The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1900-12-07

ed district attorney in 1868. he held the
office until 1873, when he resigned to
take the gubernatorial chair, to which
he had been elected as the candidate
OF the Republican party. During the
eleven years that followed his retire.
ment from the governors office, Gov.
Davis sought no political Office. Ills
time was divided between his profess
sion and his literary pursuits.
3 In 1887 he succeeded s. ]. r. McNIil-
Ian as United States senator.
AS chairman of the senate's pension
committee Senator Davis. gained the
gratitude of all old soldiers by orig
mating and passing pension bill both
liberal and just. Toward the close Of
his first term he surprised the country
with an elaborate declaration of the
present and the future Importance Of
the Sault Ste. Marie canal.
The senator was reelected in 1893.
During this term he was promoted to
the much-prized position of chairman
Of the committee on foreign affairs,
succeeding the venerable John Sher-
man. He made strong fight against
President Cleveland's Hawaiian policy,
and when, subsequently,. the Hawaiian
treaty of annexation failed of passage.
he put his subtlety once more in evil
dcnce by substituting for the treaty a
joint resolution. thus securing immedi-
ate annexation through the vote Of s
mere majority.
Senator Davis most distinguished
service in the senate was before and
during the war with Spain. In 1899 he
was reelected for the third term to the
honorable body that he had honored.
At the capital he was admired So
cially. Although by no means rich. he
had been long in receipt of growing
income from his legal practice. He en-
tertained with taste. He enjoyed, at
his house in Washington, the co-opera-
ton of a popular, tactful and attract
i've wife. He had no children. Before
Mrs. Davis married, in 1880. she was
Miss Anna Malcolm Agnew Of st. Paul.
A few years earlier Gov. Davis had
secured a divorce, on the technical
ground of desertion, from his first wife.
Laura Bowman. She retained the es-
TEEN of many friends. She had mar
ried Lieut.. Davis at Waukesha soon
dIlGE Ills ICluIH llOIIl IIlC WstIs lNi De
Bowman-Davis inherited an extensive
property in later years. She is said to
be living in Kansas City.
The senator was a Mason and a
member of the Grand Army of the RE-
public, but he was allied with few 9TH
err societies. Although not active in
religious concerns, he was nominally
Congregationalist.
Senator Davis was deep student,
and found a special pleasure in his Ii
brary. To him. as to most productive
minds. all literature was valuable
Shakespeare and Balzac were his ia
vorites. His lecture upon Hamlet"
his work upon 1.-The Law in Shake
speare," will remain proofs the most
pregnant of his scholarship.
The lecture upon Hamlet" was writ
ten in 1882, and was delivered on vari-
Gus occasions with much success. The
treatise npon Shakespearean law was
published two years later. 1t was ac-
claimed by law scholars of all Anglo
SaXcny as the work of a profound. in
genius lawyer Minnesota was felici-
tated that her second great Shake
spearean had judgment sufficient for
the two.
Cushman X. Davis was an intellectu-
al man. For knowledge, therefore, as
the campus Of the intellect. he felt the
partially conceived by athletes for the
lime-lined field. His was not an alb
stract spiritual intellectually. 1t was
mind applied to man. Senator Davis
viewed mankind, dealt with mankind.
through his head, not through his
haopt IJn had II
had few svmpathies. His self-sacri-
flee was only that of the present for
the future. He did not disregard the
a faithful son. an honorable lawyer, a
patriotic statesman.
His temperament, so cold and so
controlling, so shrewd and SO self-cen-
tered. was reflected in the deep-set eyes
tered..w reflected in the deepest eyes
below his expansive forehead, in the
heavy. projecting eyebrows tilted to-
ward his checks. This was the face Of
Benjamin f. Butler, polititian pro-
found and ingenious. This is the face,
comeljness unheeded. of Ii Hung
Chang, whose superior diplomacy is
confessed by those who hate him.
But, nevertheless. if we do not SYM
rathize with hero or with heroine, we
understand, far better than before, the
greatness Of a great fiction, of great
history. We see with sharper eye, re-
fleet with broader apprehension. For
we are guided by an uncommon stu
dent of the world. political and social.
a student who could align his conduct
with his theory, and who turned from
no straight course of reasoning to
avoid q personal sentiment.