The age-herald., 1898-03-26
THE DAY OF SHERMAN
 IS ON THE WAIVE
Special Dispatch to The Age-Herald.
 BY JAY +. DURHAM.


 Washington, March 25.-There seems to be no disgusting the fact that Secretary of State Sherman has been for the past month-in fact, since the disatser to the Maipe, relegated to the tribune of history. as 1t were.
 It is sorry spectacle to see the aged premier as he moves about the streets l saw him walking today through Franklin square immediately fronting his residence in K street. between Thirteenth and Four teenth streets. The old-time sprIghtly step is a thing of the past. The once erect and stately figure is no more. It is with appar- ent difficulty that he walks at all. The iustre is gone from the once bright and sparkling eyes. The sight is dimmed, and John Sherman, for years the real leader of his party and by far the brainiest re- publican in the United States, is living in the past.
 He seldom goes to the state department. He knows little if anything that is going on within his oflee The Spanish trouble is to him blank. He is no longer con suited. His voice is without weight in the councils of his chief about the cabinet table, His place in the official household has been taken by his assistant, MT. Day.
 Mark Hanna is more of cabinet officer than is the secretary of state. MT. Sher- man, strange as it may seem, has passed from public view in the consideration of great questions of state. He has been made to believe that he is too i'll to attend to business. This has been so impressed upon his mind that he has grown to be- Heve that he is in more feeble health than some of his friends really believe he is Were it not for the appearance of things he would have retired before this. While in the midst of the great excitement incl dent to the approaching crisis with Spain 1t would have been poor policy to have permitted the secretary of state to resign It would have been construed into making a quarrel with the president and member of his cabinet upon the matter of policy pursued by the president. Taking this view of the question, MT. Sherman has been permitted to be at the head of the foregn affairs of the nation, but in name only
 Whatever may be said of Mckinley it can be said and to his credit he has been the one master mind at the wheel all dur ing the Cuban question, since 1t became one of so great import. He has not governed and ruled his cabinet ministers with an iron hand as was the custom of MT. Cleveland; but he has been the one ruling spirit. Mckinley does nothing by force. He has great persuasive powers, and in his gentle though positive methods he has made all factions think as he does.
 He has brought Mark Hanna to his way of af nd ba did the same thing and in the same man. ner with Speaker Reed, and MT. Dingey These were the faction that threatened These were the factions that threatened before he knew it. He laid down his gun and walked into camp with the calmness of a child after the parent had scored a victory. If Sherman had been in the prime of health it Is doubtful if he would have been more conspicuous In the Spanish affair than he has been. Judge Day has been the agent of the state department but Me- Kinley has been the to tell others what to do. When taking into considera- tion the fact that Sherman has been in public life since the middle ffties, almost half century, and for years at the head of the foreign affairs committee of the sen- ate, it is sad commentary upon power | and position that when the nation is upon l the very threshold of war with a foreign l power that the voice of one who has been regarded as the wisest counselor in foreign diplomacy and at the head of the first | auxiliary branch of the government should l be silenced in the negotiations of moment l ous questions by a gentleman who was a l private in the trenches when the other had l been well schooled in the science of di- | plomacy as far back as 1863. It is more than probable that after the l Cuban question reaches the real crisis, | whatever that may be, that MT. Sherman l will permanently retire and Judge Day will 1 be promoted to premiership. It can then | be done and the country not misunderstood | the reason.
 POINTED PARAGRAPHS. From the Chicago News