The San Francisco call., 1895-12-13

mentioned as a candidate for President,
but the Tilden wave engulfed him with
the others. In the Democratic National
conventions of 1876, 1880 and 1884 he re-
ceived votes for the Presidency, and in
1888 was nominated for the Vice-Presi-
dency, but defeated. Since that time he
had little to do with politics
Such, in brief, is sketch of the career
OF Allen G. Thurman. OF his home-life.
however, some very pretty things have
been written. From Columbus, Ohio, re-
Gently correspondent wrote:
In the roomy library of an unostentatious
stone house on one of the handsomer residence
streets of this city an old Roman sits and with
dim eyes watches the boys who gather at play
on the lawn near by. At times his grand
daughter reads to him, and together they talk
of the past. The members of his own family
cheer him with their company and watch over
his feeble steps with loving care. They assist
him to his feet when he wishes to pass from
room to room, ana support him again when he
desires TO sit down.
The sunset of Allen G. Thurman's life is
pleasant though lonely. The lost rays of sun
light find the same sturdy spirit there that
won a nations admiration at MONDAY. He is
almost the last of his generation. The faithful
and beloved wife has preceded him. Only
three or four of the men he met in his vigor
and in whose friendship he rejoiced remain
with him in his old age. The others have all
gone. His greatest amusement in the hours
when there is no one to talk with or read to
him is watching the boys playing on the lawn
that lies before his library windows. Manly
sports were always q delight to him, and to-
day, broken in health and old, he finds no dis
comfort in the noise and happy shoutings of his
grandsons and their boy friends, playing ball
or tennis hard by.
The room in which he loves to sit is nearly
square, large and rather old-fashioned. Book
cases line its walls In the place of honor,
where the old statesman's eye often falls upon
it, is large photograph of the late Judge
Rufus P Ranney, his associate on the Supreme
bench OF Ohio in the fifties and one of his
closest friends. In the early days of the pres
ent constitution, these two eminent ju rists
established precedents that have proved of in
lncalculable value to the State for more than
forty years. Those were the days to which the
lawyers of the State still refer with pride, when
decision of the Ohio Supreme Court had
high standing in all the North.
The admiration these two men entertained
for each other was one that only death could
end. Both were old school Democrats and
were in sympanthy in many of their views of
man stood quite as high in the esteem of the
"Old Roman" through all the years of their
friendship as the able lawyer who served with
him on the State Supreme bench. To-day
Judge Thurman refers to Judge Ranney with
the tenderest feeling, and takes pleasure in
pronouncing his one of the finest judicial
minds he has ever known. Other pictures and
photographs hang about the room, the last to
be given place of honor there being that of
Grover Cleveland
Judge Thurman's character is admirable as
much for the downright integrity that marked
his intercourse with his fellow-men as for the
ability that made him conspicuous on the
bench and in the Senate. His highest enco-
MUM upon any man was the terse judgment,
"He is an honest man." In all his public ca
reer and private life honesty was the first title
to his esteem. The highest compliment that
could be paid him was to believe in his thor
ough honesty of purpose and action.
Looking back upon his long life. he said,
In tones that broken health made tremulous,
to one of his lifelong friends the other day: "I
never intentionally wronged a human being