The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-17
Fighting Statesmen.
10 Boston Globe.

From the Boston Globe.
 When the southern members mix u up on the floor of Congress, as MT. Williams and MT. DeArmond did last week. it is not easy to discuss the scene in this latitude without some ap- pearance of geographical complacency. That kind of discussion is worse than unprofitable, it is offensive. Yet all over the north the two combatants are likely to be referred to as pair of fiery southerners" who lost their heads" and argued with their fists.
 Nevertheless, it would be extremely difficult to prove that blood is any hot terri Missouri than in Kansas, in Ken lucky than in Indiana or even down in Mississippi than it is up here in Mas sachusetts. Centralization ruled in the days of creation, when all men were created of one blood. Nature ignores state lines.
 The great historic types of the south, the famous leaders of that section in the forum and the field, do not appear to have been any more impulsive or impetuous than their northern contem- poraries.
 George Washington, the peerless Vlr- ginian, stands as an impressive lesson in self-control, and Robert D. Lee equally so. John Marshall was no hos spur. Clay and Webster might have changed states without changing tenn peraments. Northern troopers never followed a cooler head than StonewSll- Jackson's. Jefferson Davis pulse beat nJ faster than Abraham Lincoln's. John c. Calhoun and Alexander H. Stephens were as cool reasoners as any one would ask to see in the flesh.
 For every southern fire-eater there has been northerner with an asbestos tongue, while the foremost representa- tives of the south are not distinguish able in the eyes of posterity from the sons of the Pilgrims ana the Puritans. The Lord, after all, did not really make the latter round-headed; the Puritan merely cut his hair differently from the cavalier
 When Sumner was assaulted in the Senate his constituents were thrown into a fighting mood. They picked a stalwart young fellow from the west, Anson Burlingame, who had come here for an education and had stayed.
 Burlingame was elected to Congress expressly with view to his physical ability. There were people here who wanted some one to go to Washington and take a hand in the fighting then so frequent in Congress. They were so eager for the fray that they ex- pected their lusty champion would at once make himself heard and felt. When he was not heard of in either the debates or the alterations for sev- eral weeks, old Father Taylor's daugh- ter sent him this letter, so often quoted
 Friend Anson-Balaam's ass spake once; canst thou?"
 Fighting is really more fashion than a passion of the blood. Once it was generally fashionable in the north as in the south
 Lincoln literally fought his way from obscurity with his fists. That method was not bis choice. but it was the cus- tom of Illinois in his day. He won his first honor by whipping a man named Armstrong. When he had shown him. self the better man, Armstrong and all his crowd Loyalty accepted the verdict and became his lifelong partisans. It was they who made him a captain in
 
 singled out the rail-splitting giant as leader among men.
 \ In opening his campaign for the leg islature, Lincoln found his audience in free fight. into which he himself plunged. When he had given the bel ligerents their fill of battle, he stepped upon the rostrum and addressed him self with no less vigor to their minds. r Overhearing in his office an uproar against friend who was speaking in the hall below, he opened trap door and dropped upon the platform, where he let it be know that he was for peace if he had to fight for it. Finally he was drawn into ridiculous duel with James Shields. and it so shamed him that he forever after held aloof from personal encounters.