The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-07-21

science that went west about 100 years
ago to grow up with the country. Ash
tabula county was the heart of the
Western reserve and peopled from
Massachusetts and Connecticut. AT
Jefferson lived Joshua R. Giddings and
Benjamin F. Wade, both radical Adolf
tionists. They were of New England
stock, and when we think of them the
following from that other and more
brilliant son OF New England-John
James Ingalls-obtrudes on the mind:
THE conscience of New England was
never thoroughly aroused to the I'm
morality OF African slavery until ii
ceased to be profitable, and the north
did not finally determine to destroy
the system until convinced that its
continuance threatened not only their
industrial independence. but their po-
litical supremacy"
That passage not only evidences the
blunt candor of Mr.. ingalls,, but In IT
Is shown the sagacity with which he
judged men and things, and here we
have one of the most brilliant men our
country has produced defining the
New England conscience as merely
synonym for thrift, material and po-
litical. It was New England, by the
way, that put the African slave trade
in the constitution of the United
States.
X X
1t was at this town If jefferson that
Theodore E. Burton was born in 1851,
the year after Henry Clay and Stephen
A. Douglas had prevented Joshua r.
Giddings. Thaddeus Stevens. and men
of that ilk from accomplishing the
dissolution of the union. Mr.. Burton
got his education at Oberlin college,
an abolition institution and the mar
rOwest-minded school in the world.
Young Burton studied law, was ad-
mited to the bar and opened an office
in the city of Cleveland. He was a
fine student, and has a superior legal
mind, and might have made as great
a lawyer as Rufus p. Ranney or Nir-
gil P. Kline had he stuck to The pro-
fessiOn and given his whole soul to it.
His strong point is clearness of state
ment and that is the strong point of
| the lawyer. Unless IL be John Sharp
Williams, no man in congress is the
equal of Burton in stating a case.
When on his legs making a speech,
he constantly reminds nne of John G.
Carlisle. Williams is a much greater
man than Burton, for Williams is
richly endowed with the keeneSU sense
of humor, whereas Burton is as serious
as "a basket of chips going to hell to
be burned"
Burton's first advent in congress was
| in 1889, when Thomas 3. Reed revolu-
| tiOniZed that body and subtracted its
self-government from the general
membership on the floor and lodged it
with the speaker. 1t was the congress
that sought to deprive the south of it's
privilege to vote the Democratic tick
! ia, that curtailed surplus revenues by
! Increasing taxation, that sought 20
/ L
| ing gold. a thing that was accom-
plished by the Sherman silver law. In
/ 1890 the country got a whack at the
/ Fifty-firSt congress, and that very
/ year the Democrats gained the me st
| signal victory ever achieved by a po-
| litical party in the United States. Tom
| johnson beat Burton for congress that
very year.
| The Democrats had their day in
court and played the devil. In 1885,
| they mutinied against their general
| like lot of PTetOrians, deposed him
| set up boy orator In his place, and
for a dozen years they have abused
| Gods patience and the Kings English
cussing the deposed general for the
! misfOrtUnes and disasters that have
| overtaken them under the lead of the
| youthful orator. Their conduct is not
at all logical, but it is immensely hui
man. In 1894, after the Democratic
party had repudiated Clevelandism as
n principle. and deposed Cleveland as a
| leader, an appeal was had to the coun-
try which responded with an over
whelming Republican victory that has
| been six times duplicated since 1894.
| Burton was returned to the Fifty
| fourth congress, and Speaker Reed put
| him on rivers and harbors. When Ber
! Odell got in need of a judge in western
/ New York he drafted Hooker out OF
! congress for the job. and then Burton
| became chairman of rivers and har-
bors, and it is only just to say that in
! that place he has shown himself to be
one of the ablest and most accom-
plished legislators the American con
gress ever knew. Mr.. Burton never
undertakes TO tinker with a piece OF
sOlOnism until he makes himself alb
solute master of the facts and the
! PHILOSOPHERS of the case, viewed from
any and every standpoint. That Is &
secret all too few OF our congressman
have, at least too few of them ac
upon il.
1t is doubtful If all the rest of con.
| gress together, senate and house know
as much about our rivers and har.
bors as Burton knows. If there is &
/ creek or inlet from ocean to oceaT
that he does not know all about con.
/ gress has never heard of il. Not only
does he know where 1t is, but what i
is. He knows the volume of water
the depth. the width. the fall. H,
knows the commerce that each shor,
Will supply and what it is-coal, iron
stone. phosphate, lead. zinc, and al
that. He knows the agricultural ener
gies of either bank and how mucl
freight they will supply. Above all
he knows the probable cost of improve
ment and If the game is worth tn
candle. He Is an absolutely homes
man, just and impartial TO the marrow
and with a will of iron. Thus, whei
it comes to rivers and harbors. Theo
dore F. Burton is the American con
gress; and if all the other of the PEG
pies affairs had been as well managed
the country would be in a heap bette
fix than il is.
Faction is the tribuation of party
and the delight of history. 1t ha
thwarted much of good and more o
evil. The Democratic party is fai
game for it, and many cruel blow /
has dealt that organization. When yol
get into the superior class of Demo
crats you find set who will not fol
| low the multitude to do evil They re