The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1900-05-05

Graveyard in the Courier Journal.l
Washinstoa. April Io.-Senator
Hear made . great speech against
expansien last Tuesday-probably
the finest production of his politi-
cal career, and that is saying much.
Cor history will rank George F.
Hoar Is second to no man Massa-
schusetts ever sent TO the Senate,
save Daniel Webster only. II Hoar
could deliver his speeches like Ros-
coe Conkling.or Judah p. BENJAMIN
could have delivered them; if he
had the voice and the action of
either of these famous orators, he
would be ''every man himself in
that chamber of which he is SO con-
spicuous an ornament. As a master
Of the English tongue, as an erudite
scholar, he has not his fellow IN the
Senate. Massachusetts is proud of
him and Massachusetts is going to
return him to the Senate for the
fifth time, though he Is not in ac-
cord with his party on the question
that will be as paramount as tariff in
.I892, as silver il 1896, when the
Legislature meets to ratify the
choice of the people. Nowhere
outside; New England could such a
thing happen, and more is the pity.
In 1876 Mr.. Hoar was a member
Of the Forty-fourth Congress, and
was selected as one of the managers
of the impeachment Of Secretary
Belknap, of President Grants Cab
met. The management was COM
posed of some of the first lawyers
in Congress, among them Proctor
Knott, of Kentucky, and Scott
Lord, of New York. But it is only
justice to say that Mr.. Manager
Hoar made more out of the incident
than anyone else. His peroratlon
was one of the finest things even he
ever delivered, and has been quoted
in a great number of speeches in
both houses of. Congress. 1t was
Mr.. Hoar who presided over the
most notable and the most brilliant
national convention in our history
that at Chicago when Grant
vent down before the combined OPP
position acentered upon Garfield.
He was of the board that composed
the Electoral Commission of 1876,
and voted to put Rutherford B.
Hayes in the seat to which the peo-
pie had chosen Samuel J. Tilden.
1t is one of the most exquisite OF
political ironies that he, and his,
decided against the Democrats on
the ground that it would be a viola
ton Of States rights to scrutinize
the Louisiana election too closely.
Mr.. Hoar declined an election to
the Forty fifth Congress, but was
chosen Senator to succeed Gov.
Boutwell,. AS now remember,
Hoar had no desire for the office;
but there was opposition to the en-
cumbent, and Hoar was drafted
into the service. He came in with
the Forty-ifth Congress-, 1877, and
has been in the Senate ever since.
No great debate has been had in
that body for about twenty years
that George F. Hoar was not in the
thick of it. The first time I ever
heard him was in 1880, when the
Senate debated the distribution of
the proceeds of the Geneva Award.
Such statesmen and lawyers as
Blame, Edmunds, Conkling, Thur
man, Mcdonald, David Davis, Car
penter, Beck, Lamar and Ben Hill
debated it. The passage between
Blame and Carpenter was brilliant
in the extreme, and old Roman
Thurman made Blaine confess tina
he was no lawyer. Hoar was in
that fight, and by no means the
least of the lot. understs nd
81, 900 of that reward is now
in the United States Treasury, and
every dollar of it belongs to the
British Government. One of these
days it will be returned.
1t was said that Charles Summer