The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1902-07-08
SENATOR JOHN P. JONES
THE VETERAN OF NEVADA
Writes OF Him, His Record his character
Not a Vulgar Millionaire. An Able and a
Modest Man.

In those days the Republican party was
terribly and desperately in earnest, I'M
daunted by peril and unappalled by de
feat. In a speech in the House of Repre-
sentatiyps its most commanding and
virile parliamentary leader had declared,
81 will not ~stultify myself by saying this
bill is Constitutional though his speech
was in advocacy of the passage of the
bill. The party created powerful armies
and armed and equipped, clothed, ana
fed them as nation had never purveyed
for soldiery before. They fought the
bravest OF history and were a testimony
to the living ideas of the Republican
party. Money was but dross and cheap
, err than all else save blood alone. The
great writ of habeas corpus was in dis
grace and freedom of the press a lost
liberty. The party was resolved to con-
cuer. 1t was to politics what Cromwells
Ironsides and NapoIeon's guards were
to arms.
There is history or gossip for it that
| Sir Robert Walpole threatened TO make
his footman a peer of England. The Re
publican party did something nightly
like that when it made a mining camp in
| the Sierra Nevada Mountains a State IN
the American Union. Political necessity
is sometimes a hard task-master. Early
in the year 1865 William M. Stewart and
James w. Nye took their seats in the
national councils as Senators from the
sovereign State of Nevada. That was
thirty-seven years ago. and Mr.. Stewart
is a Senator in Congress the good year,
1902; but there was an hiatus of twelve
years-1S75-'S7-in his services.
Nye was a native of New York, and
originally a Democrat-in 1S4S a barn
,r,or Fyon at that p9r1V stage of his
career he was a resourceful and formid-
able disputant. The Wing party was
dying-Lincoln and stephens parted COM
pany; Toombs separated from Seward.
Parties are born of m~ugwumpery and die
of it, and now mugWumpery was mar
shaling free-sOil Wings, like Ben Wade
and free-soil Democrats like Salmon p.
Chase. to form the Republican party,
which, in turn. when its work is done.
will be destroyed by the same law OF
political life that created it. On the
stump Nye was superb, second only to
John Van Buren,. in New York State.
Like most of the Democrats who mug
wumped in 1S4S, he became an intense
anti-Slavery man. and was a charter
member of the Republican party. In
1860 he toured the West with Seward, and
his oratory greatly contributed to the re-
VI "iS 49,
section.
Nye had been a 'forty-nincr' and was
of that adventurous blood that had con-
Guered on the Atlantic. and was now to
! conquer on the Pacific. A wonderful
! clan-those forty-niners-whO made a
State, a splendid Commonwealth, in q
twinkling. But the quarrels and the
jealousies of politics were there, even
thus early. A ruffian OF one faction be-
came a martyr, and a ruffian of the other
faction, his adversary, was voted a
pariah. The murder that was in Brod-
erick's heart we call patriotism, and the
murder that was in Tcrry's heart, we
call treason.
In 1861, as a reward for his services in
the political campaign of 1860, Mr.. Lin
coin appointed Nye governor of the then
Territory of Nevada. and when the new
State was created he became one OF the
Senators in Congress, and so We may de-
scribe him as the child of personal graft
tude and political necessity. He was a
brilliant, a capable, and an eloquent man.
Unfortunately he was a good fellow
every mans friend and his own enemy.
He was q wit and many a time he sat
the Senate in Il roar whom that august
body was as intent on destruction as was
the Senate that Cato dominated. His
fate indicated the inexorable law OF
, compensation, and when he should have
been at the zenith of a splendid career.
he was a physical wreck and a mental
, imbecile.
f When asked in 1872 if he expected tC
remain in the Senate. Nye made answer:
!, MY dear fellow. the man who wants
!, my place is worth So, OOO, OO0,' and the
III WOO, oh, Io,a- 4ool- l;e
seat in the Senate of the United states
If he survive until March 3, 1908, he viii
have been a Senator in the American
Congress thirty years. Senator Jones is
a native of England, born in 1899. At d
f very carly age he was brought to this
country and was educated in the public
schools of Northern Ohio. He, too. was
| a 'forty-niner,' and like his colleague
Mr.. Stewart, a miner. He entered the
political field ard was sheriff OF his
; county, and later. served in the State
Legislature. Beaten for lieutenant gov
ernor of California in 1867, he left that
State and pitched his tent in Nevada
where, gossip said, he was marvelously
!, successful in mining. 1t was at that
period when the Pacific slope was pro-
ducing lnillionaires In troops-Hunting-
ton, Stanford, Crocker. Hopkins. RaIston,
-io'hoS, L ~ IdIE LII HUH
erous others, including William sharon
1t was with the latter that Jones con
:. tended for the Senatorship, and it was
Sharon he defeated for it.
Senator J. P. Jones appearance in the
national councils antedatcs that of al
his fellows except Stewart, Allison and
Hoar, and he entered the Senate simulta-
neouSly with Allison and four years be
f fore Hoar. But two member of the
present House were here before him
Grow and Ketcham-an Cannon came il
with him, March 4, 1873. He has beer
five times returned to the Senate q dis
| %tinction accorded to less than half a score
Y of Americans. In 1873 reconstruction was
5 the political isSue-the bloody
5 shirt just the same as the flag, or a little
5 samer-and Jones was a s~taIwart, intent
f on making treason OdiOus. He was one
| OF the judges of Belknap and voted moi