South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-02-18
Statesmen Real
and Near.
By Fred c. Kelly

/ WASHINGTON, F-eb. 1S.-Nearly
everybody has a great unfulflled am
bition. James G. Blaine and Thomas
y. Reed each died embittered because
he could not be president William
II. Taft got to be president, but he
would like 10 be chief justice of the
supreme court. Franklin X. Lane is
/ a member of the cabinet but his real
ambition is to mother a little apple
orchard on an 1S-acre fruit farm out
in California.
Now. if one were 10 glance at the
whisker-sheltered features of Rep.
| William l. Humphrey of Washing
| ton one would see easily enough that
/ Humphrey has not yet achieved his
/ LIES desire. He wears a thoughtful,
! retrospective, pTeOccupied. half-wOr-
/ ried expression as If Forever trying to
recall where he had left an umbrella.
The I 'ason for this is that Hum
phr@y Yer is able to pry himself
en- rel apart from his one big, un-
gratine, ambition. There is a certain
thing that he desires TO do. Until he
does ii ne will not be a happy man.
He crOOns over his ambition by day
and dreams of it by night. Many of
/ the books in Humphreys library re-
late to things intimately associated
/ with his great desire.
And what is it that Humphrey
/ yearns to do?
Why, he wants to shoot an ele-
plant. There-you have his am
bition all in a nutshell. Just that.
For years Humphrey has done big
game hunting in various parts of the
| United States and Canada He pos
/ sesses much skill at bagging such
fauna as this continent affords. But
4 - II
! field and forest has Humphrey
stumbled on a clump of elephants. If
by chance he ever does, and is prop
erly armed. he will know exactly how
to proceed, for he has read every
thing pertaining to elephant hunting
that the libraries have TO offer. He
! has studiOusly gone through the
African book of Theodore Roosevelt
over and over again, and the more
| he reads of other men shooting ele-
| plants the more disconnected and
dissatisfied he becomes with his own
| lot. Every so often Humphrey goes
! out to the zoo and stares at the ele-
/ plants displayed there. After each
/ of these trips he is particularly
mOrose for many days.
Unless he comes face to face with
/ wild. unfettered elephant in it's ma
4 tive haunts before he dies, Hum
| phrey's life will have been in vain.
Young Pat Harrison, congressman
! from Gulfport, Miss, went to Boston
while ago and delivered a speech.
! Having an engaging personality and
a good quality of language at his dis
posal Harrison made a hit with the
! BOstOnese. Time went on and the
Hobson prohibition resolution came
up for consideration Harrison
/ planned to vote in favor of national
/ prohibition. Some of his Boston
/ friends heard of this and were deep
/ ly panied, for they CHANGED not to be
\ prohibitionists. One of them wrote
to Harrison, telling him frankly:
! IF you vote for prohibition you can
never make another speech in Bos-
/ ton"
THE difficulty is" Harrison wrote
\ back, that If I fail to vote for it 1
/ fear l can never make another speech
in Gulfport. Miss"
Z. Lester Jones, the United States
| governments deputy commissioner
/ originality. And he was never more
original than when he set out a while
ago to rid his back fence and neigh
/ boring alleys Of night-yOwling cats
For some reason the laws of the Dis
trict Of Columbia are unusually strict
regarding all other domestic animals,
and unusually optimistic with refer
ence 20 cats. No matter how mild
The dog it must be muzzled or on
leash the year around There is even
an ordinance against the cooling of
doves in the district. But cats may
make the night hideous with their
UncOuth conversation, and those
whose sleep is disrupted have no re-
dress-as we Ourself have had Occa-
sion to learn.
When +. Lester Jones came to
! Washington TO live he found that
sleep in the night season was prac-
ucally out of the question, owing to
the cat caucuses at various points
within sound range OF his bedroom
window.
All hal calculated +. Lester. IF
cats are so popular here l, too. shall
keep q cat"
And he does keep a cat. only his
cat is different. He got himself a
wildcat. IL was a wee kitten wildcat
when Jones first brought it home and
il grew up SO tame that il has the
run of the house and acts as pet for
Jones little girl. But with all its
tameness it has an innate and violent
prejudice against all other cats
Whenever Jones hears too many un-
toward cat noises outside he simply
turns loose his household pet In a
few moments the cat noises suddenly
increase in volume and vehemence
but Immediately thereafter they cease
entirely. \ little later Jones wild
cat comes scratching at the door with
little wiSpS of fur about its face in
addition 20 its own fur
Then both Jones and his wildcat lie
down 10 peaceful Slumber.