The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-03-29

has inherited lluc0 OF I0e eiOQucutts d.
Wen as the name, of that remarkable
man. Bradley was born at Lancaster.
by, March Is, 1877. the day Grover Cleve-
land was 10 years old. His father, Rob
ert Nj. Bradley. was an eminent lawyer,
one of that coterie of jurists of that gen
GRAFTON, such as Madison c. Johnson, Ben
Hardin, George r. Mckee. George Rob-
ertson, Elijah Hisc and Humphrey Mar.
snail. any one of whom, without special
preparation, would have been capable of
lending valuable aid to the most learned
lurists of England in the expounding of
English jurisprudence These men were
deeply grounded in the PHILOSOPHERS of
the law They not only knew what the
law was, but why it was.
"Old Bob Bradley, as he was fanil-
Dlarly and affectionately called, was one
Of the most consummate practitioners at
the Kentucky bar. when that bar was UNI
surpassed for skill. learning and elo-
quence by the bar of any other state of
the Union. His speciality was what they
called in the Kentucky of that day, land
law, and he lent valuable aid TO the
bench of that state. who rendered the de-
cisions that made the land law of Ken
lucky the grand edifice of legal juris
prudence II is universally conceded 10 be,
surprising that erected in even old Eng
land herself as to land titles. If one
reason from its richest lore he must go
10 the Kentucky decisions settling land
titles TO obtain it. 81
1OulS DIduieN STUDIED law III MS Ia
theirs office, and came to the bar by
operation of an enabling act of the legis-
iature at the age of 49, He was an apt
pupil, and had inherited the plain COM
mon sense of his father to which, in
him, was added the gift of eloquent
speech. As practitioner he is the equal.
especially at n.si prius. of any lawyer
in the state. A powerful advocate. he
has won verdicts in many a desperate
case, while his knowledge of the prin-
clples OF the law makes him exceeding
ly formidable in the superior courts
While his biographies in the encyclo-
pedias relate that young Bradley was
early chosen prosecuting attorney OF
Lancaster county they silent as to
his politics at that time, which, tradition
says, was intensely and Bourbonish
Democratic, and so enthusiastic was he
in that behalf that his rivals in the
G. o. P; discover the envy that consumes
them when they quote him on the stump
In the days of his youth. as exclaiming
IN an ecstacy of fervid eloQuence: If
believed there was a drop of Republican
blood IN my body. would open my veins
and let the corruption OUT" But the
plea of infancy is a bar to charges of
that sort! Swope, Denny and Hunter
were all recruited from the Democratic
ranks.
BY 1872 Bradley was brilliant Repub-
llcan orator and gave the Democracy
deal of trouble. -Four times he ran for
congress in the Eighth district, and every
y he was the Republican caucus nomi-
nee for United States senator against j
b. Beck, but ii was not until he was the
sixth time such nominee that he was
elected. though had he been the caucus
nominee in 1895 there is little doubt that
he would have got Joe Blackburns toga
that fell to the Incompatible Deboe.
And here l may be INDUCED q brief
retrospect. Abraham Lincoln appointed
Robert j. Breckenridge. John A Prauil
ana a: G; Hodges to make a Republican
party in Kentucky That was soon after
the first Union victory in the state-Mill
Spring-Where George II. Thomas was in
command. George d. Prentice was in
vlted TO lend his aid, but he refused, as
did Thomas +. Bramlette, Ed H. Hobson
Richard T. Jacobs. and thousands of other
| Union men. Hobson was the candidate
OF the opposition TO the Democracy on
the state ticket in 1866; but it was called
the Union Democratic ticket and was
inspired by those who were too loyal to
De Democrats and too respectable to be
Republicans.
BY 1871 Breckenridge. PraulI and
Hodges were too old for the business, and
Ben II. BristOw and John NJ. Harlan
came on to head the new Republican par
ty. The fifteenth amendment had been
adopted. and has never been nullified in
any Kentucky county. Harlans vote for
governor in ISL was very large and
gave earnest of the Republican victory of
two dozen years later. After Grants
second election Bristow went out or was
forced out of the political business. and
after the Republican sequestration of the
presidency in 1877 Harlan went on the
supreme bench.
This put the Republican satrapy of Ken
lucky in commission, and W. o. Brad
ley became chief of the commission OF
which Walter Evans. Eli H. MURRAY
SWOpe. Godfrey Hunter and some others
were members. If William H Wads-
worth had been endowed with the politi-
~ Of n De- N
have been chief and that would have
meant Republican Kentucky. or rather
a Republican victory in the state a dozen
years earlier than it came
In 1880 Bradley, Evans and Hunter
whose mutual hatreds and jealousies
would have furnished raw material for
platoon OF Molochs, were ali at Chi
cagO, and all 306-ers. Bradley made an
Grafton seconding Grants nomination.
and il was way above the average of con-
vention eloquence, though eciipsed in the
dazzling splendor of Conkling and the
wonderful resources of Garfield. BY this
time Bradley was the leader of his party
in the state. and at him was leveled more
envy in his own party than any Ken
lucky Democrat was ever mark for. In
1883 he nominated his brother-in-Iaw for
governor against Proctor Knott. In 1887
he nominated himself against Simon Boil
var Buckner. In 1891 he nominated Ma
jor Wood against John Young Brown. and
in 1895 he nominated himself against Wat
Hardin.
Hardin repudiated the sound money
platform of his party. and the Cleveland
element left the work of electing him to
the l6-to-1-ers, and they failed Thus
Bradley became governor. During that
campaign there were lust two men in
the state who believed the legislature,
too, would be Republican-one was a
Godfrey Hunter. chairman of the Repub-
hcan committee. and the other was an
obscure newspaper man. When the re-
turns came in the Republicans had plu-
rality on Joint ballot and two POPS had
the balance of power
Here was a kettle of fish Was Brad
ley to gain a signal victory for w Cod