Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-04-12

with all sorts and conditions OF men that
the moment he grasped your hand and
opened his lips the beaming eye, the unaf-
fected cordially. the matchless harmony
and power of his voice wrought upon you
as spell. and you were ready to declare
him the handsomest and princeliest man
You had looked upon or might hope to see.
He fascinated alike men. women and chill
dren, high and low, white and black. The
whig masses worshiped him, and democrats
loved while they opposed him. John Ran
.dolph OF Roanoke. who in the frenzy of a
partisan debate had scoffed and fiouted Mr..
Clay, and in his blind fury heaped the foul
est chatges upon him, when he was dying
had himself carried into the Senate cham
Der that he might once more see and hear
the magnanimous man toward whom he
had been so unjust; and when Mr. Clay
rose TO speak Randolph said. in his piping
voice: Raise me up; let me see well as
hear the man among men, Words fail in
the attempt to convey the impression made
by Mr.. Clay. Whether he spoke In the
Senate or on the stump, whether you heard
and saw him in the tournament OF a great
debate or only shook hands with him he
affected you as no one else ever did or will.
A Second Time Chaplain.
I'm December. 1853. eight years after my
first election. / was again chosen chap.
lain. 1t was the Thirty.tiitrd Congress.
the first OF Mr. Pierce's administration.
and short as was the time the changes I'm
the personnel OF the government were most
impressive. Calhoun, Clay and Webster
were dead, and was Mr. Polk. John
Quincy Adams, who had received his first
appointment from Washington. was stricl-
en- by death on the floor of the House of
Representatives, and two days after had
breathed his last after a memorable pub
lie life of more than fifty years. Mr.. Buch-
anan, who had been Mr.. Folks Secretary
or state, was now our minister at London,
and Governor Marcy. who had been Sec
| rotary Of War in the same cabinet had the
portfolio OF the State Department under
Mr.. Pierce. Jefferson Davis. after a brief
service In the House. had made q brilliant
record in the war with Mexico. and was
now Secretary of War. The White House
was In mourning. for Just before the inau-
guration of the President his only son had
been killed in a railway accident Mr.
William r. King of Alabama, who had
been elected vice president on the ticket
with Mr. Pierce. did not live to preside
over the deliberations of the Senate and
its chair was filled by Mr. Atchison OF
Missouri. Mr.. Linn Boyd of Kentucky was
Speaker of the House Hannibal Hamlin
Toombs had passed from the House TO the
Senate. A noteworthy change had taken
place in the map and population of the
country.
After Thirty Years.
After an interval OF thirty years my
third election as chaplain took place, in
December. 1885, in the first Congress of
in the records of the civil war, there had
been written one of the bloodiest pages in
the history of the modern world, and to
this had been added those which told the
story Of reconstruction and of the slow
return to constitutional methods, and
regard for time honored legal prescriptions.
A host of men, nearly all coming from OBJ
scure places, had filled the stage and per-
formed their parts in the tremendous trag-
edy. which fixed the eye of the world upon
and thpatpr lstf fpN Of
those who had performed conspicuous parts
iE the national drama We're still upon the
stage. More than two thousand men had
occupied seats in the House of Representa-
t!ves and over three hundred in the Senate
during my absence from the Capitol. or
the men with whom l had served in the
Ihirty-third Congress, but one remained
Alfred Holt Colquit of Georgia, who had
been a representative in 1890 and was
a senator in 1885. All the justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States were
new men to me. The President, the menu
berS of his cabinet, and most of the MEM
bers of the two houses in this Forty-ninth
Congress were boys when | quilted Wash
ington at the close of the Thirty-thrd. and
so were nearly all the leading men Of the
army and navy. Not a man remained I'm
either House nor in any prominent posi-
ton in the government of those with whom
had been associated in the Twenty-ninth
Congress-1S45.
Wonderful Changes.
Seven states had been added to the
Union and five new territories had delegates
on the floor Of the House. The two houses
| had left their old quarters and sat In their
handsome chambers, the Senate in the
north and the House in the south wing OF
the extended Capitol. The dome had been
raissd to keep it in harmony with the greater
length of the pile. Workmen were engaged
upon the terraces of the west front, thus
completing the stateliest legislative e,iifce
In the world Washington had grown from
a struggling town, many of whose streets
were unpaved. the ground plan of which
had been for half century a butt for the
ridicule and satire of wits, into the hand
soonest city of the country
shorthand reporting of congressional pro-
ceedings has been in use not much over
nifty years. From the time If its introduce
ton We may date the decline of congress
sional eloquence. Up to that period
speeches were made to determine the ac-
ton of the houses; now no one expects
them to influence legislation. They are de-
liVered to the eyes and not to the ear and
few are listened to except one now and
then from a man of mark