The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-12-21

? Isthmian Canal commission, but OBJ
JectionS by Senator Long and other
appointment by President Roosevelt.
Sketch of Senator Harris.
The following sketch of Senator
Harris, giving review of his busy
and useful life, was printed soon after
Col. Harris retirement from the
United States Senate:
A Virginian, Confederate colonel, a
Democrat in blood and belief and,
strangest of all, a farmer. And Kan
sas sent him to the United States SEN
ate. If there is such a thing as pre-
eedent in Kansas it was broken into
bits by the selection of William A. Har-
r1s. Before Harris the ex-Confederates
were used in Kansas only as targets
for the spellbinders, and Kansas sur
prised itself when it sent one of the
men in gray as it's congressman at
large to Washington. w. A. Harris was
known to the Kansan. but it was as
farmer and breeder of shorthorns, and
not as a politician. The Farmers AL
nance was responsible for the Kansas
Confederate's first service in congress
and nominated him for a second term.
That year the Republicans controlled
and Harris was defeated. Then Leav-
enWorth county, always Democratic in
those days, sent Harris to the state
senate and before his term had fairly
begun he was sent to the United State
senate for the full six years. And that
is where Kansas nearly broke its rec
ord in breaking precedent. Not only
was the new senator an ex-officer of
the Confederate army, but he was a
farmer. Never before had Kansas, an
agricultural state, sent a farmer to
the United States senate.
The conservative Democrats of Kan
sas, and many western Democrats not
so conservative. see in Harris the fit
test man for the Democratic nomination
for president. His record is one that
neither Bryan nor Cleveland would find
faulty.
Eight years this ex-Confederate DEM
ocrat, farmer and stockman served
Kansas in Washington. two years in
the house and six in the senate. When
Harris came back to Kansas, again a
private citizen. he was poorer than
when he left the farm and the short
horns at Linwood. Two years in the
house. six years in the senate and not
a dollar to show for IT. Little less than
another precedent broken: the record is,
at least, unusual
His Father in Congress-.
Sixty-two years ago William A. Har-
ris was born in Loudon county. Virgin
Ia. Virginia sent his father to congress
for two terms and the son accompanied
him to the capital. He was graduated
from Columbia college in Washington.
Then he became a cadet at the school
that furnished SO many officers to the
south, the Virginia Military institute,
in which "StOnewall' Jackson was pro-
fessor of tactics. Harris was graduated
from the institute in 1861 and became
assistant adjutant general of General
Wilcox's brigade and then chief ord
rance officer of D. H. Hills and Rode's
divisions, Army of Northern Virginia
Appomattox ended the war for Har-
ris. He had 0cen trained as a civil
engineer and he took w his work as
naturally as il the great conflict had
not caused five years break in his
plans of life. The young Virginia Of
ficer came west, to the border, and
became an engineer in the construction
of the Kansas Pacific railway, then
creeping across the prairies toward the
mountains. The route lay from Kan
sas City through the KaW valley, and
the Virginian. intent as he may have
been with his railway building. had
the love of the soil too strong to over
look the spot that would make a good
farm. And he found it about thirty
miles west of Kansas City and bought
it from the railroad company
when we were running the line
along the river basS1,' the senator told
the writer one summer day years ago
on the lawn at Linwood farm. IT saw
this land and decided it was the place
for my home" He bought the land
from the railway company and called
it Linwood- Within a few years he
had abandoned civil engineering for
the farm and Linwood became known