South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-01-07
Statesmen Real
and Near.
By Fred c. Kelly

WASHINGTON, Jan. After 90
years OF close association with CALI
skins, and making a fortune at IT,
while becoming the biggest dealer in
raw calfskins in the world, Sen. Car
roll $. Page of Vermont sees no rea-
son why he should not handle his
senatorial mail in much the same
manner that he would caifskinS.
If a carefully worked out system of
sorting and classifying skins has
proved it worth in the calfskin trade,
Page asks himself. why should one
look any further than that for sys-
tenn of sitting and grading the morn
ing mail?
Letters are of various kinds. So
are calfskins. That is enough for
Page. When he reaches his office in
the morning he gets into his mental
Overalls. as you might say, and starts
opening his mail, sorting it as he
goes. With his little pencil he marks
each letter just as if it were a calf
hide. Each mark indicates the way
the letter is to be handled. Those
marked with a 2-plus are to have the
answers dictated and signed by Page
himself. Another mark means that
the letter must be answered imme-
diately. Still another sign indicates
that the answers are to be prepared
by a secretary, but signed by the SEN
ator So runs the system Page has
trifle more grades and subdivisions
for his hides than he does for his
letters, but the plan is the same.
The scheme works out we'll, too.
Other senators are crude correspond
ents compared with Page-simply be-
cause they lack his 90 years ex-
perience at devising the best way
to handle such everyday articles as
letters and skins.
Right offhand Carroll S Page is
the only person we can think of who
ever put a village on the map twice
in succession.
Page comes from Hyde Park, VT
Altogether Hyde Park numbers about
$50 souls, including babes in arms,
transients and dogs. 1t is a nice
little village; yet, if it We're not for
Carroll S. Page, Hyde Park would
be just like thousands of other nice
little villages, nothing more than a
slight irritation on the map
When Pages calfskin business at
Hyde Park came To be known as the
/ biggest enterprise of its kind in the
explored world. his fellow townsmen
were proud of him and of themselves.
The thing gave them standing. They
were in the superlative class. Page
had put them there.
i
having definitely affixed his native
town to the aliases. might have sat
back on his launches and let mat
ters rest.
But Page gathered himself togeth-
/ er one fine day and started a bank.
\ 1t was a little bank at first. but il
I grew. Today it has deposits of more
than two and One-half millions of
/ dollars. Bankers declare that it is
| the biggest bank in the world for the
/ size of the town in which il is located.
| Thus twice superlative is Hyde
/ Park. VT And Page did it,
/ One cannot easily reconcile Page S
| appearance with the fact that for
many years he stood in a wareh ouse
! all day long in his old clothes toss
\ ing soiled hides about him. He is
\ about the most spick and span sena-
/ tor we have. In a crowd he would
I be taken for a professor of botany.
Franklin X. Lane. secretary of the
I interior. never eats cooked food at
noon. one day as the lunch hour APP
7 preached he paused. patted the arms
of his chair with his palms, and re-
marked:
- have just been noticing the
SQUIRRELS up in the park by the white
/ house. They eat little but nuts and
they are as lively all the day long
and apparently in as full possession
I o. their faculties as any creatures I
/ have seen. / wonder why nuts
wouldn't be a good thing for me-"
/ lie sent out for a big sack OF as
sortet nuts and ate them. For a week
after that and every little while since
then shower Of nuts has comprised
Lanes luncheon.