The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-05-04

has a summer place at Cascade. in
Springs, and there he passes some of
the summer months working like
trench digger making roads, picking
stones, improving and identifying his
grounds. He prefers this form of exer-
else to more faddish performances,
such as mountain climbing. hunting,
riding or CALF playing. He is not a
sportsman, although he can handle a
gun and knows how to lure the noun
tain trout and gamey bass.
Civil War Veteran.
The new commissioner furnishes an
other example of the possibilities OF
American manhood. His early life,
while not one of extreme poverty con-
tanned few of the luxuries and superior
advantages now so common to Ameri-
can boys. He attended public school
in Hartford, but while mere lad was
taken to Burlington, Ia, by his par
ents. His education was completed in
the public schools of that place, but
his native genius was not hampered by
lack of college advantages.
On the day the Union flag was fired
on at Fort Sumter, Eugene F. Ware,
not quite 20 years of age, enlisted in
the First Iowa Volunteers Infantry.
fOT IN6 years anu THREE liiOlANlAo III
served as private and commissioned OF
ficer in the army, re-enlisting after the
Civil War for service in the campaigns
against the unruly Indians. He was
a member of Company E, First Iowa
Volunteers, then of Company L. Fourth
Iowa Volunteers, and afterwards OF
Company f. Seventh Iowa Cavalry, in
which regiment he held a captain $
commission. During the Indian cam
paigns he was wounded and all his
service was characterized by distln-
guished patriotism and bravery. his
old comrades in arms remember him
with the greatest fondness as he was
the light of the camp and one of the
most popular men in his company and
regiment.
The old soldier will have not only a
devoted friend at the head of the Pen
sion Bureau, but man possessed OF a
keen sense of justice and fairness. he
is not what is known as professional
"comrade." He wore the blue for more
than five years, but he does not parade
it now. He is not prominent in Grand
Army circles and at camp fires. lie
has little use for men who served
few weeks or months in the Civil War,
and yet at this late day are parading as
the heroes of that great struggle. AT
the same time he has the fullest
sympathy fort the men who of1ereo
their lives and services to save the
Union and his policy to the old soldier
he expresses in this simple statement;
Every old soldier, or sailor, every
veterans widow or child entitled under
the law to a pension should receive II
at once"
Ware as Journalist.
After leaving the army Mr.. Ware be-
came a journalist, his work being on
the Burlington Hawkeye. This was be-
fore Bob Burdette, the humorist, was
connected with the paper which gave
him a national reputation, but many of
Mr.. Wares Hawkeye illusions are
still quoted In 1867 he moved to
Kansas and his health having given
way he spent some time on farm.
He landed in that state in the same
financial condition that so many OF her
citizens now well-to-do have gone
through He was practically broke,
but on the recovery of his healln
started to work out his fortune and
destiny. For a while he edited the
Fort Scott Monitor, at the same time
studying law. He was admitted to the
bar in 1871.
Nearly all of his poetry can be
classed as fugitive" and spontaneous.
His "Washerwonman's Song, Whlch
is so widely known, is said to have
been penned in half an hour to help a
newspaper reporter fill space on a dull
day. The reported visited Mr.. Ware
law office in search of news and de-
clared: Gene, you simply must help
, me out to-day; there is not scrap
| of news on my route.
"Well, come back in half hour.
said Mr.. Ware, land 1 may give you
something"
The reporter returned in the time
specified and Mr. Ware gave him the
verses that have made him famous and
| which are quoted with those early lines
of Secretary of State Hay on Little
| Brooches and Jim Bludsoe."
Mr.. Ware has had love for, politics
| all his life and had been a great fac
tor in the Republican party in Kansas.
| He was an intense admirer of the
greatest genius of Kansas, John j.
Ingalls,. In the last presidential cam
paign of 1900 one of the most effective
documents circulated in Mr.. Ware S
state was that prepared by him under
! the title of "Since ingalls, Fell" In it
| he described all the ills that had befal-
| len Bleeding Kansas" since ingalls,
had left the United States Senate. The
historic attack Mr.. Ingalls, made upon