The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-17
AN ANECDOTE AND A REFLECTION
By sAvoxARD

Washington, August .--tspeeial.l-I vas sitting in the Willard hotel lobby the ether night with a friend, watching the pretty women entering or leaving the cor ridor that separates tic two main dining rooms and is called ..Alinony Row when Nathan Bay Scott, former senator from West Virginia, passed by and my friend related an aneedote Of him that was 'ex ceedingly pleasing and ought to have wide circulation. and it heightens the satisfaction to know that an old confed- crate soldier was the author of the mar rative.
 Scott was federal soldier and was cap- tuied in some battle or skrmish by the eremy. He was under guard, and on the Way to prison, when he fell into conversa- tion with the sergeant who had him par ticulsrly in charge Scott was a boy and argued withhs captor that his inprison- ment meant little to the sergeant, but everything to him, as he was satisfied he would die in confinement, for Grant had refused to exchange prisoners He was yer. earnest in his pleading. and wrought pow erfully on the synlpathies of his
 
 msn, do you see that thicket just ahead of us that comes clear up to the road?' Scott said he did Then the sergeant significantly remarked, "1 don't sec, it." Scott took the hint. plunged into the tbicllet and escaped.
 Many years later after Scott had &C., qGlred large fortune, he learned that his preserver, a farmer of North Caro- lima, was in hard lines, deeply in debt, and making a progress through a pro- cee6lng in insolvency that would leave him absolutely penniless Scott took measures to pay his every debt, princ- pal. interest and cost, leaving his farm free of incumbrance, and he gave that an handsome annuity until the day of his death.
 It takes much of man to- do that. GrstitGde is as rare virtue as it is noble, and it is also pleasant to know that Scott's long time colleague, Stephen E. Elkins had as much of it as Scott himself, as witness his efforts in behalf or the Younger outlaws who saved ElNins S life during the war that was worse and more than hell. in Missouri
 It is written: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. and satan came also among them. Thus it is re- corded in the book Of Job, and it is fre- ouently illustrated in our own times. For example, the proposed amendment to the federal constitution providing for popular elections of senators was so distorted by he pf pf { a rl Of S as to render it hopeless of ratification, be- cause as amended many of the southern states will refuse to ratify 1t. MT. Clarke was the single democrat in the Senate who was willing to augment federal power and give.Congress supervision of elections O. United States senators in the states.
 And then Mir Joseph W. Bailey. by his vote In the Senate August l. defeated the froe-lst bill of the democratic House. Hs was the sole democrat so voting, and through his effort in this behalf the monopoly of the beef trust will be perpet- cated unless the two houses shall come tt agreement on free meats. Mir. Bailey tells us that he is working in the inter- est of the farmer when he joins the stand pat republicans in their efforts to main tain. dear food The fact k that nobody but the lumber trust and the paper trust opposed Canadian reciprocity: but these two monopolies were shrewd enough to persuade some farmers and near-farmers that to open wider market to American farm products would work an injury to the American farmer. They fooled few, but they were not able to fool enough
 Free meats admitted to our markets would injure nobody but the meat trust On the other hand. it would benefit every body else The meat trust is the only buyer of fat cattle. sheep, lambs. calves sno hogs. It fixes the prices of all these and l have not doubt that the cattle companies are, most of them, annexes of the beef trust. Thus as a cattle feeder the beef trust can afford to depress the price of its own live stock to the end that it ada millions to the profits of it's own slaughter houses.
 It is the Credit -Moblier over again. The directors of the Pacific railroads became