The Republican journal., 1900-02-22
EzII!!l 'i!|.;!|lI7!Il|':l CURE
-
The Last of Ureat Group.

Richard W. Thompson of Indiana,
whose death has just taken place, ~as
distinguished among his cOuntrymen of
to-day in many particulars. He WAS the
! last eminent survivor of that ''year of
great babies" 1S09-the year which pro-
duced Lincoln, Hamlin, Gladstone, Robert
G.. Winthrop, Darwin, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Tennyson and others who won
fame in many fields. Indiana sent him to
its Legislature in 1884, and his public life
may be said to have begun at that time.
1t elected him to the national House of
Representatives in 1910. No other Ameri
can who has been alive in recent years
was in either branch of Congress as far
! back as that, but eX Gov. Alexander
Ramsey of Minnesota, who is still alive,
entered Congress two years later. Thump-
son. therefore, was in Congress fourteen
years before the notably long political
career of John Sherman, which was eud
ed by resignation a little over year ago,
and of Justin ) Morrill,. which was closed
/ by death early in 1899, began
To the popular mind Lincoln appears to
be parsonage If a generation or two ago,
as more than a third of century has
passed since his death. If alive to-day,
however, Lincoln would be only four
months older than Thompson was at bis
death. Gladstone's life, even in coan-
/ try which has seen many memorably long
political careers, held a high place in the
scale OF longevity, yet if Gladstone were
alive to this dav he would be more than
half year younger than the lnGianian
whose death has just taken place.
/ Thompson was presidential election IN
1910, OF sixty years ago, and east his vote
Tor William Henry Harrison. The [ nited
States at that time had only 1000, O00 i'll
! babitants, and its western boundary was
the Sabine, THE Red and the Arkansas
Rivers and the X 'cky Mountains. Texas,
California. Oregon, " Washington and sew
eral 0ther States and tNo territories have
been added t0 the national domain since
that time, exclusive of Alaska and the
more recent acquisitions, and the popuia-
ton Of the country has more than quad
rupled
Comparatively few public Offices We're
held by the deceased lndianian, and the
actual duration of his public service was
not long. His only important national
/ posts were Representative in Congress and
Secretary OF the Navy, the last of which
offices he held in the Cabinet of President
Hayes. No other man of his day, how
ever, declined 81 many important posts,
! d'llHlulSl ldtlNS iBN 'iiPlpHidlltt tcHuSic't
by Presidents a. he did. Among the
/ Presidents who offered him offices which
he did not accept were Taylor, Lincoln,
Grant and Harrison. AS Wing at the
outset in his active life and as Republi
can ever since the Republican party was
founded. he wrote more platforms of his
own State and assisted in writing more
national platforms than any other Ameri-
can who ever lived. He personally saw
every President of the United States ex-
cept Washington and the first Adams,
and was on terms OF intimacy with many
of them. In every presidential canvass
from that OF 1882 when he took the stump
for Clay, he made speeches, even in that
Of 1896, in which year he was a delegate
to the st. Louis convention. A great deal
OF history has been made in the United
States since Richard W. Thompson first
entered national station sixty years AGO,
and he assisted in making a considerable
part of it. [St. Louis Globe Democrat.