Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1894-05-24
PUBLIC OPINION.
BATTING A GREAT STATESMAN.

BATTING GREAT STATESMAN.
New York Tribune.
The information which reaches us
through the pages of .'The Congressional
Record" leads US to believe that an en-
inent Western statesman, the Hon. John
NJ. Palmer, of Illinois, is not receiving
at the hands of his associates in the
Senate the Difference and consideration
to which his years, his attainments and
virtues entitle him.
Mr.. Palmer is one of the Vests favor
ite sons. He belongs to the school of
the Wabash Sycamores. He is powerful
of lung, garrulous of speech, a fountain
of resounding platitudes, and as impa-
tient of the restraints of information
and logic as the zebra and the wild
gazelle are of the bride and the breech-
ing-strap. Elderly but ardent, rickety
but impu,siye, venerable but frisky, the
Hon. John NJ. Palmer is at once
picturesque, surprising and profound.
There is no subject of human contro-
versy upon which he is not prepared to
talk for the ediication of the Senate.
Modelled upon the lines of that illustri-
GUS blatherskite, the Hon. Daniel w.
VOORHEES,, and rivalling in windiness the
very caves of Boreas, he presents to the
Senate combination of Captain Jack
Bunsby and Mrs. Nickleby, the like of
which has never been seen upon the
earth. Nobody has ever tapped him
without starting mountain torrent OF
conversation. Nobody has started him
with the result of obtaining either fact
or reason, He splutters and gesticulates
and talks upon the smallest provocatioD,
and nothing less than physical exhaus-
ton stops him. His eloquence is like
the chatter of birds or the cracking of
thorns under pot.
Nevertheless, we do not approve the
manner in which the Hon. John NJ.
Palmer, of Illinois, is treated almost
every day by the other Senators, and es-
pecially by the Republicans. "The
Record" unfortunately, does not give
in the habit of engaging in debate, but
from a number of indications we sus-
pect it to be near 8 o'clock, the hour he
returns from the restaurant below filled
with commissary stores and-enthusi-
asm. His entrance, it seems, is the sig
nal for a wicked and irreverent ribaldry
calculated to make the judicious grieve.
No sooner does the Hon. John NJ.
Palmer take his seat and cast proud
but rheumy eye over the assemblage
than the batting of that powerful states
man begins. Whether it be the duty on
isoceles triangles, or the relation between
the political hypothenuse and the bias of
jurisprudence, or the capacity OF a
chimera ruminating in a vacuum to
devour second intentions, that eminent
statesman rises to the bait with fervor
that beggars eulogy. He gets upon his
honorable legs and shakes out his chin
whiskers to the breeze and makes the
very welkin shiver with his noise. He
talks of tweedledum and tweedledee, of
the Pebble that has no toes, of the Peo
pie he loves with all his heart, and the
Dong with the luminous nose. And, we
regret to say it, Messrs. Aldrich and
Chandler and Hale, and others too nu-
merous to mention, sit around and picnic
on that great mans fervor.
We repeat; it is not right. 1t is al
most wicked The Hon. John M. Palmer
is distinguished and mighty statesman.
He is a fountain that gushes at the
Iightest touch, and his language is like
the tears of Niobe-it slObbers on for
ever. They should not bait that hoary
patriarch nor stir the waters of his
turgid eloquence. 1t is cruelty to Dem
ocrats, and, what is worse. it checks the
flow of Democratic craftsmanship. Let
up on the Hon. John NJ. Palmer, we say,
and usher in the fat millennium at
once.