Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1901-02-23
OUR SECRETARIES OF STATE.
Blaine the Most BrIllisnt, Olney the Most
SolId-An Y;N-OniciaI'A EstImaIe.

Gath's Washington correspondence: An
old ex-ofhcial Of the state department.
transmitted some intelligence which may
be readable. Said he:
zone Of the best men there was Richard
Olney. lie was but little Of q partisan
and locked not TO remove men. | think he
was the greatest In the past thirty years,
because he was higher-minded han the
others, a nob!cr citizen and higher class
lawyer. Corporation revenue came not
near his mind. Nor was he an organizer
for himself for the presidency. Mr.. Bay
ard was more dogmatic, more countriied,
but extremely polite 10 everybody In the
for society and dinners, which followed
him from the department to Europe and
probably shortened his life. He was hon
orablc, however, and not splenetic,
Hamilton Fish was @ man of two
grains, the old Stuyvesant Dutch and the
Cape Cod New Highlander. He was a gen.
tleman, but could lose his temper, and he
sometimes lost II worse than old Peter
Stuyvesant ard grew as narrow as his
alleged ancestor, Preserved Fish. ! speak
especially of the Catacazy, Charles SUM-
ner and Motley cases. lie prevented an
influencing Of Cuban independence by the
United States, and yet one Of the first
lives lost In hat war was hIs ~grandson's.
Mr.. Evarts was q very polite secretary,
mildly In love with his own services. He
was fond OF disqulsition and of ladies. A
happy kind of oracle he was and would
not have injured a flea. Where can he be
now, at the age Of SO? The policy Of Pres
ident Hayes was peace ell the time-no
navy, no temptation TO foreign war, and
Mr.. Evarts was President Hayes idea of
the greatest OF great Americans. Hayes
had very little sympathy with brutal poll
tics ard Evarts' defense Of President
Johnson seemed to the former the speech
Of the ages. Because Hayes liked It
Evarts liked him. lie was six years in
the senate during Cleveland's first term
and part of EIarrison's, and there helped
70 reject some oftlceholders who annoyed
him.
I'VE all thought at the state depart
ment that President Harrison was the
greatest president we ever knew. lie more
Immediately interfered in the state de-
partment than any other president. lie
was elbowing and got Blaine's hearty dis
like. Blaine was full of ideas. They were
brilliant and led him to revise his ex-
IRENE ardor for a high tariff. lie was
both bold and timld, and, therefore, saw
The reverse side of his own propositions.
Hence he feared our market nations
would shut us out, and bore away TO reel
procity. He was succeeded by John w.
Foster, a man by no means disinterested,
not or lofty. mark, but very assiduous,
very smart one Of the underlings who
seized every opportunity and made money
by, practising International law. But the
ablest man in law diplomacy was an as
sistant secretary, John Bassett Moore of
the state Of Delaware. brought by Bayard
10 the department. He Is still q young
man a professor in Columbia college,
and writings on public questions for the
state department. He overlooked Day of
Canton and the commissioners to make
the treaty of Paris. Mr.. Day was re-
garded as the presidents personal and
law counselor "a the state department.
mild. modest arh a little constrained.
1T Is suspected that Gresham got into
CieVeland's second cabinet through John
w. Foster. While Gresham was I'm the
cabinet Of Arthur he lodged in Fosters
house in Washington.
Gresham was very much disliked in the
department.. lie had apparently no conf
dence In himself, and, therefore, none In
others: He could swear like an army team
ster, Serenity of soul he knew nothing OF.
As n judge he was arbitrary. Roscoe
ConlSling got a fee of 1900 in the Mora
case for doing nothing, but supposedly to
nave an influence with Gresham. After
Gresham died Mr.. Olney made the de-
partment wholesome.
John Sherman ought never TO have
been put In the state department. He had
II citizen mind, was neither a nlibuster
nor an eXpansionist, and pinned for his old
seat In the senate. i think Blaine was
our most brilliant secretary of state and
Olney our most solid one.
John Hay is a delightfully."- civil and un-
injurious man and beloved, but his long
residence at the European courts, Paris,
thought to have extended his amiable ma
ture TO the ministers and their families In
those countries. He thinks fraternally OF
them as old friends. Hence, he does not
please the lingo element nor yet his vote
consulting superiors. He Is as pure a man
as ever. lived and OF the finest kind OF
crate upon his experience and acouire-
ments. Among. presidents, Mr.. Cleveland
was the least Of a secretary of state.
Olney had but a brief chance undo him:
Bayard was a silt n Gresham O feroc-
ity. Anybody who knew them could un-
derstand why Gresham and Harrison were
Harrlson's late hostility to President Nc.
Kinley's policy has been perhaps well
criticised as simple destructiveness. So
were Gresham's state department. pur-
poses. Extremes there touched"