South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-03-15
Statesmen Real
and Near.
By Fred c. Kelly

WASHINGTON March 15.-Sec'y
of War Garrison sat at a dinner table
the other day conversing with Com
gresham julius Kahn of California.
The talk turned to the days when
Kahn was an actor.
You know" laughed the secretary
of war, Il was on the stage at one
time myself. During the year I served
at Harvard-back in 'S2-I used to
make spending money by serving,
along with a number of classmates. as
supe' at various Boston theaters L
appeared several times as a Roman
soldier. and 1 was part of the mob on
hand when Julius Caesar was killed.
Once I had a part that required bit
Of makeup. 1t was in a production
headed by the older Salvini, and they
took me into the dressing room of
regular actor who made me up. I
never have experienced such a thrill
of pride as / felt when L occupied that
dressing room with sure enough
actor. We had a good heart-to- heart
talk, / remember. and he said there
was nothing to the life on the stage.
He told me he intended to retire from
the profession"
Now that you mention it," spoke
up Kahn. Il recall that same CONVEX
sation, very we'll For 1 was that ac-
tor"
When the late Justice Harlan was
on the United States supreme court
bench there was a newspaper man in
Washington who was usually able TO
forecast the supreme court decisions
with remarkable accuracy.
He would have been even more ac-
curate in his surmises, except that
he first guessed what Harlan would
decide and took that to be the opinion
OF the supreme court. This made
his forecasts wrong about half the
time, for Harlan did not always agree
with his associates. He was the Great
Dissenter.
Harlan was lecturer at a law school
in Washington at that time, and the
newspaper man referred TO was study
ing law. Now Harlan had a habit Of
using whatever important case that
he had just been deciding to illustrate
points that came up before his law
class. He would cite a hypothetical
case, trace ii out showing the items
that might be subject TO dispute, and
give his opinion of the proper view TO
take.
one day the newspaper man noted
the striking similarity between case
OF national interest decided by the
supreme court and a hypothetical case
of \ versus Is discussed by Harlan
at the law school.
After that. by keeping tab Of the
cases being considered by the SUI
preme court and paying close heed
10 Harlans lectures. he was able to
do line OF forecasting that was a
mystery 20 his associates for many
months
Because he has a solemn face,
learnedly scanned. Sen. Burton is com
monty supposed 10 have no sense of
humor This is entirely erroneous
Burton has a way OF extracting humOr
our OF situation. Ii is a dry kind
OF humOr. but humor nevertheless. |
For example. when he was getting to-
gether the material for his all night
speech against the ship purchase bill |
n while ago. Burton had on hand !
enough documents from the congress |
sional library 10 have cooked up a I
speech lasting a fortnight. While al
his office engaged in sorting out this /
mass OF material Button picked up n |
book that looked older and duller and 1
carried finer print than any OF the /
others.
"Ah." said the senator. turning 10 |
a friend who was waiting on him.