The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-25

Authors Club are interested. In fact
this memories are of the sort to in
terest most folk, but he ran across a
man some two or three years ago who
hadn't the slightest use for them.
This man and Stoddard were both
guests at dinner given by small,
semi-private organization.
When 1t came to the speaking Mr..
Stoddard told stories OF Thackeray of
Bryant, of Longfellow and others.
Everybody, save the man in question,
seemed much pleased. but he seemed
both puzzled and disappointed. After
the speaking was finished he went up
to the poet and shook his hand:
i've long wanted to see you out
side the theater, Mr.. Stoddart," said
the man, land to hear some of your
"reminiscences. But, of course, l ex-
Pected you'd tell about the stage; not
about a lot of scribblers. They're all
right in their way, no doubt, but what
we wanted, Mr.. Stoddart, from you
was stage talk, not book talk"
Fortunately Mr.. Stoddard. whose
hearing is slightly defective. did not
fully grasp the import of the mans
remarks, and so passed him along with
a smile and a word but the man got
IL
the difference between Stoddard, the
veteran poet. and Stoddart, the veter-
an actor, from the friend who had in
vited him to the dinner.
Herbert w. Bowen, United States
Minister to Venezuela, who arrived
this week from the scene of the OPP
era bouffe blockade by England and
Germany, will be the real thing in New
York when he comes here from Wash
ington, where he is now representing
President Castro in the settlement of
his difficulties with the allied Powers.
Mr.. Bowen is well known and well
liked here and representative citizens
will see to 1t that he is given a rous-
ing reception.
The declination of their star brought
about by the women-Victoria Wood
hull and her sister, Tennessee Cla1in-
gave the whole social, moral and finan-
cial structure of the republic a mighty
severe jolt, but when it was all over
the atmosphere was nightly clarified.
1t Is interesting to note that only one
of the participants In the trouble-The-
odore Tilton-was entirely wiped out.
Mr.. Beecher recovered himself in
marked degree after the close of his
trial and the verdict that he and Mrs.
Tilton had done no real wrong. Mr..
Bowen's newspaper, though shorn of
it's pristine glory and power, is still
running and the profits from its pub
location yielded a fortune. Woodruff
and Claflin, the women who kicked the
props from under, went to England
and there married rank of very re-
spectacle degree and wealth far be-
yond their earlier dreams of avarice.
But to get back to the newly re-
turned United States minister to Ven
ezuela.
He was brought up among those
who were constantly in the public eye
and, Of course, he had every advantage
that could be gained through constant
association with men of affairs as well
as the training of the schools. After
his graduation, and at his own IN
stance, he was put into the way of a
diplomatic career.
Mr.. Bowen is one of that constantly
increasing class in America, which, not
so many years ago, the pessimistic
critics of Republican government de-
cIared virtually non-existent in the
New World. Mr.. Bowen is a promi-
nent mans son who has made good,
who has helped to disprove the oft re-
peated fallacy that only the self-made,
that only the man who has to carve
out his own career. can achieve dis
tinction on this side of the water.
Herbert w. Bowen's father was the
publisher and first editor of the In
dependent, now respectable, rather
commonplace weekly. which is print
ed in magazine form. Back in the Cos
and 70s the Independent was power in
deed and in truth. 1t was then of eight
great blanket pages in form, it's char
acter was serni-religious and its editor
for a long time was Henry Ward
Beecher. He was followed by Theodore
Tilton, then considered "the best and
most accomplished editor living"
The very name of Bowen, coupled
with that of Henry c. Bowen's news
paper, suggests the whole Beecher-Til-
ton tragedy. an episode that could not
possibly come into the scheme of
Twentieth Century American life. No
men of the class in which Beecher
Bowen. Tilton and their Like dominated