The age-herald., 1902-04-06
w. H. Moody,

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 the cabinet of his country. William H. Moody who. only few years ago. was nothing more than country lawyer or unusual brilliancy. is to take his seat at the official table of the president or the i land
 He is only another example of the strenuous life which the man who has appointed him recognizes as his own pre- dominant trait, and he Is heading as surely toward the goal of his ambitions as did he who made the Rough Riders possible and afterward became Governor of New York.
 1 At home, Moody is still Billy Moody, and though a score Of receptions are being planned for him next week, he will probably be just the same genial fel- low he was when he had no asperations except to get out of Congress and earn the money that his legal ability entitled him to earn.
 A Baseball Crank.
 Primarily the man is a lawyer, with lawyers training and lawyers instinct the instinct of fighting. Secondarily he | is a baseball crank who would go as far
  1t out on the diamond as most men would to see their sweethearts. Moody, by the way, Is a bachelor, and those who have known him longest say that he IS yet to have his romance. He is 4S
 When he was young he was everything but a gay Lothario, and he surrounded himself with friends who would work and study hard all day and get together at night and laugh and joke with one hours, bed get few hours sleep, and then hurry to police court to fight over some case that was of such small importance that it really ought never to have been in court. It was the fighting of such cases, however, that made the new sec retary.
 Ben Brickett, as good soul as ever lived, was Moody's chum. He is dead now, but he would have been the happiest man in the world if he had lived to see | this day.
 They used to get about all the assault l cases that came up in court, and 1t was in telling old Judge Carter how Smith | had become so vexed that Brown had decorated his eye, and how Jones had made that rag necessary to keep Smiths head together that Moody became an J orator. The court room was too small | for the crowd when Moody and Brickett was telling these things to see which side should avoid paying a s5 fine, but it was l these contests in the old court room, when Moody met and defeated the brains of this section-brains that have since di- rected the policy of the country and state that developed the aggressiveness, the ability, the far-sightedness, that Presi- | dent Roosevelt has recognized under the name of strenuousness, in the country 1 lawyer and decided to take 10 his own use.
 Was Full of Franks.
 In the old days Moody and Brickett, l and former United States District Attor- ney B. B. Jones and Clerk of the Court E. B. George, used to be up 10 about all the pranks that were going, from serenading the girls over at Bradford Academy to making things uncomfortable for their friends and comfortable for themselves. And that spirit today still lives and Moody is never happier than when he Is dining with his friends or smoking with them and swapping yarns about what they used to do when Brickett was alive.
 Then he went from city solicitor to dis 1 trict attorney, the to Congress. And he l had some hesitancy about doing that when Congressman Coggswell died, as he l wanted to make some money at law, and he was several time about to give up Con gress to get back into law when he was | urged to stay in and take what was com ing to him politically, and now he Is forced in by being rendered an honor that no young man of New England can decline.
 Moody has been aggressive in every thing he ever did. He has literally forced l himself forward but till now his goal had been the law rather than politics. He was aggressive at Andover, where he led his class. He was the same at liar yard, where he could take a ball off the bat, break through a rush line or win case in the moot courts
 Fought the Boodlers.
 In trying the poodle aldermen of Law renee, he fought till he was beaten by juries that could not agree and finally sent several men to jail. Later he sent more aldermen from this city. In his murder cases he always got what he asked for, even when in a clear case when the jury said that young man who had killed a farmer while robbing his house was guilty only of mansaughter, in which the verile young district attorney | fought so hard that the court gave the maximum penalty of twenty years, and ! then added twelve more on the charge of attempted burglary in the night Moody had previously sanctioned the pardon of this young man, when he had been sen fenced In a minor case, put ne dNOWeQ then and there never to sanction another pardon, and he never has. Moody has de- cided opinions about everything, but they are so tempered with discretion that he at once becomes one of the larger men of the world.
 Some say of Moody that he sowed his wild oats. If he did. he has never reaped the harvest, which is pretty good evil dence that he did not SOW many of them. He was a young man, full of life, ambi- tion and hope and he has never swerved one iota from the path they directed. When he was district attorney and there was prohibition throughout the county, he | would not even invite a friend to have | a drink and he boasted that he would never knowingly break a single law for | he could not tell how soon he would have | to prosecute some one else for doing some | thing he himself had done. He had more respect for the law than most lawyers, | and while he was never a Jerome he en- forced the law of his county impartially | and to the letter.
 Young Moody's Cronies. | Moody never had a friend who went | wrong. While none of his cronies-and he is a man who has always had cronies- | ever got immensely wealthy they are all | substantial business men. They are ali l every day sort of fellows, and he Is su- 1 Aremely happy when he is with them.