The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-21
TOM REED AND STUMP SPEAKING

MT Reed does not love campaigning. In fact, he has a well-known aversion to making stump speeches. and goes about the task like boy doing penance at school. He believes that the noise, 1 tinsel, and red fire of campaigning Is q | genuine menace to our electoral sys- l tenn, inasmuch as 1t excites the voter unduly, and robs him of an opportuni- ty to consider the issues calmly, while | hearing them discussed
 II regret the tendency in our cleo tions toward blare and display" said MT Reed to the writer on one occa- | sion when he had left the train at a junction in Maine to get bite to eat 1 at the railroad lunch counter, and had run into a. band that was lying in wait | to serenade him. II object to being exhibited from the tail end of train or on the platform like a criminal on his way to jail There is nothing in such things for the good of the country"
 MT, Reeds objection to display did not keep him from accepting all the well-meant, though noisy, attentions paid him with the best of grace, though privately he gave free reign to his rath- CT sharp, though eminently good-na- tured sarcasm.
 | One day he had to go to country town in a remote corner of his district to make speech, and on his arrival at the station which was several miles from the town, there was no one on hand to meet him. He looked slowly around and asked, Where are the pa triots?" in his familiar drawl. The pa triots soon appeared with carriages. In Portland one afternoon the writer was riding on the same car with MT. Reed, and finding himself without change to pay his fare, borrowed a nickel from the statesman. A day or two afterward he met MT. Reed at the Portland station and offered to repay the nickel The big leader of the house gave one of his tremendous laughs and said; Never mind that. I shall charge that to campaign ex- penses-subsidizing the venal press" Mir Reed is always courteous to newspaper men, but he does not have a very high opinion of the press as a whole While he recognizes 1t as a great factor in our civilization he thinks 1t does a good many foolish things He is q great admirer of the Nestor of American journalism, Charles A. Dana, and he thinks the New York Sun the brightest paper in the country He reads 1t every day. Just before the Maine election MT. Reed received 8 number of requests from editors In various parts of the country for his opinion as to the proba- ble majority in Maine He did not comply with any of the requests and his comment on them was: T object to having my testimony put into a | newspaper with a border around it, like patent medicine advertisement" He writes for one of the leading re- views, and the editor has frequently asked him to make some sort of fore cast as to the tendency of the times po- litically, but he has always refused to do so. NO man can tell the future, and l don't believe in going into busi- ness as a prophet. The only guide to the future is human experience in the past, and everybody Is as free to profit by that as I ann That is his opinion regarding anticipations of the future In print.
 MT. Reed did not in the last election bother himself with figuring on the vote of his district in advance. He knew it was safe, and that he consider ed enough. It is his doctrine to make square fight and let the vote take care of itself. He studiously holds himself above catering to any class of voters in his district. He pursued this poli- cy more in the last election, when his plurality was more than 10000 votes Time was when he had plurality of only IT. But he did not cater in that campaign any more than he did in this one.
 When the returns were coming in l from this close election MT. Reed went down to his club In Portland and or the way he was met by group of dem- ocrats who were In jubilanA mood Well, Tom" said they, i've have beaten you this tinE8,' MT. Reed lis tened undisturbed,"3 End remarked, "It you have beaten me you have spared me any preliminaries. l had not wor- ried about 1t up to this moment" MT
 Reed went on down town to find that he was not beaten, but elected by 6 narrow margin. He took the news as calmly as he did the remarks of the democrats who thought they had hin
 beaten.
 One day I met Mir Reed on a trair bound from Bangor to Busksport Are you going to Bucksport?" he ask ed. I replied that T. was. DO yol
 know what will happen to you dowr there?" he continued. I said l did not
 but l noticed a twinkle in the speak
 CTS brown eyes, and concluded ther'
 could be nothing very serious in store Well" said he, "one of the most pa , thetic things in life will happen to yoI down there. You have to get up at
 o'clock in the morning to get out 0
 there. I told him that I would hav I, to drive eighteen miles that night t file report of his speech at Bangor He remarked gravely that that wa
 nothing compared with getting up at : o'clock in the morning. This conver l sation was overheard by several per 5 sons who were bound to Bucksport t hear Mir. Reed speak, and they seeme'
 greatly astonished that the great mal I could joke about thing which was t t l them an everyday occurrence, an ob e jection to the daily performance O S which was no doubt considered by tn
 good people of those parts evidence o :. moral laziness.
 :, MT. Reed did not like to be reporte