The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-13
Senator Smith
 Titanic Inquisitor

Grand Rapids Is peeved. And Grand Rapids has a perfect right to be peev- cd. Al everybody on this side of the pond knows, Grand Rapids is the metropolis of western Michigan, the center of the American furniture manufacturing industry. 8 busy. bust ling blase city with a population of 1la.571 souls. paved streets. silk hats. rapid transit. full dress suits, excel lent daily newspapers, metropolitan police and fire departments, stiff col- lars, oltyscrapern and numerous brick apartment houses furnished with gas, electricity, sanitary plumbing and both kinds of water, cool and cold. In short. Grand Raplds iA a real city with all modern conveniences. Now imagine you are @ Grand Rapidsian, and how would you like to have your leading and most important citizen, a United States Senator, a legal lumi- nary and a distinguished journalist, ignorant iandlubbsr." " an uncultured farmer" "a lawmaker. from the rural dietrtcto," and other names indicating that Grand Rapids is the merest cross rosds bucolic village or a trading post for Injtns and "backwoodsmen"? :? H1w would you like 1t. ask yef
 
 peeved at the aspersions cast by the Engli4h press--or q portion Of it-on, At and in the general direction of Will liam Alden Smith, United States Sena- tor from Michigan, who headed the Senate Subcommittee that conducted the inQuiry-"American inQuisttion.'' the London saturday Heview called 1t inQuisitor'' will celebrate his Afty- third birthday tomorrow. having been born at DewAgfc, Mich, May 12 1859.
 Mr. Smith of Mfch1Gan-to distin- guish him from the numerous other 6miths in the United States Senate. . number of recently increased by the addition of Marcus Aurelius Smith Michigan Smith might be the hero of an Oliver Optic or Horatio Alger tale. entitled, From NewSboy to Senator" Some biographers say indeed. that Mir. Smith started life az a bootblack, but if he was ever a shine" artist the ficial life story. It was forty years ago that the Smiths moved to Grand Rapids and little Willie began his newspaper career. At first he sold papers on the .streets, adding to his income from that source by acting as . messenger boy for the local teie-
 
 dollars necessary as a deposit to achieve his ambition of becoming a train boy. Tn the capacity of butcher he travelled about the State, and his politeness and courtesy, somewhat un- usual in a train boy, won him ir- fluential friends. Those secured for him an appointment as pese in the Michigan House of Representatives. Having no money the youngster had . difficult time in getting to Lansing. the State capital, but after having been put off the same train three times the conductor gave in and per- mitted him to ride.
 Association with the wise lawyers at aroused in wound Smith a desire to become an attorney and eventually, perhaps, member of the Assembly,! By hint of hard study he secured legal education and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1883. Later he became president and principal stock holder of the Grand Rapids Herald, and in 1895 was elected to Congress. He served in the House continually from the Fffty.fourth to the Sixtieth Con- eresses, end in 1907 moved to the Senate to fill out the unexpired term of the late Russell A. Alger. His present term expires on March 8 next.