The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1904-09-23

and sometimes even hourly called into
council by William Mckinley to advise
him as to the best thing to be done
to preserve the honor and the dignity
of the nation, Charles Warren Fair
banks was always foremost in the list
lie was summoned to the White House
night after night, and during a time
when the gravest matters were under
consideration the most important of all
the conferences We're held in the Fair
banks home on Massachusetts avenue
There We're gathered the senators and
the cabinet officers who represented the
inner council of the nation, the men
who possessed the absolute confidence
of President Mckinley. 1t was in the
upstairs library Of the Fairbanks home
that some Of the most important de-
| cisions of these trying times were first
formulated
There We're scarcely half a dozen of
the big men of the nation present at
those historic conferences, and it is a
| sufficient indication of the capacity for
public service which Senator Fairbanks
| has manifested to refer to the fact that
although he had been in public life less
| than year his value as a constant adj
| wiser of the President in the face Of
| an infamed public sentiment and on the
eve of almost inevitable war grew great
| er day by day. Other men who partici-
| pated in those conferences remember and
| bear cheerful testimony to the eXtraordi-
| nary capacity of the Indiana senator
for looking at all sides of a question of
| public policy and for giving his opinion
dispassionately, without the slightest sus-
| piciOn of personal bias and with some
| thing like sacred Difference to the best
| interests of the nation
The history of those mOmentOus CON
| ferences will never be written, as mat
| ter of course. Mckinley has gone, Ho-
| bart has gone, Hanna has gone, and
only few are left of the men who ac-
| tualiy shaped the destinies of the nation
| in the early months of 1898, who per-
sisted in a wise conservatism when de-
lay was necessary, and who provided the
means for carrying the war to a sue
! cessful and a glorious conclusion That
| he was even included in the brilliant list
| Of the confidential advisers of William
Mckinley in the face Of war is a suf-
Gent honor for any man.
An Honor for the Indianian.
1t is an additional honor for the In
| the Republican nominee for the vice
presidency, that his associates in public
! life, in their private conversation, in
variably refer to his broad-gauge ability
| to grasp public questions, to his personal
| integrity, and to his deep study of con
stitutional and international law.
1t is fortunate thing for the republic
that man of this stamp should have
! been chosen for the nomination. The re-
suit is that in the event of the triumph
of the, Republican ticket, which now
seems absolutely secured, the President
| inaugurated next March will have had
the benefit of more than three years of
actual experience in the duties of his
Office, while the vice-president who will
take the oath of Office at the same time
will have behind him not only the bene-
| fit of more than seven years in the
| United States senate, but also of his
membership in the inner circle of public
men who actually do things, and who in
times of trial determine the policy of the
nation.