The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-03-09
HON. WILLIAM B. ALLISON
DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC CAREER OF
IOWA'S SENIOR SENATOR.
Shining Example of the Wisdom OF
Retaining a Useful Man i'm Office
as a states Representative.


WASHINGTON, March 6.-He
large, burly man, six feet of bone and
Drawn it was a strong, rugged, and yet
not unhandsome face; intellect was stamped
on that ample brow. and energy and de-
termination were expressed in every mascu-
line feature of that striking countenance.
He was industriously, with spoon in left
hand, stirring a combination of whisky,
sugar and water contained in a large COB
let He was speaking in harsh jerky, rapid
tones with a pronounced Scotch accent,
and he said something like this:
IF the Republican party had gumption
enough to put up a panel of draw-bars it
would nominate and elect him President of
the United States. He is the best equipped
man for that great dignity of all now liv-
ing"
The speaker was James B. Beck, then a
senator from the commonwealth of Ken
lucky, and he was talking about William B.
Allison then and now senator from the
State of Iowa.
The chumship between these two men
was delightful and founded on mutual re-
spect and admiration. and without esteem
there can be neither friendship nor love.
OF course, when one speaks of senatorial
chumships Allen G. Thurman and George
+. Edmunds are brought to mind; but that
of Beck and Allison was equally marked if
not so engaging a subject for historical
gossip. The strong friendship existing be-
tween Vest and Quay is due, no doubt, to
the passionate fondness for books common
to two very intellectual men. The chum-
ship between Tillman and Chandler is
Tf ,ir,ds of
ceit expressed by Mistress Catherine Sed-
ley when discussing the violent passion
James ii had for her:
''For my life l cannot imagine what the
King discovers in me to admire. He can
not love me for my beauty, for he must
see that L have none; it cannot be for my
wit, for he has not enough TO know that
have any,"
Senator Beck was no ordinary man. When
he first appeared in Kentucky he was day
laborer and cut the foremost and the widest
swath in both grain and hemp harvest.
From that humble, yet honorable station.
ne rose 10 be the bosom friend and law
partner of John c. Breckenridge. and a
leader and a favorite of one of the most
cultivated, elegant and admirable social
circles anywhere. All Lexington and round
about were proud of James b. Beck. That
jealous people loved him, admired him,
trusted him and honored him living. and
mourned him dead. They made him an
elder in their Israel. and he sat I'm their
gates and judged with just judgment. In
Congress he made two powerful friends
Blaine and Allson-and many were the
blows he warded from the then stricken
South.
ALLISON'S POLITICAL CAREER.
William B. Allison has had a most sue
cessful political career. Born in 1929. he
first entered the national councils in 1863,
and with hiatus of two years-1S71-7S-
has been a member of one house or the
other of the national legislature ever since.
Perhaps it is a coincidence worthy of note
that Beck was in private life just two years
before he was transferred from the House
to the Senate-1S75-77.
Times change and men change with them.
Allison was what is now called a free
trader in the sixties, and perhaps his was
the first speech of advocacy of that doc
trine after the war of 1876. In those days
John Sherman agreed with him, and it was
Sherman who first dubbed the manufactur-
ers protected by a tariff ''robber barons."
Thomas Carlyle said that consistency was
the bugaboo Of little minds Ii has been
the rule of the statesmen of our race to be
inconsistent. From Thomas a-Becket TO
Thomas Wentworth and down TO Joseph
Chamberlain, in England nearly every
great statesman has thrown consistency TO
the dogs. 1t has been the same with US.
Webster and Calhoun snapped positions on
the tariff question Clay and Jackson did
the same on the question of the bank 1t
is almost as natural for statesman TO
grow out Of his earlier views as it is for a
child 10 grow out of the delicious delusion
concerning Santa Claus.
In 1873 Allison became a senator in Con-
gress He has been reelected five times
a distinguished honor accorded TO but three
other individuals in the 11s years of our
national existence - Henry B. Anthony,
John Sherman and Justin s. Morrill,. No
man has yet served six full terms in that
body, but Gladstone served over sixty
years in the British Commons Except the
names OF Sherman and Morrill, dustin So
the reading clerks of the two houses have
called the name OF Allison more frequently
than that Of any other individual, and il
is doubtful II an instance can be found
where the man from Iowa failed TO support
his party's policy. and yet no more conserv-
ative statesman has appeared in American
public life.