The National tribune., 1899-07-20
THE NATIONAL WASHINGTON THURSDAY JULY @

a downpour of rain which lasted until the
inaugural hour, yet the multitudes by
thousands were there. AS the President
and the Chief Justice appeared at the
eastern door OF the Capitol and stepped out
upon the platform, the sun broke through
the clouds, Illuminating the pale face Of the
President. Happy omen!" shouted the
multitude, and huzzas from 10000 voices
filed the air. The booming of guns echoed
and re-echoed from the Virginia hills. The
oath had been taken. Everybody was cog
infant of the rumors of evil that was to fall
upon the Nation that day, of the plots and
counter-plots, and anxiety was in the air;
but the sun still illuminated the face Of the
great leader of men, and we hung on the
words he uttered. When he reached that
sublime passage, with malice toward
none, with charity for all, with firmness
in the right, as God gives us to see the
| right, let us strive on to finish the work we
care for him who shall have borne the
battle, and for his widow and for his orphan;
to do all which may achieve and cherish a
| just and lasting peace among ourselves,
and with all nations" hush fell over the
| SiSStt IluttlbuuO iihc tb DtIicu1CtioI. iDia
ham Lincoln was again President of the
United States.
Kate Chase was an interested looker-on
that day, and we have little doubt that the
question uppermost with her was, Why is
not my father, the most magnificent speci-
men of superbly developed manhood among
men, deprived of the only position left in
the gift Of his countrymen which he has
not filled-that of President? She used
all the means at her command to further
that end. What power there was in a
fascinating, beautiful woman to sway the
minds of men she called into action. States
men, diplomats-everybody admired her
ambitious devotion to her father, yet were
Ipowerle5s to help her. So it came that an
alliance was made with the millionaire
Senator Sprague, of Rhode Island, and a
marriage. What might not millions do
toward President making?
A beautiful vision of Mrs. Kate Chase
ISprague comes up before me as she looked
in the Senate gallery one Summers day
in the sixties. Her costume, always per-
feet, was ideal that day. She was the en-
bo1iment of the most beautiful woman
had ever beheld. No one who ever looked
into her soulful eyes, with the long, sweep
ing lashes, can ever forget them. A friend
Hooking at her this day wrote: "Is she a
woman or a flower to be nipped by the
frost, or to be pressed between the leaves of
adversity, or, alas! to grow old and wither?
Impossible, she is flower of Immortality"
And yet the years had not passed, scarcely
| the months, when strange whispers Of in
|conQatibility and eStrangement filled the
air, and later a divorce.
| Tne woof of this new life, that seemed
woven of silk and gold, was filled with
grief and pain, anxieties and deceptions
Misfortune knocks1 at her door. This
fower was to be nipped by the frosts and
p-essei between the leaves of a1versity.
Her father loaned his name to the Demo
cratic party in 1858 as Presidential can
didate. For time there was promises of
strong support, but when it came to the
actual ballots in the New York Convention
Of July, the highest number of votes he
received was four out of 663 From this
time he Withdrew greatly from public
affairs, and died in New York, May Z, 1873
Mrs. Kate Chase-Spragues hour of sad
ness had reached its climax. She had
met the greatest grief that could smite her
soul. Hereafter, flowers were less bril-
liant, the fields We're sonber, the streams
less limpid, life had lost its ebb and flow
She took her children and lived in Europe
many years, directing their education and
living her life as best she might, self
exile for the sake Of her children.
Driving over Georgetown Hights one
Summer evening in 1885, our attention
was called to helrse and a carriage that
awaited at the cemetery gate. A woman,
clad in heavy black, was slowly vending
her way out of the cemetery; two gentle
men Were her companions. A casket had
preceded them carried by laborers.
An organization of the bar of Ohio had
taken measures to remove the remains of
MIR. Chase back to his old home. Mrs.
Sprague crossed the sea to attend the last
rites in honor of the father she adored
The last time we saw her sweet, sad face
was just as the funeral cortege left Oakhill
Cemetery. She was the only female occu-
pant of the carriage, solitary and alone as
mourner. AS the procession passed over
the brow OF the hill, slowly vending its way
out Of the golden sunlight down into the
lengthening shadows of the valley it seemed
a counterpart of her own life. We turn
back the leaf Of time and realize the rapid
ity with which great events in human
history are often wrought. She returned
from Europe, and with her family took up
her life at Edgwood, the country home of
Mr.. Chase, on the outskirts of the city The
change that had come upon this family
had laid its hand upon beautiful Edgwood.
The presiding genius of this home was
possessed of that political tact which trans
posed a woman into a rival of the most
astute diplomat. 1t is said that her history
would in part be a history of the civil war
There was no woman who had more to do
in influencing the military and political
chessboards than she. And even a t a later
day Senators who thought they held the
Nation in hand got many political tips
from the high priestess Of Edgwood. But,
as we have seen, her star did not set in a
lcloudless sky. There was no golden sun
lSet, no rOSeate hueS. She walked through
the valley of disappointment. If at times
a little of the old glory returned, when
statesmen in high places sought her for
counsel, and EdgwoOd became their mecca,
it was transitory. The sun had set in the
valley where she walked, and there was
merely a tinge Of glory on the mountain
tops ere it sunk behind the hills.
EDITORIAL NoTE.-This series will con-
tinue week by week, in the course of which
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