
lar pigeon hole or page of book where IL
can be found. He knew a great deal of
bill. when that came over to The Senate
in 1890, but after he had carried that bill
through the finance committee, OF which
then, as now, he was the leading tariff
man on the Republican side, and through
the Senate, and through the conference
committee, he knew ii ALL Experts of ev-
cry kind, the leading manufacturers in
every department. and the leading import
ers in every line, had concentrated the
knowledge of a lifetime respecting different
features of the tariff and had placed their
contributions before him, so that his re-
ceptive mind had obtained all that there
was TO be known on the subject.