The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-01-30
AN OBITUARY..
FALL OF WASHBURN
"DOwn Among the Dead Men Let
Him Lie"

INbS, We were young man, TeDTeScHC-
ing one-half the state of Minnesota,
in the Anne rican Congress. We work
ed hard and tried to do our duty. We
entered into no rings or combination
to rob the people. We broke up one
great Indian agency job to take $780,
900 for services which the law said
should cost but 5000; and we were
publicly thanked by the Secretary Of
tile Interior therefor. We thought
we had some fitness for public life
and that we could be of some service
to our constituents. But there was
at that time d family of brothers by
the name Of Washburn, who rose to
prominence on the tidalwave of the
overthrow of the slave power, and
had forced themselves into Congress
for several different states. They
were of a breed especially fitted for
their environment. They were utter
ly unintelectual, and wanting in
those higher qualities Of the soul
which inspire great and humane
thoughts. Barren headed, unlearned,
without scholarship or genius, they
at the same time possessed great
energy, great ambition, conjoined
with an utter absence Of honor, de-
cency or conscience. They had no
more scruples about getting at their
object, whatever it might be, than
hog has in rushing at the SWill-trOugh.
But all that the back part of the head
nj iS
and during their short period Of
prominence they possessed consider
able power.
Where are they now? God only
knows:-if he takes note of any such
creatures after the earth has gotten
through with them. Neither upon
tile statute books of the nation, nor
in the records of debate in Congress,
nor anywhere else in this world can a
single Wcrd or thought OF theirs be
found that lifts them above the low
est level of the coarse, slang hang
ing, turbulent, uproarious politicians
Of the time, the mere froth and
fumc on the waves of great events.
History will draw the kindly mantle
Of oblivion over their effrontcry and
brutality.
The last Of them has now reached
the end Of his political career. The
wind of prestige has been sucked out
Of him, and he now lies upon the
earth a shrivelled, collapsed, wrinkled
thing, which all the bellows of all the
thieves and plunderers of mankind
can never again blow up into human
proportions.
And if ever the pen of history de-
sends to write the record of the foul
scramble Of these degenerate times,
in this afflicted corner of the world, it
will say that William D. Washburn
mad the proud distinction of having
done more than any other man to cor
rupt and make rotten the politics of
his era, and to produce the conditions
which promise to swallow up civiliza-
tion and self-government. And that
he perished at last because the mis-
government which he had helped to
create reacted on the very villains
whom it had at frs t enriched, and re-
duced them to such helplessness of
bankruptcy that they were unable to
buy nim once more into triumph.
Byron says, speaking of the ocean:
ciThou dost arise and shake him from thee;
The vile strength he wields for earth's de-
Thou dost all despise.
And send'st him shrieking to his monster
gods
In vain"
of
Nashbnrn fell when the money gave
Dut. He ShriekeG to his monster gods
the inflated giants Of fictitious capi-
tal-the undetected Menages, but
they were clinging to the wreckage, to
keep their own heads above water.
and could afford him no help: and a
Legislature reluctantly virtuouS in
its own despite, repudiated him, and
he went to the bottom,
"Unwept. unhonored and unsung'
There was an especial "justce in
history" in the fact that this bad
man was struck down at last bv the
hand of a Scandinavian. In 1868 he
defeated us for Congress, and elected
the Democratic candidate, by playing
upon the prejudiceS of the colonies of
Mortimer then settled in Goodhue.
Chisago and other counties. There
were thousands of them. newcomers
in our land, ignorant of our language:
and he persuaded them that we were
not the choice of the Republicans of
the district: and misled the honest
foreigners to the defeat of their own
cherished party. And since that time
the Scandinavians have been largely
his tools He was willing, if they
would keep the blue blood of Wash
burn in the United States Senate. that
the descendants of the Vikings should
help the clerkships and minor offices.
But they had learned something in 80
years beside our language; they learn
Ell that they and they alone kept the
Republican party in power in this
state: I'd they concluded that if they
were fit to serve, they were fit to gov
Hern: and at last they ''hoist the engi-
neer with his own petard;" and the
population which Washburn had used
in 1868 to drive us out of public life,
has, in 1895. smashed all his scheming
and reduced his incompetency to