The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-01-23
A TYPICAL REPUBLICAN.

With a service in the house of repre-
,sentatives dating back to December, |
1886, he shares with the venerable SEN
ator from Vermont Mr. Morrill,, the
honors of the congressional patriarch
ate. Rising into leadership in the
popular branch before his second term
had ended: the candidate of the anti
slavery elements in the house for the
speakership in 1853; a recognized leader
in the Republican party from its very
inception; the champion through the
stormy years of war and reconstruction
of its stalwart administrative and leg
islative policies; controlling influence
in its history and fortunes for more
than generation, the Ohio senator has
come to be identified more completely,
perhaps, than any other living public
man with the ideas and purposes which,
through the agency of the Republican
party have for thirty-siX years past
been embodied in American legislation.
AS a force to be reckoned of the first
Importance in congress, in the Cabinet,
in National conventions, along all lines
of political activity; an associate on
equal terms in party councils with
Stevens, Morton, Fessenden, Morrill,,
Wade and Blaine, Mr.. Sherman has
been universally accepted as the last,
Mr.. Morrill, perhaps excepted, of the
coterie of virile and broad-minded
statesmen which sprang into existence
through the stress of National up
heaval and civil war
That at the age of seventy three he
should desire to leave the scene of his
many legislative triumphs and seek to
round out his career by term in the
totn 81, IA f,,xr; ti,,,r
goal of political ambition next to the
presidency itself-is not perhaps to be
wondered at. But what will be a gain
to the executive branch of the govern
ment through Mr.. Sherman's long ex-
perience and training will be an equally
distinct and sensible loss to the legisla-
tive branch-a loss the more irrepar-
able because it breaks perhaps the last
vital connection in the two houses of
congress between the older school of
politics and politicians and the new.
A RECORD TO BE PROUD OF.
Mr. Sherman's biography in the Con-
gressional directory covers barely
twelve lines-less than half of the
space appropriated by many budding
statesman of third his years. Yet
what a record of political activity and
achievements those twelve lines mod
estly conceal! A delegate to the Whig
National convention in lS4S when only
twenty five years old; a delegate again
to the convention of 1882 president of
the first Republican State convention
held in Ohio in 1855; elected a represen-
tatiVe in congress in 1854, and reelected
in 1856, 1858 and 1860; the Republican
and Free Soil candidate for speaker in
1869, losing an election by only three
votes entering the senate in 1861, and
serving there continuously until 1877
devoting four years as secretary of the
treasury in President Hayes cabinet to
carrying into execution the bold and
ar-sighted financial legislation which
he had been the chief factor in passing
through congress-; returning to the SEN
ate in 1881 and retaining his seat there
through three successive Predictions: a
candidate for the Republican presiden-
tial nomination in 1885, 1884 and 1888
receiving in the convention of 1888, PAS
votes; leader Of his party in the senate
and one of its recognized and authorl-
tatiye spokesmen on the public plat
formal these phases of useful, hon.
ored, laborious and eminently success
ful political career can be traced be-
tween the lines of the directory's con-
else and unassuming photographer,
sketch.
STILL ALERT AND VIGOROUS.
Senator Sherman, though fast ap.
preaching his seventy-fourth birthday