The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-07
MORRIS SHEPPARD OF TEXAS
By SAVOYARD

Washington, September 6.--(Special.l- l- He is one of the few men of our history 2 who were returned to Congress the year and I am constrained to believe he owes that distinction to the training he got in youth under the tultelage of w. s. Burks, who kept school' at Gilmer and at Pitts burg, Texas, and at Lenden, La.
 About three-fourths of century ago Rev. Jesse P. Murrel, of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, established a school for both sexes on Blue Spring creek, Barren county, Ky, and it flour- ished for many years-until his death in fact, about the breaking out of the great war of 1S61-65. Mr. Murrell was not highly cultured man, but he was better "a natural born teacher He was sin cerc pous christian, loving God and virtue. Above all he had the talent in ex- uberant degree that enabled him to in- spire the student of either sex with en- thusiasm and a thirst for knowledge. Given that, and the pupil is already led ucated."
 Well, some time after the war somebody established normal school on like lines al Valparaiso, Ind, and it was phenom- enally successful. graduate of that in stitution, Professor Nell, went to Glas- gow. Ky, also in Barren county, and es- tablished a high school, at which w. s. Burlls, J. Tom Williams and A. l.. Pe- terman were educated. It was a large and fourishing institution, and if the mt a tbOrOiiob a Inc pupils were filled with enthusiasm and disciplined for the battle oA life. Great numbers of them became leaders of so- cety, political, commercial, industrial, social, wherever their lines were cast.
 w. S. Burks went to Texas and estab- lished a school first at Gilmer and later at Pittsburg, and he was very success full in fitting young men and women for the race of life set before them One of his pupils was Morris Sheppard, in whom he instilled thirst for knowledge. pas sion for labor and an ambition for dis tinction. Later the future congressman was graduated with high honors from Yale university. A debating society was most valuable feature of Murrelf S school as it was of Melfs and Burks'. And as was the case of the celebrated Ben Hardin, in such crude forensic dis putes men got training for the bar, the stump, and the parliament, just as the veterans who gained Waterloo were fitted for that bloody and desperate task on the campus of Eton or Harrow.
 Born in 1875, Morris Sheppard was elect ed to Congress in 1900. to fill out the un- expired term of his father John l.. Shep- pard, in the Fifty-seventh Congress. He was the youngest man in the body, and it was taken for granted that his cleo tion was more a tribute to his deceased father than to any special fitness that he possessed for such distinction. But the young man soon attracted attention for his wonderful command of language, and that enthusiastic optimism for which I am sure he is indebted to Professor Burks. Very small in stature, boyish in appearance, not larger than the late Sun set" Cox and not as tall as John Sharp Williams, the most ornate declaimer in Congress was frequently mistaken for page boy.
 Tammany Hall has one function which every political society would do well to adopt. It never fails to celebrate July 1, and ecery year Tammany makes requisi ton on the democratic side of the Ma tional House of Representatives for a squad of new members to appear in the " fpublics natal day and deliver themselves of democratic stump speeches. It was on such occasion that Champ Clark first at tracted public attention and he did it capitally. All during dog days of 1892 Tammany swore by the eloquent Mis- sourian. Ollie James subsequently, lighted the torch of democracy on the altars of Tammany, and he was voted same as Bourke Cochran, or John R. Fellows, or a little Samer.
 About ten years ago Morris Sheppard was drafted to go to New York July 4 and set Tammany afre, and neither Clark nor James, nor other young congressman from the provinces acquitted himself bet ter or gained greater triumph than this Texas boy. Now, whatever Tammany is, there is no doubt that it is judge of political oratory and 1t is the most diff cult thing in the world to astonish Tam many, but here was a boy with a vocab- ailary equal to Martin Littleton's and fiuency that even James T. Brady did not excel. He was barely 26 years of age, and yet he provoked tumut in the wig wan such as the oldest member did not recall.
 Do you remember Franchos, the Maitre alarms of the famous Picardy regiment of Napoleon's grand armee? He claimed that he would have been marsnal of France but for his diminutive size, ,.nd in a rage he used to exclaim: "There is Nitrate! Would he be marshal except for