The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-01-11
YANCEY nCULT" |S
 FAST DEVELOPING He Will Yet be Considered Ala bama's Grandest Man NO ROMANCE ABOUT HIM Career of This Great Statesman, Who Die dYears Ago, Has Absolutely
 No Anecdote or Adventure
 to Write. About.
NO ROMANCE ABOUT HIM

Montgomery. January 10.-(Special)- However it may be in other parts of the state. undoubtedly in and around Mont gomery and among public men who come here, there is growing up distinct and positive Yancey cult" For many years the gradeur of the foremost of all the Alabamians was obscured by nameless something, not exactly prejudice and calling far short of resentment which reproached his memory. Men did not seem to like to talk of Yancey. His career furnishes almost no anecdotes, no adventures, no alternate play or vice and virtue, of strength and weakness such us catch the imagination in the life of Sargent s. Prentiss for instances. and make him an easy subject of reminis- eence for the eommonest mind. DuBose wrote a large book about him, and knew him personally and ransacked every de- pository of information concerning him, and could hardly fill page with those lit- tie doings and sayings that make talk for men in reminiscent mood Men do not laugh at anything he said or did. They grow serious and at once agree on the one fact, that he lowered above all the Alabamians an orator and unless in argumentatve mood over issues long since dead, they used to change the sub ject.
 Idea Is Changing.
 This is changing. Men who knew him are telling about it as a sort of treasure in their experiences. T heard Yancey' at such and such place and time, says one, and the others show sense of that good fortune in the speaker. Young men are becoming fond of talking about him. of wishing they could have heard him just once. As we get away from him we are coming to realize how supremely strong he was; how none came before him or after him. or is like to come. Pos sibly this growing appreciation of Yancey is due more to the establishment of the history department at the capitol than to any one cause, though DuBoses life Of him planted the seeds of revival for his fame. But the department has set the mind of the average man to running on historical subjects, is setting our great men up in a row to be looked at, so to speak, as so many peaks along the hori- Zon of the past. How could the beholder help gazing oftenest and longest on the highest peak? That Yancey is the highest peak and dominates the scene Is becom- ing more evident every day. The gallery of portraits is filling up and long array of statesmen and warriors are there be- side him; but the eye naturally returns to that marvellous face, and one realizes that all the others make one crowd-Yan- cey alone makes the other.
 Life Size Portrait.
 An artist here, Samuel Hoffman, has just completed a life-sized oil portrait of Yancey, made not from any of the sev- eral portraits painted during his life, but from steel engraving which, by common consent, best shows him as he was. It will be hung in the hall of the house when the legislature meets, just over the speakers stand. It represents him standing by the table in his law library, the artist preferring to picture no event in his life, for his every act is subject of controversy, but to portray the man. The attitude is one of semi-repose. He stands erect, the height of the picture being exact to the life, five feet ten inches. and the mind suggests to itself that he may be about to begin speaking. The dress, the books that are around the letter on the table, the proportions are all made from the most careful inquiry into the facts as they were. MT. Hoff- man never saw the subject of his portrait He was child when Yancey ded and has been only few years in Alabama Desiring to paint historical master piece for Alabamians, he inevitably selected Yancey. From all I can find cut about him, he was a lion in action. I have tried to picture him as a lion in repose He had great face, and it shows there, the man was capable of anything when aroused. The whole man was capa- be of ny possibility The portrait as I have designed it is not merely the phy- sical reproduction of figure and face, but my purpose was to suggest the great | ness and the power there behind the | mere flesh and blood" That MT. Hoff- | man has succeeded in his splendid con- cepton all who knew Yancey and have seen the picture are agreed. It admir- | ably preserves the impression which | every picture of the man makes on the | beholder, that he was a lonely man. He | was sufficient unto himself, ploughed his | own way through the fields of policy and l followed no one else. All traditions tells | that he was genial and companonable l but he had no chums. There was cer-