The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-23
AT A PRINTERS CASE.
Is A MAN WHO WAS ONCE A U. S.
SENATOR,

of n Kansas Constituency.
Albuquerque IN. NJ Cor. Chicago
Inter Ocean.
Working at the case in a printing Of
flee in this city for paltry wage is
a man who was once a United States
senator, and whose vote saved Andrew
Jackson from being removed from the
presidency in disgrace. His name is
Edmund G. Ross, and he was once
Governor of New Mexico.
Gov. Ross, as he is known to the peo-
pie of New Mexico, is one of the
ubiquitous Ohio men. He was born rs
years ago in Ashland, o., near the
birthplace OF Senator William B. ALI
son of Iowa. Gov. Ross is one of the
oldest printers living. When years
old he began learning his trade.
Thenceforth the printing Office was his
only school. The slavery excitement of
the early SOS found the young printer
foreman of job Office in Milwaukee.
OF New England Puritan ancestry, he
was naturally an intense abolitionist.
The formation of the young Republic
can party at Ripon, Wis, therefore,
appealed to him with rare force. He
ing about a meeting in Milwaukee for
the organization of the party at that
place. Then he removed to Kansas,
and entered the fight for freedom in
the new territory. In 1856 he founded
the Topeka Tribune, one of the first
newspapers west of the Missouri river.
AS its editor he rendered no small
service to the anti-slavery cause.
When the fight for freedom and the
Union reached the war stake the young
editor followed 1t up, enlisting as pri-
vate in the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry.
He saw service with this command
throughout the war, and at its end was
mustered out with the rank of lieuten-
ant colonel. When Col. Ross returned
to Topeka the Legislature was in a
deadlock over the election of a senator.
His faithful and efficient service to his
party before the war and his brilliant
record in the army rendered him a
conspicuous figure at the capital, and
the long deadlock was broken by his
election.
Relied on His Vote.
In Congress Senator Ross was a
strong party man. Throughout the long
fight over the reconstruction measures
he was a radical of the strictest sort.
In this he well represented the intense
spirit then dominant in Kansas, and
was lHOIOuSHly pOpuidI With the pSO-
pie. He was obedient to caucus man.
dates. He had shown no inclination
of aspiring to national leadership. He
was popular in the Senate. His flu
ture was full of promise. When the
congressional leaders at length deter
mined upon impeachment as a means
for deposing President Johnson they
never doubted that they could rely on
the Kansas senator to the utmost. 1t
all 10 ~ ,.,1 "a
publican senators were not kindly dis
posed toward such an extreme meas
ure as impeachment, and toward the
end of the trial Senators Fessenden,
Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Trumbull
and Van Wrinkle announced their OPP
position to conviction upon any of the
| charges, and several others had an
| nounced that they did not believe there
was any evidence to sustain several ar
ticles of Impeachment. At this juno
ture the attitude of Senator Ross be-
| came a source of much uneasiness to
the opponents of the President. After
the Senate had been organized as
court to hear the case, Ross had reso-
lutely refused to discuss its merits or
to say what his vote would be. He
would only say that he would hear the
evidence and the arguments, and then
cast his vote in accordance with his
oath to give the accused fair and
impartial trial.
Marked Man at the Trial.
Rumors OF corruption and undue in
fluence began to fly about Washington.
Letters and marked editorials instruct
ing the Senator how to vote came to
him by the thousand. Reelection or
political ruin were held up as the two
alternatives. But to no avail. Ross adj
hered to his determination to decide
the case upon it's merits as best he
could, and refused to commit himself.
He was torn between his antipathy to
the President, his deep political pre-
JUDGES, his ambitions and his desire
to conform to the sentiment of his
state, on the one hand, and the con-
viction, slowly forcing itself upon him,
on the other, that whatever the mis-
takes and follies of Johnson, he was
not willfully guilty of high crimes and
misdemeanors in office.
This refusal to commit himself in adj
vance made Senator Ross the marked
man of that trial When the vote was
taken on the famous eleventh article,
on May Is, 1868. the eyes of the great
audience, as well as of the nation, were
centered upon him. When he joined
with his insurgent colleagues in pro-
ncuncing the President not guilty
there burst about his head a storm the
Ike of which has never assailed any
other public man, and he was cast into
the wilderness of obscurity.
Upon his retirement in 1871, Mr.. Ross
made several successive newspaper
ventures, and short time sufficed to
find him again eking out a precarious
existence lat the case" as in his early
manhood. In 1882 he came TO Albu-
querque and shortly became foreman
of the job department of one of the To-
cal newspapers, where he remained for
the next three years.
Joins Democratic Party.
Soured by his summary dismissal
from the ranks OF the Republican par
ty Senator Ross became a Democrat,
and this change in political faith en-
abled President Cleveland in 1885 at
least partially to reward Ross by APP
pointing him Governor of New Mexico.
Upon his retirement in 1889, Gov. Ross
fitted up a small job printing Office in
Albuquerque. Much of the time he
was the only workman employed. In
the humble routine of printing sale
bills, circulars and advertising "dodg-
ers" he spent the next ten years. Dur
ing this time Albuerque enjoyed the
distinction of containing the only
printing office in the country wherein
the types were set and the presses fed
by the hand of former Governor and
United States Senator.
Two years ago Gov. Ross sold his
printing office and purchased a fruit
and alfalfa farm Of a few acres in the
A. a IL