Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-07-29
MARTIN, OF VIRGINIA.
BY SAVoYARD.

the columns of the Washington Post,
and is by brilliant writer unknown
to Virginians. He is writing on the
striking features of the four leaders
there are in Congress-:
Possibly 1t is in that delightful
narrative, "Wirt's Life of Patrick
Henry" that it is related that when
the Continental Congress convened
in l774 Patrick Henry and Richard
Henry Lee so far excelled all the
men of the North in oratory that
Connecticut member was in despair
and remarked that they might as
well 60 home, as they we're not fit to
be the colleagues of such giants az
the Virginians, whom he considered
a little more than mortal; but when
work came to be done in committee
it was discovered that many of the
Northern delegates were superior to
Henry and Lee in the dry and neces.
sary details of business, and our old
friend from Connecticut changed
his mind and came to the conclusion
that the eloquent demigods from the
Sonth were but men, after all. And
so it has generally been found.
When the Republican party wanted
to say things, lit put forward Henry
Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips,
Henry Winter Davis and Owen
Lovejoy, but when the Republican
party wanted to do things it chose
Lincoln, Fessenden, Morton and
Stevens. There are no Admirable
Crichtons nowadays. We do not
find Caesars hand and Shakespeare's
brain and Bolingbroke's grace and
Garrick's art and Clay's fascination
commingled in one personality.
Jefferson thought, and jackson
wrought. bnt we do not have Jeffer-
son and Jackson in single indi-
vidual.
10 appear in either House of Con-
gress and deliver an eloquent speech
that thrills and dazzles and capti-
Yates everybody, and convinces no.
body is an achievement often accom-
plished in our parliamentary history.
Charles Sumner aud George w.
Julian, Of the North, and John j.
Crittenden and William L. Yancey,
of the South, were given to the prac-
tice. 1t is magnificent, but it is not
legislation. 1t is the frills and fur
bellows, the ostentations and en-
blazonments, the dress -parades and
carnlvals of Solonism, and it is very
fine, very excellent, and 1T is difficult
to see how we could get along with
out it. Here is Solonism, the real
stnff-a dozen men, more or less
what James B. Beck was, and Will
liam B. Allison is, sit at long table
In committee room with the printed
bill of proposed law before them,
and talk about it sometimes for
hours, sometimes for DAYS, sometimes
for weeks. Everything that can be
said in favor of the measure is said,
and everything that can be said in
opposition to the measure Is said.
Authorities are cited, statistics are
adduced, human experience is in
voked, human speculation is indulged
-all fused into arguments, pro and
con. Common sense sits in judg-
ment. That is deliberation and that
is Solonism. That is representative
government, and Thomas S. Martin,
of Albemarle county, is the equal of
any Senator in Congress at that sort
of business.
There is an impression ia some
quarters that Senator Martin is the
boss of a political machine and
nothing else. and such the writer of
this long considered him, but that
is an insufficient estimate of the man.
lie is the leader of his party in Vir-
glnla, and is boss in the sense that
y. L. Morton was in Indiana, as w.
Is. Allison is in Iowa, and like those
two he is more than a boss--he can
think as we'll as act-plan as well as
execute.
Richard Henry Lee sat in the first
Congress as Senator from Virginia.
He was the orator of the academy as
Patrick Henry was the orator of
nature. lie did not thrill, but he
charmed; he did not drive, but he
invited; his speech was not thunder
peal, but dulcet strain-not the
impetuous torrent, but the pelncid
brook, of messy banks, that made it's
course through shady groves and
peaceful meadows. Other Sem
ators from the Old Dominion
were the Tazewells, and Monroe and
Tyler, who were Presidents of the
United States. OF John Tyler, the
man Thao1ora Roocaua1k tho l,;cto