Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-23
trx. and snant valuable reara teaching

try, and spent valuable years teaching school in order to do 1t. Had his early youth been Better provided for. he would probably have now been thirty years in stead of twenty years in congress.
 Really, therefore, despite local pride and loud cheering and all the zeal of po- litical managers in a promising political campaign, the average Portlander has always been prone to look upon Thomas Bracket Reed as his protege rather than his leader. Even MT. Reeds air of self conscious power, his easy mastery of everready retort and never-failing sar- castle wit seems to have been half re- sented in the local phrase, Reed, the great and only"
 If Tom Reed ever comes to write his recollect.ons, whether he reaches the presidency or not, it will doubtless be seen that his aggressive personality was in many ways a greater weapon even than his now unquestionable intellect. Compared with any other equally promi- nent man in the land, his position seems unique. Other public men have risen from beginnings as small and obscure as his, but no other, it is safe to say, has arisen from obscurity who could at the same time claim such a background of far-reaching American ancestry. Two thirds of all that Is now spoken and writ ten about Reeds percentage and ances try is nonsense or fiction. The writer of this has seen both the father and mother of Reed, his only sister, and cous- ins and relatives by the dozen; all honest, hard-working people, and proud with that sort of pride which comes from hon. orable traditions and self-respect. Reeds father was no lout, but man of limited education and practical intelligence and above the average of working men in address. A couple of aunts of his, sis ters of his father, are still living, and wear the air and aspect of well bred la dies of the old school.
 Reeds mother was a wprnan of TO- markable brilliancy; keen, witty, sarcas- tic; of much beauty and all the qualities which. in a different condition of life would have made her social leader. But what makes Reeds position pecu- liar among the self-made public men of our day is that the. further back you trace his American ancestry the higher up they loom in place until you reach George Cleeves, the first white man to found home within the limits of Casco bay in 1852. To find man among the coloniStS who could write his name was rarity, butcCleeves could do far more than that in the way of letters, as documents prove. He was, indeed an adroit tactician, as is proved by his crossing of the sea to ob- tain an interview with Cromwell regard ing lands here, and his returning armed with authority His daughter, an only child, was married to an EngliShman named Milton, whom he brought over with him, who, the record is careful to tell us. pore tItS Tdnh Ol BeHtlefndH. Two daughters of this Milton, Cleeves' granddaughters, married two brothers, Thomas and Anthony Bracket and from them has descended Thomas Bracket Reed, as we'll as all the Bracket stock in and around Portland today-people who, if events had not been against them, would now own nearly all this town and adjacent towns, instead of the land being owned and run by new people," who look on with a sort of wonder that a fel- low like Tom Reed should become so fa- nous. Who can tell how much of the oblique glance of MT. Reeds keen eye. the suspicion of a sarcastic smile playing around his lips and his indifferent air as he walks through the streets of his na- tive town may be due to thought and comparison of the things touched upon above?
 Speaker Reed leads a very quiet and studious life when here.s He is always ready for a chat with a friend or to drop in at the home of some one whom he knows and likes Once in a while he drops in of an evening for few moments at the Cumberland club, but he assietA hardly ever at the functions of society. Neither does his wife, a quiet, refined woman of domestic tastes. One might suppose that his daughter Miss Kitty