Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-27

William Frederick Dick, who since has be-
come United States senator. and has edit
ed the William Frederick from his name
Dick had been the chief lieutenant of Mark
Hanna In the battle which eliminated In the
nomination of William Mckinley for Presi-
dent, and when Hanna went to deploy his
forces for the campaign that had the cap
ture of the White House as Its objectrVe,
Dick was promoted from a lieutenant to be
a brevet brgadier generalisslmo. or some
thing of that sort, and placed in command
of the army of the west, which had its
headquarters at Chicago.
At Chicago Dover sought and obtained
from Dick an appointment. to a minor clerk
ship. He served throughout the campaign
in capacities OF ever-incrcasing responsible
ty and all the while was making acquaint-
ances and soaking his system full of the at
mosphere of politics.
Some little time after Hanna became
senator he found himself III need of a prl-
vate secretary. Dick recommended Dover:
Hanna demurred at first. He doubted II
Dover had had the requisite experience. He
finally consented, however, to give the
young man a trial. From that day Dovers
fortunes were made
Shortly before the St. Louis convention of
1894 Hanna had Dover made secretary of
the national committee. In that capacity he
continued under the Craftsmanship of Cortel-
you, and he won the confidence of the new
school of Rooseveltian politicians as com.
pletely as he had possessed that of the old
AfvKinley-Hanna school,. And this. by the
way is an achievement of which any man
might well be proud. for there is very little
In common between the Roosevelt and the
Hanna schools of politics.
Frank H. Hitchcock. the first assistant
postmaster general. ought to be source of
constant joy TO the President of the United
States He is a product of that one thing
above all other things which made the name
of Roosevelt known to the public-reform
in the civil service. From a minor clerkship
in the Department of Agriculture to the po-
sition of second in authority over the vast
postal service is the record of progress made
by this man of thirty-seven years.
Like George 3. Cortelyou, his chief. Hitch
cock has been man without pull. lie
has earned every promotion that has come
to him. When he entered the Post ONCE
Department as the first lieutenant of Mr..
Cortelyou two other members of the cabl-
net wanted him to accept positions of equal
rank in their respective departments. Ana
at the same time some very tempting busl-
ness offers had to be put aside.
Hitchcock is native of Ohio, having been
born in Lorain county in 1867. His father
was a Congregational minister, with the
poverty that usually attaches itself to the
pastor of a village church. The family had
emigrated to Ohio from New England, and
to New England it returned when the OPP
pcrtunity offered, along about the time the
boy Frank was six years old. His early
education, therefore, acquired in the
public schools about Boston. In the pre-
paratory schools he was prominent In ath-
lctiCs. playing on both the base ball and
the foot ball teams. When he had matricu-
lated for Harvard, however, life had come
to appear so serious a thing that he gave
up athletics and devoted himself to the
hardest kind of study.
The foregoing is chiefly interesting be-
cause 1t leads up to the fact that before
Hitchcock entered the government service
he had equipped himself with a very thor
ough education. When he graduated from
Harvard, IN 1891 a relative secured for him
superintendent of construction of the Post
Office Department building, and he came to
Washington After making the highest av-
erage in a competitive examination he was
appointed an assistant in the biological d.
vision Of the Department of Agriculture and
in this way entered the classified service.
While still in the Agricultural Department
he studied law in Columbian now George
Washington University, and was grad
uated with honors. George 3. Cortelyou,
then a stenographer in the office of the
fourth assistant postmaster general, at
tended the commencement exercises. and
was attracted by the bearing of young
Hitchcock that he remarked to a. compan-
ion that there was a young man whose
friendship he would like to have.
After year spent in the biological dvi-
sion of the Agricultural Department Hitch
cock accepted a transfer to the division of
foreign markets. He became assistant
chief and later chief of that bureau, and so
thoroughly did he master the subject that
he came TO be looked upon as an authority
by members Of Congress in search OF in
had been making even more rapid advance
ment, and all the while kept his eye on
Hitchcock And now came time when
their careers. so very like in many respects,
came together. Congress had by law created
the Department of Commerce and Labor,