The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-08
How a Relative of Lincoln Has Cleared Up Doubts About the Ancestry of This Great Man Originated
 By His Enemies.
BY FREDERIC J. HAsKIN.


 Many of them were armed, there were numerous fisticuffs, and the country at large feared for more serious trouble Of the 237 members of the House in that l Thirty-fourth Congress but one survives.
 He Is Judge John V. Wright of Ten nessee, now an attorney in thp general lanc office at Washington. Galusha A. Grow, speaker of the house during the civil war, and Russell Sage, the great fnancier, were the last of Judge Wright's l colleagues to quit this mortal stage. 1 Judge Wright has had career of more l than ordinary interest. A few weeks ago 1 he returned to his native county in Ten nessee, which he had not visited for 1 twenty-five years, and made speech on the fifty-ffth anniversary of his first l speech when running for the democratic l nomination for Congress He was but 1 twenty-four years old at the time, He 1 received the two-thirds vote of the con- l Vention but someone made the point that l he was under age before the result was announced, and the nomination was given to another man. Two years later he was | nominated and elected and served for six | years in the Congress at Washington. 1 While still member of the Federal Con- 1 gross he was elected to the Confederate | Congress, Tennessee having seeded from 1 the union. He went to Richmond and l served in the Confederate Congress until l Lees surrender. He and Judge Roger A. ] Pryor, formerly of Virginia but now of New York, enjoy the distinction of be- ing the only living men who served in both Congresses during the existence of the rival American republics, one with 1 it's capital at Washington and the other with It's capital at Montgomery After the war Judge Wright was made judge, l and in 1880 he was nominated for gover- nos of Tennessee by that wing of the democrat tic party which was opposed to | repudiation of the state debt. The division | of the democratic party caused the cleo | tion of a republican, and that republican, l Governor Hawkins, appointed Judge Wright to the supreme court of the state. | During Mir. Cleveland's first admnstra- ton, Judge Wright came to the service of the department of the interior where l he has been ever since. He was chair man of the commission which went from St. Paul to Washington and Oregon in the eighties and made treaties with the Indians which resulted In the opening to settlement of many of the northwestern states.
 So far as Judge Wright has been able to ascertain, he is one of the only seven survivors of the Congress of the Con federate States. Of these seven, four are | from Tennessee, John v. Wright Arthur 1 .. 1olydT, JOnn lD V. AIk1nS and Joseph | B. Heiskell; two are from Virginia, John Goode and Roger A. Pryor, and the other l Is from Alabama. George ". Jones' Judge l V right will be so years old In June and is the youngest of these old southern legis- l lators. Colonel Colyar, who is SS is the oldest.
 When Judge Wright came to Washing l ton as member of Congress he brought letters from his father to Senator Sam | Houston of Texas, and to Thomas H.
 Benton of Missouri who had just retired from the Senate. These two men intro duced MT. Whight into the ways of Wash ington, and he now talks of them as familiarly as if they had quit the corri- dors of the capitol but yesterday Judge Wrights connection with public life covers a greater period of time, perhaps, than that of any other living American
 His memory is photographic and he is as vigorous as a man of sixty, keeps up
 with the things of today without forget
 ting what has passed and gone-alto- gether he is a most interesting figure in
 Washington life.
 Col. John Goode, formerly of Norfolk,
 Va, but now a lawyer in Washington
 one of Judge Wright's surviving col
 leagues of the Confederate congress,
 served several terms In the United States
 Congress after the era of reeonstructoin
 He has recently published a book of
 reeollections which recount many inter-
 esting stories of politics and war with
 which he was personally connected He
 likes to tell story connected with the
 centennial celebration of the surrender of | Lord Cornwallis to General Washington l held at Yorktown on October 10, 1881. Col
 onel Goode was the member of Congress
 from that district and in charge of the
 ceremonies A British naval officer left
 his ship at New York and came to York
 town incognito. to see the Americans
 celebrate the victory which lost the thir-
 teen colonies to the English crown York
 town had changed but little In the cen
 tury since General O'Hara handed Corn
 wallis sword to General Lincoln and 1t
 was not prepossessing place. At the
 banquet, the identity of the naval officer
 was revealed and he was called upon to
 respond to the toast ITO Merle Eng
 land" In his speech he declared that he
 was glad he came because for the first
 time he understood what had puzzled
 him from his boyhood-why Cornwallis 1 surrendered. After seeing Yorktown.
 he said, ''I realize that there is but one
 thing that could be done to it. and that is
 to surrender and leave it.
 While all the rest of the country was
 making war on hawks and owls. which
 farmer >devoutly believes to be his worst
 enemies, pr. A. K. Fisher, assistant orni-
 thologist in the United States department
 of agriculture, was calmly and quietly | collecting evidence in favor of his feath- | cred clients Every day for a long while | he visited the tower of the Smithsonian | institution in Washington where a colony of barn owls had taken refuge, and under their eyrie he gathered the queer little | balls of fur and bones that the owls | cough up after each veal. Some queer | process of assimilation makes the bones of devoured animals or birds gather in | bunch in each owls stomach, and around these bones the fur collects until | a neat fuzzy ball an inch or so in diame- ter filled with broken bones Is the re-
 suit of the digestion. Then the owl re- gurgitates this ball and only the meat is left In his digestive apparatus
 l From these balls Dr.. Fisher collected his evidence. Under a microscope they | showed that each owl had eaten chiefly mice and rats, that he had destroyed few helpful birds. and had consequently done | much good and very little harm in the l world From this and other evidence 1 collected in different parts of the coun- l try Dr. Fisher has presented a line of defense for the owl and the hawk that | surely ought to help in their preserva- | tion and protection.
 ' r,