The San Francisco call., 1896-02-23

Gently elected, he writes he will be II, will
have been in the Senate twenty-four years
and will be living in the dawn of the
| twentieth century. All in all, it may be
| safely asserted that he knows more than
any other man in public life. His scholar
ship may not be as accurate as that OF
some others IN particular lines, but he ap-
| pears to know a great deal about every
| thing. In this respect be closely
resembles England's "Grand Old Man"
William Ewart Gladstone. He also much
| resem bles him in the grace with which he
carries his age. No man, looking at Sen
| ator Morgan's handsome face, massive
| head, tall and sinewy frame, noting his
elastic step, or listening to his eloquence,
which flows onward like the resistless cur
| rent of a mighty river, would pronounce
him past 60.
One of my teachers was wont to say
"Some people have memories like tar
bucket Everything that touches, sticks.
Others have memories like a ducks back.
Everything that touches, scoots off,"
Most assuredly Senator Morgan's mem
ory is of the tar-bucket variety. Evidently
he has been an. omnivorous reader; and
he is like the Bourbons in one regard, at
least-he forgets nothing.
If Shakespeare's dictum, "Brevity's the
soul of wit" be true, then Senator Morgan
is the least witty of the Conscript Fathers,
always excepting William Vincent Allen.
who broke all records for long-distance
oratory by speaking fifteen hours at one
stretch; Matthew Stanley Quay, who con-
sumed fourteen entire legislative days on
30 III II n
whose masterfuI discussion of silver makes
large book.
But these historic performances were
only unusual episodes in the Senatorial
careers of those eminent pubicists SEN
ator Allen rarely speaks at great length.
Senator Jones is not a frequent or proix
orator, and Senator Quay hardly ever
speaks at all .in public on the stage"
Generally he takes it out in thinking and
scheming. Until the speech above re-
ferred to, he had been regarded as the
Sphinx OF the Senate.
Senator Morgan always speaks in ex-
tense. On any subject in which he is in
terested he has so much to say that it re-
qulres long time to say it. He is never
tedious, however In splendor of diction.
In wealth of metaphor, in masterful mar
shaling of facts in alb lndance of informa-
ton, in lofty eloquence, in intrepidity of
spirit, as well as in length of his speeches.
he recalls Edmund Burke, who, taken M
one side and down tne other, was perhaps
the greatest transatlantic orator that ever
spoke the English tongue. Macaulay la
ments the fact that Burke delivered some
of mis- grandest orations to empty benches
and some wag declared that Burke's rising
to speak emptied the House of Com mons
as suddenly as dinner gong would empty
the public room of crowded hotel.
On the contrary, the announcement that
Senator Morgan is up at once fills all the
seats and standing room in the Senate
chamber and packs the galleries to suffo-
cation.
Il may be said of him, as DR.. johnson
said of Oliver Goldsmith, 'he touches
nothing that ne does not adorn." Without
extravaganza it may be affirmed that he
exhausts any subject that he discusses. II
Is equally true that he has never uttered q
ouil sentence in the eighteen years of his
Senatorial career.
In the frequency of his speeches he re-
sembles, though hardly rivals, that illus
trious orator, Charles James Fox-for that
immortal Whig declared that he had
spoken every night except two during his
long parliamentary career, ana his only
regret was that he neglected to speak then.
Senator Morgan is utterly fearless and
perfectly loyal in his conceptions of duty
to the people. These qualities have
brought him into antagonism to the ad
ministration. 1t was in the long drawn
out debate on the silver question that he
fixed uron the single gold standard Demo-
Gratis the ludicrous nickname of "Cuckoos,"