Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1912-03-28

turesque personality was known to
perhaps 100000 voters. He knew Moth
ms about the smart politicians up at
the Copeland hotel. who talked in
whispers and elected senator's behind
locked doors. PETER was as surprised
at his own election as the smart poll
tictans We're. In the Memoirs which he
is writing he has this to say. about his
election to the Senate:
ny election to the United States
Senate created Il great deal of excite
ment. not only in Kansas. but in all
parts of the country. Mr.. Ingalls,. II
gentleman of learning and refinement,
a scholar and an orator of great force,
who had represented Kansas in the
Senate Is years-to be defeated by a
man without any of these accomplish-
ments seems incredible. And the news
paper treated at from \ to u. The Sit
uatlon was so uncommon. so unreal
sonable. that the cartoonists took it up.
and used my beard as an emblem OF the
populfst party.
The first days meeting of the two
houses of the Legislature in joint con-
ventlon made 1t clear that a large ma
Jorlty of the body favored my election.
ana the senators (republican) agreed
among themselves after adjournment
that they would not meet the next day
with the house and i'm that way would
defeat my election. But it 50 happened
mat an eminent lawyer. a republican.
100. and an honest man. was in the city,
n learning of the senator's resolu-
tion, kindly brought me Il book which
treated OF such cases and left ii with
me. looked up the case which fitted
our sltuatlon exactly. and wrote a let
ter to the editor OF the Daily Capital.
expecting he would insert a paragraph
calming attention to the case. but he
did better than that. He had the letter
printed just as l wrote il. The %nators
attended like little men and answered
as their names We're called and when
49,"
Thus. perhaps for the first time i'm
1he history OF the state, there was a
gulleless senatorial election in Kansas.
and a man was sent to the Senate
whose campaign for the Office had been
wholly unconscious. The office had
sought the mar at last. 1t was an
ironical thing that i'm accomplishing
the result there had been banished
from public life the brilliant Ingalls,.
Many stories have been told to illus
trate the simple honesty of PETER, his
keen conscientiousness. After he re-
tired from the Senate he lived in
Washington for many years. There he
conceived the idea of compiling an in
deX to the Congressional Record. He
wrote a number of senators about his
project, among them Senator Galliger,
of New Hampshire. The senators be-
lleVed the idea an excellent one. PETER
thought he could do the work in two
years. and a compensation of IS 1000
was agreed O n 1t took PETER seven
years to complete the work and he was
compelled to examine more than AGO.
600 pages of debates to accomplish it.
For seven years he walked to the con-
gressional library i'm Washington every
morning at 9 o'clock and until 6
o'clock i'm the evening pored over the
voluminous records that congress has
made in more THAI 100 years of it's
%istence. Time and again Gallinger and
other senators insisted that PETER ac-
cept more than the $4,000 originally
agreed on for the work. Blu PETER
was Obdurate.
"The job was worth a lot more than
l got for it," Peffer said this week, but
$4,000 was all l was entitled to. Tha
was the agreement / made. and / would
have carried it out if it had taken 30
years."
Ex-senator Peffer told for the. first
time of the only attempt that was made
to bride him while a member of the
Senate.
One evening at a night session the
clerk of a New York senator came to
me and said he would like to speak to
me privately. and we went out INTO the
marble room. He led me into the
shadow of N of the great columns,
anu L SueSSeO WHAT alleu nun. INOW,
he said, o know | wouldn't ask you
to do anything wrong There was Il
railroad bill pending that l was oppos-
ing, and the senator whose clerk he was
was u railroad man, and a very rich
one. Isn't there some way you could
be persuaded to withdraw your objec-
ton to that bill? Is there no induce
ment" No. l said. and started away.
Then he called me back and he made
it clear to me that it would be worth
anywhere from $4,000 to $15,0 00 to me
to look at the matter right ! have
never been able to decide yet whether
did right in not exposing that boy,
but l concluded to let it go. l decided
that he was subject to the orders of
his employer. and that he had to do as
he dictated. n that anything I might
say about ii probably would be mis-
time during my service i'm the Senate
that / was offered an outright bride"
The beard made famous by the car
toonists, and which the ex-senator
wears today. has been growing without
Interruption since 1867. 1t is sparser
now hat it was in the laws when it
was calicatured upon the front pages
of nearly every newspaper in the
United States. and it is streaked With
gray.
There is a story in connection with
my beard that has never been told in
all of the hundreds of newspaper arti-
cles that have been written about it,"
ex-senator Peffer. said. Il was reared
on Il farm, and the farmers all shaved
themselves. One day on our farm Town
in Tennessee l was shaving myself, and
Mrs. PETER was a spectator. The razor
was not very sharp, and it pulled my
beard. and Mrs. PETER suggested that
I cut off my whiskers. So we decided
to have Il vote on the subject, and the