The Winslow mail. (Winslow, Ariz.) 1893-1926, 1911-02-04
BY &, J. EDWARDS.

Roscoe Conkling, for IA years
years United States senator from
New York, and during that period one
on the leaders in the national councils
of the Republican party, died as the
result of exposure in the great New
York blizzard of 1888. Not until aft
er his funeral was over was the pub
lie aware that Mr. Conkling had been
much Weather than il had common
~ believed His law practice, once
resumed, had proved most profit
able; and yet, seven years before his
death, when he wanted to leave Wash
ington for New York, following his
resignation from the senate, he was
so poor that he actually had to borrow
the necessary car fare from Chamber
lain, the famous hotel and restaurant
man of the national capital.
Since the estate left by the former
senator had a value of several hun
dred thousand dollars, it became ne
cessary for the immediate members
of his family to seach as soon as prac-
ticable after his death for a will. It
w 90 ctuI OlAy Pt CSOhACu ChoJ MI
Conkling had left a will; he was a
man Of most methtdical habits, and
he surely knew that his estate was of
considerable value Yet, search
where they would, the family were
unable to locate any sign of a docu-
ton of the estate
"At last" said the late Col. Freder-
lex A. Conkling, the senator's broth
er, who also was very brilliant man
and for many years lawyer of con-
siderable note in New York state,
some one of the family happened to
remember shat we had not yet looked
into a small steel chest, or box, which
had belonged to Roscoe. This box
had a combination lock which bore
the letters of the alphabet instead of
numbers, and through the proper con-
junction of some of those letters the
box would open Yet nowhere were
we able to find a record of the com
bination
cit was deemed expedient to break
the lock, or tamper in any way with
the box itself, SO the only thing to do
was to attempt to work out the com
binatiOn. If I remember correctly. we
first tried the combination of letters
that spell the word Grant Roscoe,
you know, was a great Grant admirer,
and we felt he might have taken that
name as his combination But we
were wrong
Then word after word we tried
Roscoe was one, Conkling was an
other, Utica, where the senator lived,
was third. All the family names
were called into use one after an
other. Still no encouragement
lutely none-and we were about
ready to make up our minds to break
the lock, after all, when one of the
ladies present offered a suggestion.
"'Uncle, she said, was very fond
of the word Rome. Don't all of you
remember how he used to roll it out
with great delight in that deep, rich
voice of his? | have heard him say
it thus many and many a time'-and
she gave a fair imitation of the way
Roscoe used to pronounce the word.
And she went on, I have heard
Uncle say, oh, so many times, that he
thought in the word Rome was to be
found the finest combination of VOW
els and consonants in any word in the
English language. | am sure he took
the word Rome that he was so fond
of for the combination. Try it, please
AT once we adopted the suggestion
As the letter r. was found there came
faint click from the lock Care
fully, we turned to % and another
click resulted. An appeal to m pro
duced like result, and when finally
the last letter of the word that Roscoe
had delighted in saying was indicated
behold the lock yielded, the little
steel box opened and lying along with
in it was the will we had been search
ing for so long"
Also on the authority of Col, Fred
erick Conkling, I am able to state
that his distinguished brothers
achievements as an orator and as
great master of the English tongue
were due as much to intense applica-
ton as to native gifts Colonel Conk
ling had an intimate knowledge of his
brothers methods. and on this knowl
edge he based his statement.
copyright, 1910, by E J. Edwards All
Rights Reserved)