The age-herald., 1901-10-09
IN HOTEL LOBBTES
 AND ELSEWHERE
Judge Jones' Lost Ambitions.


 but nineteen years old-was visiting Greenville for the purpose of attending to legal business for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company" said an affectionate and admiring friend of the new United States judge.
 ''He was then but five and thirty his hair black as ravens wing, his face bright and keenly emotional. and his fig- ure straight and 1.-the and of most sol- dierly bearing. He was confident, reliant, successful, with the world within his reach. Yet in that day his ambition was small as regarded public office.
 My only political aspiration is to be elected Mayor of Montgomery the young Colonel Jones remarked to Col J. B. Stanley, the editor of the Greenville Ad- vocate, and two or three other Green vile friends who had stopped to greet the future Governor and United States judge.
 'The learned and intellectual young lawyer had nothing to ask of his people except the Mayoralty of a town Of some 10000 or 1600O population; and that modest wish was never gratihed OOiOhCl JOHCc Wdb iltNSA nAdy OA OA %'ASiAN gomery, was never a candidate, and he never held any civic office until 1886, when he was elected to the Legislature, and in turn elected speaker of the House. Four years later he was elected Governor of Alabama, and reelected in 1s92 retiring in 1894 and resuIning his law practice. He came to be the acknowledged head of the Alabama bar. and then experienced second disappointment in his ambition.
 The eminent lawyer and Confederate veteran desired to be appointed a briga- dier general of United States Volunteers in the Spanish-American war; but the appointment was given to that other former Governor of Alabama, William c. Oates. Thus this man of the hour failed to get two honors, and only two, which he desired: the Mayoralty of Montgom- cry, and brigadier generalship of volun- teers. In each failure he was fortunate.
 To-day Judge Thomas Goode Jones is the talk of all the country. and all the country is praising him and praising President Roosevelt for his courage and wisdom in appointing such a wise. able. good and pure man! He receives a very high honor in the happiost of circum- stances, and Is assured the comfortable sum of s55oO year for life. for if he lives to retire from the bench under the law his pay from the government will con tinue.
 And the best part of 1t all Is that Judge Jones' honor gives pleasure to millions of people!''
 The New Judge as Orator and Writer.
 When the Hon. Thomas Goode Jones was first the Dem ocratic nominee for Governor of Alabama in 1S90 and in 1892 when he was the nominee for reelection, and was the central figure in the hottest campaign ever experienced in this State, 1 reported perhaps fifty of his stump speeches, from first to last" said an old reporter last night.
 And likewise reported In 1892, numer ous speeches of Governor Jones' oppon- ent, Captain Kolb, anu one of my most pieasingly selfish recollections is that both distinguished men thanked me re- peatedly for the fairness of my reports, which are now in the files of The Age Herald.
 Jefferson county was the theater of the hottest figh ing in 1892, and I accom- panied Governor Jones to his every ap- pointment in the county, reporting every speech. and he spoke in every populous community within the county limits. He is one of the easiest men to report whom I ever reported, for the reason of his al- m ost unequalled logic. Indeed 1 never 10 logical sequence of whose argument equalled his He never back-tracked, never doubled upon his course. never mixed or confused his points of conten- ton. And then he spoke deliberately and calmly.
 T early acquired the knack of begin ming the Governors speeches with him, ana being rather rapid with my pencil I wrote out each speech, or its substance, as he spoke, and when he had finished, my report was ready for the printer. Apart from the mechanical labor, my work was made easy because of the Gov ernor's consumma,e mastery of logic.
 He Is not an eloquent man, as elo- quence is counted by the minimizing, for his voice is not powerful and he knows none of the tricks of the political barn stormers.
 He is a plain and perfectly logical reasoner, one who appeals to the under standing of intelligent minds, and not to the passions or fanc'es of the ignorant. He has power to make himself perfectly clear to the most ignorant and the most scholarly alike; and in this particular I nm convinced that he haa no eu,,ol in Alabama.
 Judge Jones' writings-and he has been prolific with his pen-are distinguished by that same lucid and luminous quality of logic, and. may add. syntax in its most accurate form. He Is master of the pen. and when he took to law a great author was lost. The ablest articles printed in Alabama newspapers within twenty years have been written by him. And he Is one of the very few persons in whom the vanishing art of letter writing survives. He is most delightful cor respondent. as he has on few occasions made me happily aware.
 While everybody Is praisng this strong, brave. intellectual man, everybody may not be aware of the fact that his heart is as tender as that of little child, and as free from guile. He Is good man, and one who fairly worships his wife and children. It scarcely need be said that he Is God-fearing man and Christian"
 John B. knox's Eyes and Nose.