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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 1908)
THE SUNDAY OREGON'IAN, PORTLAND, JANUARY 5, I90S. m CMPPi "Sa&rf'St-. km' a? 3k r BY JOHN EI.FKETH WATKINS. O THE most hopeless youth now ut tering his peremiari from wilderness or slum there is a note of encour agement In ur.y of these life-stories of a dozen boys who. against the obstacles of poverty anil affliction, have won their way to the new Congress. Among the new legislators of this 60th ConeresF now that we have had time to get acquainted with them are to be found 12 men of the good, old-fashioned, self-made category who began at the lowest rung of the ladder and worked their way up by pluck alone, without ever u booat or a pull. Blind Backwoodsman's Climb to Senate. Most phenomenal of all of these feats of self-advancement is that which has just been accomplished by T. P. Gore, new Senator from the new Slate of Okla homa. Thontch born in poverty and to tally blind since boyhood, he was sworn in as I'nlted Stales Senator the other day at the age of ."6. He was born in the backwoods of Mis Issippi. and at the age of 8 he lost his left eye. which was accidently struck "by a stick In the hands of a playmate. This was calamity .enough for any lad. only half of what fate had in store for him. Three years later an arrow shot from the cross-bow' of another playmate blinded the other eye. The lad was then a pafie in the Mississippi Senate. He was now totally blind and had to go back home. I'ntil lie was 16 his diversion was to Bear his mother and sister read. In the Autumn of his 16th year a normal school was opened at his home town. He persuaded his father to allow him to at tend. The father urged him to go to an institution for the blind, but the young man declined, preferring to take his chances with his playfellows. At the normal school he always stood in the forefront of his classes. Kvery Monday night. In a moot Senate organised by the students, he debated the political prob lems of the day. His career as a page In the State Senate had aroused legisla tive ambitions. In the moot Senate he debated according to the rules of the United States Senate. He won the repu tation of a fiery orator, and one of his classmates says that on one occasion his oratory precipitated a ''dissolution of parliament." , "The truth is. I think he has been a candidate for the V. S. Senate from that time." says this friend. "1 spent many hours reading the Congressional Record to him." His graduating ad dress, on the race problem, was so fa vorably received that his neighbors boomed him as a delegate to the ap proaching constitutional convention, but bcins 19 he was disqualified. He now became schoolmaster, and after a couple of years was nominated for the legislature, but had to decline the nomination because not yet 21. The same year lie entered the law depart ment of Cumberland University, from which lie was graduated in 1892. Three years later he moved to Texas, and three years later still received there a nomination to Congress on the' Popu list ticket, but was defeated. In 18S9 he. became a Democrat, and two years later went to Oklahoma, where he has since made fiery speeches in every cam paign waged in that territory, now be come a state. He has held more than 140 joint debates In which he has dis puted with United States Senators, United States representatives. Gover nors and Attorneys-Genera!. Just be fore the Christmas adjournment of the Senate he and his colleague. Sena tor Owen, drew lots for the three pos sible terms in the Senate open to them r. V 1' terms ending in 1909 1911 and 1913, i respectively. The blind Senator drew firsthand pulled from the box the slip marked "1909," while Senator Owen drew that marked "1913." Senator Gore was not so disappointed as his faithful brown-eyed wife, who leads him to and from the Senate daily. Was a Coal Mine Boy at Eight. Krom a coal mine boy at S to Con gressman at 45, was the climb made in a generation by William Bauchop Wil son, now Representative from the Will lamsport district of Pennsylvania. He was born in Blantyre, Scotland,' April 2, 1862. When he was 8 an Immigrant ship brought him and his parents to America, and they settled in the coal district in Tioga County. Pennsylvania, At once the lad got a Job in the mines, shoveling onto the coal cars the coal that his father dug: His father, of that marked type the "argumentative Scotchman" became an invalid within the next year, but retained his men tal vigor. As a means of diversion he organized a debating circle, and it was the duty of the future Congressman, when only 10, to act as his father's prompter. When 11 the boy became a half member of the mineworkers' union, and when 14 he organized a de bating society of his own, which met weekly In a cobbler's shop. Into a "question box" members dropped In slips of paper containing such ques tions as puzzled him. The slips were drawn out at regular intervals and the question of greatest moment was made the subject of debate at the next meet ing. The cobbler's shop being torn down, the club met at a corner where five of the roads meeting in the village came to gether. Some prophetic spirit inspired the youthful debaters to dub this forum, "Congress Corners," a name retained to this day. Becoming blacklisted, he says, because of "pernicious