Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-02-27
A Curtin Statue In the Park

of the soldiers effective in the cam
paign. The election was held early
in October, a period favorable for
military operations and few soldiers
! had an opportunity to be furloughed
| home in order to vote. The others
were disfranchised. MacVeagh got
in touch with every Democratic fam
| that was imm ediately represented
in the field and there were thousands
| or soldiers, officers and privates, who
needed no special appeal to make
them take up the cause of the Sol
diers' Friend in the contest. In their
midst, around the campfire, the uues-
ton was discussed by the Pennsyl-
Vania soldiers and according to Colo
mel Mcclure, three-fourths of them
sent home the most urgent appeals
to their fathers, brothers and friends
10 vote TO sustain the patriotic and
! phllanthropic Governor as a matter
of duty in support of the soldiers
cause. The result, he says. was a
| mute but omnipotent expression
from the men in the field that turned
/ the scales and made PENNSYLVANIA,
with not less than 10000 majority of
( democratic voters at the polls, re-
elect Curtin by over 5000 majority.
( George w. Wood ward. of Luzerne,
/ then an associate Justice and after
! ward Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court was Curtin's Democratic op-
| ponent in that election.
| Curtin's early stand for the preser-
/ walton of the Union. made AZ the
/ very outset of his first administration
in his inaugural address, was an in
, spiration to the loyal citizenship of
the country.
] There is but one statue in what
, may ultimately become Pennsylva-
MAS hall of fame. the rotunda under
the dome of the State Capitol.
1t is that of Matthew Stanley
/ Quay. who owed his advent into po-
litical life to Andrew Gregg Curtin.
! Tt was while Curtin was Secretary
of the Commonwealth under Govern
! or James Pollock. with Colonel A.
| K. Mcclure, serving at the same
time as State Superintendent of Pub
lie Printing. that vacancy occurred
in the prothonotaryship of Beaver
county.
Rev. NJ. Quay, Presbyterian min
lister, who had moved from Dills-
burg, York county, Pa, and Curtin
were good friends. He wanted his
Beaver county Prothonotaryship.
! Curtin took the matter up with the
| Governor, who, it is said, having a
| prediction for the Presbyterian
church, soon made the appointm ent.
! Young Quay forged TO the front in
| Republican politics in his home dis
trict and displayed ability in leader
ship to remarkable degree. When
Curtin succeeded to the Governor
ship he made Quay his private sec
retary. Later he appointed him to
! a colonelship of a Pennsylvania regi-
ment, and afterwards he made him
military agent at washington. d. c.,
1t was at the battle of Fredericks-
burg that Quay Avon the medal of
honor awarded him by act of Con-
gress for bravery in action.
The bitterness engendered in the
contest over the United States Sena-
torship almost blocked the plans of
admirers of the Beaver statesman to
have a statue of him placed in the
Capitol. Even after the Legislature
had passed an act creating a COM
mission to erect the memorial and a
fine marble statue of Colonel Quay
, was completed. it was kept for two
years in a box in the cellar of the
Capitol, much to the disgust of his
friends. 1t was not until the succeed
ing Legislature passed an act making
| it mandatory for the erection of the
statue that 1t was placed where it
now stauds, in a niche on the left of
the main stairway. There were ap-
propriate ceremonies at the unveiling
at which David III. Lane officiated
as chairman of the commission
which was named to erect the statue.
Should Curtin's statue be paced in
the vacant niche on the other side OF
the stairway, in the Capitol there
would be a linking of two personali-
ties that will ever figure prominently
in the history of tho Keystone State.
Curtin whose father came from
Ireland, and settled in Center county
was graduated in the Dickinson Law
School in 1887 and two years later
was admitted to the bar. He early
showed an aptitude for politics and
was first a Whig and then Republi-
can. He was State Chairman of the
Whig party in 1854. He filed the Of
fee of Secretary of the Common
wealth from 1866 to 1858, and in
1861, succeeded William Fisher
Packer as Governor. which office he
held for six years.
President Grant appointed him to