Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-07-05

in 1897, when one of the first acts or President Mckinley was to nominate Mir. Hay as ambassador to Great Brit ain, from which position he was called little over year later to go to the head of the state department, where he remained till his death, few days ago. While at London such com paratively short time, Hay remains both in the American and English public mind as the most conspicuous of the long list of brilliant men who have held the position of ambassador at the court of St. James.
 Friend of Lincoln.
 Diplomacy, however, was not the only field in which John Hay shone. Politics, war, journalism and litera- ture each furnished some of the lau- rels interwoven in the wreath of his fame He was one of the private sec retaries of President Lincoln and was in peculiarly close and intimate re- iduOuS WILL IuC Sichl ciuduIlPotOi. [. He was the favorite editorial writer of Horace Greeley on the New York Trib- une. He was the author of poems and prose sketches and histories read with interest and delight on two continents. To gain confidential information for Abraham Lincoln he was adjutant gen. eral to two or three commanders in the civil war, being promoted to the rank of colonel. In addition to all his other accomplishments he was an orator of power and scholarly finish. two of his most noteworthy efforts having been an address on Walter Scott and the me morial oration on the death of William Mckinley. delivered in the hall of rep resentatives in Washington.
 The Ohio society of New York once gave Hay a dinner. for among his other titles of distinction the great secretary lived several years in Ohio. In that talk he bewailed the fact that he was man without state. T was born in h. diana" he said, T grew up in Illinois, was educated in Rhode Island. and it is no blame to that scholarly com munity that I know so little learned my law in Springfield and my politics in Washington, my diplomacy in Flu rope. Asia and Africa. I have farm in New Hampshire and desk room in the District of Columbia. When I look to the springs from which my blood descends the first ancestors I ever heard of were Scotchman who was half English and German woman who was half French. Of my immedi- ate progenitors my mother was from New England and my father was from the south. In this bewilderment of origin and experience I can only put on an aspect of deep humility in any gathering of favorite sons and confess that am nothing but an American"
 Washed His Mothers Dishes.
 At the pleasant little Hoosier city of Salem John Hay was born in 1888. His father was doctor in moderate circumstances, so that the boy was protected from the rough corners of poverty that have knocked greatness into-or out of-so many of our public men. While the future statesman was very young the Hays moved to Illinois, and it was in the common schools of that state that be began his education John was a prize Sunday school schol ar and always took the prizes for memorizing verses. This created envy in the breasts of the other boys, and they decided to humiliate the Sunday school teachers pet. Hearing that he washed dishes for his mother and that he wore large sleeved apron in doing so. they decided to take around some girls of whom John was rather fond and surprise him in the dish washing operation. He promptly appeared with a large pan full of dirty water in his hands and as promptly threw the con tents over his tormenters. After that he was permitted to wash his mother's dishes in peace.
 The education was pursued at an academy in Springfield and finished at Brown university at the age of twenty. Mir. Hay afterward took a degree Of A. NJ. and was given IL. D.'s from va rious institutions all over the country. It is hard for a man of fame to escape the IL. Ding process.