The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-03-28

cial society and all the hurry burly Of
Washington life. And just think what
a crop this last congress will turn outi
OF course the majority will return to
their homes and business, and many of
them will come back to some future con-
gress, but there is always fair percent
age of the defeated who are too much
i'll love with Washington to leave it.
And don't wonder at it, for it is a de-
hghtful place and is growing more
pleasant every year. 1t is certain to be
one of the great cities of the country.
National capitals always do, in spite of
apparent obstacles 1t is the greatest ed
ucational center in the country now and
will soon be the greatest in the world,
for all the public institutions are moth
ing more than a free endowment for
the coming universities. -
Some Well Known Names.
''The trouble with you romancers is
that if it is love story you carry the
parties along to the marriage and then
drop them, and if it is political you
get the hero into Office, and then But
there's many big romance in the ex-
perience of the old fellows.
do you keep up with the career CT
your former CO1l0aSu0Sf
pretty near all of them. hear of
their doings with great interest. OF all
the men served with in the senate but
three remain-Morrill, Sherman and
Stewart Nearly all the other men there
now are mere boys. But the romance of
the reconstruction senators, their whole
experience indeed, has in it all the ele-
ments, the pathetic, the humorous and
didactic. What queer episode in
American history that reconstruction
era wasi No one can understand the sit
uation unless he was in it from start to
finish, and some who had experience
enough don't. The explosion, or what
! you might call the counter RECONSTRUCT
ton, scattered them far and wide, but
many Of them are here. You remember
my colleague in the senate, General J.
| r. West. Well, he has made success
IL the real estate line. And my some
time colaborer, Governor P. B. S.
| Pinchback, lives here and is we'll fixed.
So does B. F. Rice, who was senator
| from Arkansas and is now a lawyer.
| Senator Alexander Mcdonald of Arkan
sas, who was such a great friend Of
Grant and a power in his time, is now
in London doing something in the bro
| kerage line.
| Southern Republican Times.
Wilson and Shellabarger of Ohio
ought to be counted among the recon
struction congressman, for they had
much to do with it and helped in the
Investigations. Both are here and efni-
nent in the law. Samuel Shellabarger
| is among the clearest headed men that
Ohio ever sent to congress, thinker of
mathematical exactness and a very
great lawyer. And yet the newspaper
reader of today scarcely knows his name.
Jere Wilson is much better known on
account of the cases of note he has late
~ managed. OF the Alabama senators in
those southern Republican times Spen-
GER went west and into mining, came
| here on some business and died. Will
| lard Warner is an iron master in Ala
bama. and from what hear great
success. You remember that South Caro-
lima attracted the most criticism next to
! Louisiana. Her Senator Sawyer is now
a college professor up north somewhere,
and the last I heard of John j. Patter-
son he was constructing street railroads
in Pennsylvania Senators Pool and
Abbot of North Carolina are both dead,
and SO are johnson and Van Wyck, who