The Forrest City times., 1899-11-10
Our Public Men of the Past and Present Among the Most Dis
 tinguished of the Nation.
ALL CITIZENS SHOULD BE PROUD OF THEM
How Col. A. s. Morgan Turned Down Company of Gentlemen by Compari- son-Tne Mntohless Garland, Pike the Scholar, TrapnsII, Ashley, Ringe, Der trand. Engiish and others.


 article which first appeared in the Lit tie Rock Gazette, tells how he once turned down company of prominent gentlemen who were disposed to twit him about Arkansas. It will be found of unusual interest:
 "At the recent state fair in Dallas, Gov. Savers remarked in a spirit Of badinage, There are only two persons in Texas who will own they came from Arkansas The party addressed, a prominent citizen of Arkansas, had been invited to Texas to deliver an ad- dress, and he replied: Yes, but gov ernor, when we invite citizen of Texas to speak in Arkansas, he is not inter- rupted, as have been, by jackrabb race
 ''The writer came from Georgia, his native state, to Arkansas boy, in 1S43, and desires here to put on record that in long and varied experience with men and things, he has never seen the day, the time nor place when he was not proud of the state and it's people.
 My first visit to Little Rock was in January, 1s46. I had letters to some of the citizens of Little Rock, and among them one to F. W. Trapnall, who gave an entertainment to some visiting friends, and I was permitted to be of the party. The impression made on my mind by the gentlemen I met on that occasion is still vivid and distinct, and upon it I formed my estimate of what Arkansas was, and what it was destined to be. My memory recalls Chester Ashley. Daniel Ringo, Albert Pike and c. P. Bertrand as a quartette who sat with others around that hos pitable board, and no one who knew those representative men then-knew them and Sevier and Cummins and Fowler and others, their compeers and associates afterward-need feel other wise than proud of the state and its people.
 What Arkansan who remembers that Chester Ashley entered the United States senate, statesman full grown and equipped, and as champion of the judiciary committee during his first session, was the peer of any of those assembled there. Sevier, statesman of national reputation, entrusted with a treaty of peace with Mexico; Ringo and English, by their learning and legal attachments, illus trating the jurisprudence of the state; Pike, unequaled in scholarship and savant in his investigations into the mystic lore of the past; Trapnall and Cummings, touching at will the deep est sensibilities of the human heart and holding listening audiences entranced by the power of their matchless elo- quence; Fowler, the lawyer in the true sense that thorough knowledge of that altruse and scientific profession implies; the Johnsons, who impressed their personality on the early history of the state for the states upbuildipg and its permanent good; or, nearer our tina tho raaarlacc orla ability was only measured by the occas- ion that required it's display, and whose mission it was to go about doing good and blush to find its fame What Arkansan who knew Arkansas as it then was, great in the intellectual en- dowment of its sons, can feel otherwise than proud of its people and his state.
 Not long since I visited Savannah, and in that historic city, the commer- cial capital of Georgia, met socially a party of gentlemen, and, as usual, when effort was made to make the state the butt of jest and ridicule, in which our pronunciation of the states name, the Arkansas traveller, and Opie Reid all bore their share. l finally said: Gen tlemen, the statute of limitation has run against that kind of stuff with well-informed people for generation. It is the counterpart of the Georgia scenes with you l then said: Let us run parallel and see where we stand. Were you aware of the fact that the democratic leader on the floor of the United States senate and a leading member of its greatest and most i'm. portant committees, is senator from Arkansas, and that he is chairman of the national democratic committee. the most honorable and responsible political position the great democratic party could testow? Did you know that the other senator from Arkansas was the senior democrat on the three great committees on appropriations. commerce and public lands, and that he is perhaps the most influential. as he is certainly the most popular, mem-