The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1896-05-24
THUMBNAIL SKETCH OF
TANNER OF ILLINOIS

CHICAGO, May 14.-What Tom Plat
Is to the party in New York John R.
Tanner is to the Republican machine
in Illinois. He holds party destinies in
the hollow of his hand.
Tanners yesterday convention selec-
ton to lead the Republican ticket in a
run for the governorship represents in
it's way mistake of Kohlsaat, leaving
cakes to burn In his ovens, flew to the
columns of his paper and called Tanner
an "unlettered ass" and an "uncultured
boor," and for a time continued to be de-
clamatory concerning Tanner in a kim
dsed fashion.
This Kohlsaat excitement brought to
the shoulder of Tanners canvass Medill,
with his paper, as we'll as that other
giant of the journals, William Penn
Nixon. 1t also really aggrieved Tanner,
who made up his mind to win, cost what
it might, befall whatever would.
About this time. too-this was about
two months ago-Mark Hanna broke
into the affairs of Kohlsaat with the in
formation that his war on Tanner was
killing Mckinley in Illinois. The Nc
Kinley syndicate had a prior claim on
Kohlsaat; the claim in this instance that
he be quiet.
you are killing Mckinley" whisper
ed Hanna.
And Kohlsaat, with ashen face, was
| dumb. He again repaired to his cakes
and his ovens and no more named Tan
ner in his excellent journal.
But 1t was too late. Tanner-that
Western Machiavelli-had received too
! much impetus, and he was yesterday
made the choice of the convention to be
the next governor of Illinois, as all the
, world we'll knows.
Tanner is now So years Of age. He is
well formed, wiry physically, looks well.
- ~s..k saI1 I.>JC
ment, has all his hair, shaves off his
beard and garnishes his countenance
with a mustache. the latter being vol
luminous and dropping, and of the sort
which goes voluntarily with faro game.
In his nature Tanner is strong, creep
Ing insiduous as a grape vine. Once his
| tendrils fasten nothing tears him free.
To bring him down one must lay the
ak to what he clings.
He has, too, the stealth and wisdom of
a serpent is capable of concealment and
| poison. With neither pocket book nor
pedigree, utterly uneducated, with the
handicap of rustic origin, Tanner has
become respectable, even as rattle
snake is respectable. He fangs his foes
death politically and is no laughing mat
ter.
Tanner was born in Warwick county,
Indiana Lincoln's boyhood home, in 1S41.
The Tanner family has census of five
father, mother and three children.
There was an older brother, Mack.
John r. was the second son. There was
a sister, who went to obscurity and
death with her mother.
1t was few years prior to the civil
war, when the Tanner family removed
to Missouri, and they would seem to
have set up their lares and penates
in a hotbed of secession. When the war
broke out the Tanner household, man
and woman, boys and girl, was seized on,
as Of Union sympathies. The two boys
and the father were hurried south to
rebel prisons. The mother and daugh-
ter forever disappeared, and until this
day John Tanner has never had trace
nor trail of them. Not one word fioated
back from the black past to tell of the
grim tragedy of their taking off.
John Tanner and his brother escaped
from the rebels at Andersonville. The
father was too i'll and weak to go with
them. He remained and died there. AS
they said goodbye" to the dying old
man he besought them, once they were
free, to enlist for revenge, if not for the
Union. They did SO. and as the subject
of this sketch has cool trick to see the
hind sights when he unhooks rifle.