The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-06-23

better Democratic platform than any we have had since 1892. The spirit or liberty and the arraignment of arbi- trary power is magnificent in every pa per, couched in the brilliant literary style of the foremost political writer of even that splendid age. He was even a greater orator than he was writer and that was why Walpole, who might have sent him to the scanold, held the attainder over him to keep him out of Parliament
 Walpole lost, and was Kicked up- stairs" to the House of Lords, where his rival in the Commons, Pulleny, soon joined him-also Kicked upstairs" But Bolin gbroke gained nothing. He died an attainted- traitor. How he chaffed at being excluded from the public debates Is shown in this passage from one of his political writings of that epoch:
 Cato lost the election of raetor and that of consul but is any one blind enough to truth to imagine that these fepulses reflected any disgrace on him? The dignity of those two magistrates would have been increased by his win ming them. They suffered; not Cato."
 And 1t Is now agreed that British eloquence suffered. not Bolingbroke, by his exclusion from the forum where Government was made for the British people. And as with us. American eloquence, American statesmanship. and American character suffer. when from the Senate are banished Gray, Carlisle, Carmack, Spooner, Lindsay. and mayhap, soon to be, Foraker. The defeat of Conkling for the Senate cost the Republican party President.
 George Gray was in the Senate from March 19, 1885, to March {, 1899. We all know whom he succeeded. Can any body tell who succeeded him? When We consider what a little State 1t is, and the long line of illustrious states men Delaware has contributed to the national councils, Delaware has his tory that many a Commonwealth whose inhabitants number into the millions might well be envious of. .. '-..
 When Gray got into the Senate the first issue raised was whether 1t com ported with the dignity and the patri- otism of the Republican party for Gro- yer Cleveland to be President of the United States. George F. Edmunds, Ben Harrison and John J. Ingalls, ar- gues that 1t would not. Ingalls held MT. Cleveland to be ineligible, because every time the clock had struck quar- ter of an hour since his inauguration the Democratic President had given an ex-rebel an office. Edmunds and Har-
  the butt-cut of the appointing power. and that it should force the President to disclose his reasons in writing for taking eX-rebels into partnership in the administratio Cleveland responded that that was bold '1noccuous desuetude." and Pugh of Alabama made a report on the constitutional phrase of the subject that convinced George F. Hoar and the Senate receded from its position, though Edmunds insisted that the President of the United States should come before his Committee of the Judiciary to be interrogated about practical politics and badgered about constitutional law.
 Judge Gray is a modest man, and observed the traditional dignity of the Senate in serving novitiate before he took prominent part in debate. He was in thorough accord with the Pres- ident, and defended the administration against all corners A tariff reformer of the traditional Democratic school. he was also a sound-money man of that school, the school of Jackson and of Benton. In debates on these two questions he was the equal of any Senator in Congress. A learned law yer, a ripe scholar an able debater, he wielded great influence. His speeches on economic subjects were of lIlHnenSe value 10 HIS party anu lO lHS country He belabored the Mckinley tariff with all his might, and dealt cruel blows to that subterfuge. the Sherman silver law. He tore the Lodge force bill into fragments, and thus helped to continue to the South the right to vote the Democratic ticket as long as that section chose to be Dem cratic.
 When MT Cleveland was inaugurated the second time Gray was one of his staunchest supporters in the Senate, one of the administrations stoutest champions He helped to repeal that makeshift and monstrosity, the pur- chasing clause of the sherman silver law and did his utmost to keep party pertidy and party dishonor out of the Wilson tariff bill When his party deserted the President and embraced the dogmas of the Populists, he re- fused to shackle his mind and out rage his conscience. And thus he went from the National Legislature.
 A profound lawyer of judicial, rather than controversial, temper. Judge Gray is an ornament to the bench and bar. Canada: he was of the commission that made peace with Spain, but perhaps the greatest service he has rendered the American people was his conduct as a member of the commission that settled the great strike in the Penp-