The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-08-16
RUGGED AND FORCEFUL
 TRAITS OF SENATOR VEST

, full way that he was In the habit of dis cussing everything. Someone tried to cons
 fort him number of years ago by tell. Ing him that he had long time yet to live, in spite of his feebleness of body, and in support of that view presented the experience of a very aged man who was then in public life-toward twenty years Mr. Vests senior. Don't cite his case to me" replied the Missourian. "They will have to shoot him on the morning of the resurrection"
 MT. Vest was pre-eminentiy of a rugged type intense in his hatreds and strong in his affections. He was not wishy- washy person who sits on the fence wait ing to see the direction in which the breeze will blow. He had opinions of his own, often wrong-headed ones, as the rest of the country believed, but he pre- sented them vigorously. He was one of the most bitter of President Clevelands opponents During the latter years of his administration they had no dealings with each other and none of the Missouri patronage was distributed by Mir. Vest. He was one of the most intense of silver ties. The latest developments In the party, eliminating in the acceptance by the democratic convention of Judge Par ker's telegram declaring the gold stand ard firmly and irrevocably established. would have been great disappointment to MT Vest had he been in more vigorous health. although he some months ago announced that 1t was time for the dem ocratic party to give up silver.
 There was touch of pathos in many of
 Mir Vests later day speeches, especially where he alluded to his old associates in the Confederate cause. He had been for some years the last surviving member of
 the Confederate senate, and he seemed 10
 regard himself particularly bound to see
 that their position on the great questions
 of civil war diplomacy was not misrepre-
 sented, In speaking of the Hampton
 Roads conference, not many months ago he expressed his belief that before long he should join the twenty-five other mem.
 bers of the little band which had worked together in the senate chamber at the old capitol in Richmond. His life had i been spared far beyond that of any of them, aId he desired to bear testimony l to the last to what he felt sure was their l position
 | Vest was equally clear in his express | sons of devotion to the union. His biog- raphy in the Congressional Record spoke
 of his service in the Missouri legislature,
 but contained no reference to the posi- tions which he had held under the Con federacy In speaking concerning some | improvements in this city not many years
 ago he took occasion to designate it as
 ''the eternal capitol of an eternal repub- | llc,' a rather vigorous sentiment from a
 man who had been one of the most force- | full of the orators of the Confederacy.
 It was he who declared. when the bodies | of the Massachusetts troops were sent
 home from Baltimore by the undertaking
 methods of that day, that the Yankee
 governments" as he called it, had better
 arrange to purchase Greenland's icy
 mountains, as 1t could get along with
 no smaller supply of refrigerating mate rial if 1t were to continue that policy with
 its soldier dead. ers .e.r- 5