El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-01-05
STEPHEN ELKINS,
STATESMAN, DIES
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Continued from page one.1
of president Harrison's administration.
In February, 1894. Elkins was elected
to the United States senate to succeed
Johnson n Camden, and reelected IN
1901 by the unanimous vote of the Re-
publican members Of the legislature. re-
ceiving a majority of 40 on4oint bal
lot. Again he was unanimously re-
elected in 1907.
Elkins served IN the Union my He
was married June 10. 1866. No, saliie
Jacobs. and in 1875 married HALLE Da-
Wis. daughter OF senator Henry G. Davis
of West Virginia His daughter. Miss
Katherine, has acquired considerable
prominence because of the report at
various times that she was engaged to
the duke of Abruzzi. the noted Italian
naval commander and explorer
Carpenters Opinion.
Writing in 1892. Frank G. Carpenter
said of EIkins:
"One of the biggest, broadcast and
brainiest men at Washington is Stephen
B. EIkins. the new secretary of war. He
is known TO the world as business
man, and as a politician, but he is really
a man of broad views, great culture and
remarkable ability. He is one of the
best takers IL Washington, is an elo-
QuGDL speaker, and MS business sense
is such that at so ne is prospectively
one of the richest men in the United
States he ewns hundreds of thous-
ands of acres of valuable land in New
Mexico and elsewhere. He is interested
in mines. railroads and other things in
the far. west and the estate which he
and his fatherinlaT, ex-senator Henry
G. Davis. own in West Virginia, is a
principality in itself. They have in
that state hundreds of thousands of
acres of fine timber land thousands
and thousands of acres of great beds OF
coal, and they. build their own railroads
and ship their coal and coke over these
by the hundreds of thousands of tons
every year to the markets of the
world They have in constant employ
in their West Virginia property nearly
5000 men, and the NUMBER or their en-
p1oyes is increasing every year.
EIkins Never Used Slang.
HE never uses slang or profanity,
and he once told me that he had never
in all his life uttered a word that he
would be ashamed to repeat in the
presence of the Durest woman he knew.
There is nothing snobbish or sancti-
mcnious. however, in his talk. He is
perfectly frank and open. He is as
outspoken as a boy, and he makes me
think more than anything else of a
good boy grown up He is a man Of
wide reading and classical training He
entered the University of Missouri at
IA, and graduated at Is. and he has
been a student all his life. He had for
q time the college boys ideas of mans
mission in the world. and thought that
STUDY and rea6sng was the chief end
of men. He get over this, however.
when he Jumped into active life in his
law practice in New Mexico, and found
that brains and force were exerted with
great effect without the aid of Greek
or Latin.
You were in the army during the
war. Mr.. Elkins. l said
Yes replied the secretary of war
I was only a boy and I had Just got
through school, but I was made the
captain of militia company and
served under Gen. Tom Ewing. The
Fl lighting about the region OF my home
was in many respects as terrible as IN
any part of the union. The soldiers of
both north and south ravaged the coun-
try and bushwhackers got their work
in between whites. Families were df-
vided. Ny father and mother sympa-
thized with the south, and my father
and some OF my brothers were in the
southern army. don't know why I
went with the north, but I had an intui-
ton that the union ought not to be de-
stroyed, and though the pressure of my
family was all for the south 1 could
not help it
You tried to have New Mexico ad.
mitted as a state while you were in
congress. did you not? .
Yes replied Mr.. Elkins, and
came very near succeeding. 1 had an |
ambition to go to the senate at that
time. and If it could have been ad-
nitted I would, suppose, have been |
elected as one of its senator's. My |
first speech in congress was for its |
admission and at the close Of it the !