The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-03-19
WON $4,000 BUCKING THE
TIGER At LONG BRANCH
Gould Not Sleep So He Got Up Again,
Resumed Play and Lost $4,000
in Four Hours-Was
Able Man.
BY CLARENCE L. CULLEN.

VIZ ASHINGToN, March $50
wv Ed Woleott has cashed in?
WE'LL this country loses a thor
oughbred He knew his distance, and he
travelled it. You can gamble that when
he saw himself drawing nigh the finish,
there wasn't a whimper in him.
Thus spoke a member of the Colorado
delegation in Congress swhen he was told
OF the death of the former Senator at
Monte Carlo.
He struck the note which is sounded
by all Of the former colleagues, cronies
and associates of Senator Wolcott. Unof-
fetal Neutrality-suspicious. remember him as
curiously attractive composite of the
grand seigneur and the dead game" An
orator of almost matchless and convinc-
ing eloquence who never stopped to dem
agogery or gush; a great lawyer, a keen
student, master of many languages and
literatures; of remarkable executive abil-
ity and capacity for AFFAIRS and exhibit
ing frequent bursts of enormous industry;
polished man of the world, of singular
personal magnetism, and possessed to an
eminent degree of what is called the
grand manner; dilettante with Dozen
artistic hobbies; inveterate gambler with
an Unsuitable passion for the highest play;
all of these qualities and characteristics,
united and fused in the personality of
Wolcott, cause him to be remarked and
lamented here as one of the most notable
and striking men ever sent to Washing
ton.
To the country in general, Woleott, dur
Ing his senatorial career, was simply a
highly-plaeed gambler, and not much
al T1.a fx..f.e 8 l.
participations in noted poker festas in
Washington, and of his infrequent but
tremendous plunges on the race tracks,
were sent broadcast over the country,
SO that, except in his home state of Colo
RADIO and here in Washington, his dis
tinction as a statesman and his ability
In all other activities were virtually
smothered by his fame as gambler But
the old men of the Senate-men of the
grade of Allison, Cullom, Hale, Fry,
Daniel, Morgan. Elkins-knew how to rate
Wolcott as a statesman They placed him
in the very front rank, and as an orator
many of them still hold him to have had
no equal in either branch of Congress
since Daniel Webster 1t is not without
certain tone of sadness that these old
men of the Senate are now abiding, In
their private conversation, to the utter
carelessness, tinged with hauteur, with
which Wolcott viewed the hampering rep
utation which he was gaining throughout
the land at the very time when he was
eliciting the admiration of his colleagues
for his signal abilities as a statesman
and senator.
''Wolcott was. in a way, the Charles
James Fox of this country and era" re-
marked one of the veterans of the Sem
ate, when he heard of Wolcott's death.
But he had better intellect than Fox.
His passion for high play ruined him, as
it eventually ruined Fox. I do not mean
that 1t ruined him financially, but 1t eff
fectually withered the immense national
prestige he was so capable of achieving.
He could do anything, could have been
anything. All of us tried to warn VOL
colt about his gambling We endeavored
to impress 1t upon him that the people of
this country are in the main such a con-
sentative people that they will not toll
crate public gambling by hishly-placed
public man. But it was no use. He would
give us most polite ear. and. a little
while later. we would hear of some pro-
digious betting transaction in which he
had figured The truth Is, he could never
quite figure that his gambling was any
OF the public's business. Maybe 1t wasn't.
But the American people have a way of
making the frivolities of their public men
their business"