The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-02-07

I Mr.. Thurston has since explained
that the poem was written in his cal
low days; that it was not the produc-
ton of matuTer years. but the circum-
stances were against him. and the IN
believing public as represented by his
Nebraska constituency has hardened
its heart.
Six, eight, ten years ago Mr. Thurs
ton, brilliant orator, an able lawyer
the friend and associate of the great
men of the nation, was the popular idol
Of Nebraska Republicans. He would
have been sent to the senate in 1893
had not a solitary legislator, loyal to
friend whose interests had been
+ lightly treated and whose services to
his party had been scOrnfully spoken
Of by the dominant faction. prevented
a combination with gold Democrats
I The following year he was pitted
against William Jennings Bryan, then
{ the rising star of the western Dem
ocraCy- He won in a canvass of the
state. When the legislature met in
I 1880 Mr.. ThurStOn received every Re
publican vote, the first time in the
turbulent political history of the state
I that a senatOrship had been rewarded
without a desperate fight. His eIo-
quent tongue and splendid presence.
won him new friends at Washington.
/ He became the friend of Mckinley and
Ichampioned his cause in the ante-cOn-
ventiOn contest of 1896. At st. Louis
he was made chairman of the national
convention. When Mckinley became
president no man was closer to him
than ThurstOn.
In his youth Mr.. ThuTstOn had mar
ried. The welded life Of the Thurstons
was idyllic. The wife was wrapped up
in her husband. she studied what he
studied, and 1t was her tact and judg-
ment that guided Alright his political
star When, in 1898, he went to Cuba
10 study conditions there she accom-
panied him. There she fell i'll and
died Later in congress the magnetic
orator electrified the senate by a bril-
liant plea for the Cubans, beginning
his impassioned grafton by saying, Il
speak at the behest of lips now silent"
In Nebraska, where Mrs. Thurston
was generally beloved, the tribute he
paid her in this peech was highly an
preciated. His people there were
shocked to find some months later,
that he was paying devoted attention
3 TO Miss Lola Purman. a Washington
belle. They resented it a little. but
they were silent. Later the metrop+li-
tan papers conveyed to the senator's
people the news that his devotion had
expressed itself in a poem of passion,
bit of tender verse of the ferVOr of
. the Ella Wheeler Wilcox production.
The story, as they told it, was that the
party in Philadelphia. Miss Purman
was another member. In her corsage
she carried a big bunch of white roses.
mute evidence of the senator's thought
fuiness- As a token Of appreciation
for the floral tribute she took one of
the roses and pinned il on the lapel of
his dress coat. When the senator re-
turned to his hotel he wrote a little
poem to it. The first verse ran:
I said to J. NJ: oh. John, dear John,
VIII you ever do it again?
When you sing to the rose, pray do it
in prose
Theren be no parodies then
Miss Purman, then Mrs. Thurston,
took II all as a joke and made a col
lection OF the parOdieS. It was different
with her husband. Proud, sensitive
and ambitious, he deeply resented the
rldicule heaped upon him. He felt it
a poor return for his services to the
state He was Inundated, and in his
anger declared that he would retire
at the end of his term
From the day of the publication of
the poem, Mr.. ThurstOn's political star
went rapidly down towards the hori-
ION. Last year he expressed a desire
to go to Philadelphia as a delegate
from Nebraska. A powerful opposition
arose. and it was only by 4 scant ma
Jority, after a fight of unusual bitter
ness, that he won, and then only after
he had been Inundated by being
denied the honor of delegate from his
own ward to the state convention. His
young wife was a witness to his tri-
umph, and as the story goes sought
afterwards to induce him to seek a re
election. What he replied is not known,
but the delegation from Douglas Coun-
", where he lives, is pledged to his
bitterest enemy, Edward Rosewater,
the editor of the Bee, and not a single
legislator has even given him the COM
pliment of a vote