activity" in the union. Mr. Wilson had to leave the mines and seek work in the West. This was in the first year of his married life, and it almost broke his heart to leave his bride at home for the time. He dug ditches, worked as a farm hand, in a saw mill, and as a pikeman in a lumber camp. Fre quently while trying to balance himself upon the floating logs he would tumble neck deep in the water. But throughout his young manhood he took a deep in terest in trade union affairs and at 28 helped form the United Mine Workers of America, of which he has been, since 1900. international secretary-treasurer and the right-hand man of John Mitchell. The wife who hopefully waited for him to make his new beginnings In the West has since borne him ten children. - the eldest, a daughter, now acting as his secretary. A Breaker Boy at Nine. Krom a "breaker boy" at 9. a similar rise was made by Thomas D. Xicholls. new member from the Scranton and Wilkesbarre district of the Keystone state. He had attended day school until starting to work In the mines, after which he went to night school for several Winters. Before he was 10 he had be come a slate picker, but at 12 began work inside the mines, where he was engaged in various occupations until May, 1900. While digging for a living underground he studied the science of mining in a cor respondence school, which course enabled him when 27 to pass the state examina tion and obtain a mine foreman's cer-. tifk-Rte. Since 1899. when he was but 29, he has been district president of the United Workers of America, and is re- garded as one of the best educated of Its officials. He is now fcut 37. From cashboy to Congress was the j hard climb of William J. Carey, now J member from Milwaukee. At 13 he was left an orphan with four younger sisters j and a younger brother who. were placed j in an orphan asylum when he got his j first position in a department store. Two j years later he became a telegraph mes- J senger boy but within a few months J learned to handle the key so well that the company promoted him to operator. Within a year he saved enough money to take his sisters and brother out of the orphan asylum and give them a home. Mr. Carey remained a telegraph oper ator until 35 when he was ejected Alder man. After serving two terms in this office he ran 3000 ahead of his ticket for Sheriff and was nominated for the pres ent Congress before finishing bis term in this county office. Two Others Began In Telegraphy. As a messenger boy, James T. McDer mott, new member from Chicago, began his career. He was then living In Detroit. But, like Representative Carey, he was not of the dime-novel reading kind of telegraph Mercury. Between deliveries he soon learned the code and when 17 was working as a skilled operator. He was now transferred to Chicago where until his election to this Congress he handled the key not only for the tele graph companies, but for several newspa pers and finally for one of the large pack ing concerns In the stockyards. Telegraphy was the first stepping stone also in the Congressward career of George W. Cook, of Denver, now Repre sentativerehsct from Colorado. He learned the use of the key at the age of 11 but when 12, at the outbreak of the Civil War. he ran away from home and en listed as drummer boy to the Indiana regiments in the Army of the Cumber land. He thus served until the last eight months of the war, when he became chief regimental clerk. He was then but 14 and the youngest boy to thus serve in the history ot the Army. After the war he went to school and having received an academic education began railroading in Chicago when 21. He rose to be general agent of the Monon system before he was 30 and when 36 was division super intendent of the Denver & Rio Grande and Denver & South Park divisions of the Union Pacific. He then served two terms as Mayor of Leadville and went into mining. Two years ago he was elected senior vice-commander-in-chlef of the Grand Army of the Republic. Were Office Boy, Carpenter and Printer's Devil. Charles a Carlin. who comes from the Alexandria. Va.. district, began as an office boy but later went to work for a telephone company and became superin tendent of construction. Having ambi tions to become a professional man. however, he studied law at night,, while erecting telephone lines by day and since practicing law has served four years as postmaster of Alexandria. He Is 41 years oKV Plough-boy and mine-boy were the first two rungs of the ladder of success climbed by the bare feet of Samuel Mc Millan, from the Twenty-first New York district. He was brought over from Ire land by his parents when an Infant of 3, remained In New York City until 9, when he got his first taste of work upon a farm at Niles. Ohio. He next worked in a mine until 16. when he went back to the metropolis and took up first the trade of Life Story of T. P. Gore, Backwoodsman, Who Represents Oklahoma in Upper House Eleven Other Members of the Sixtieth Con gress Who Rose From Obscurity and Poverty - harness-maker, then that of carpenter. After putting down his plane and saw for the day he studied architecture at night and was equipped to go into business at 80. By the time he was 24 he had saved money and had become a director of the West Side Bank. He had been director and vice-president of several other New York banks, a member of the board of examirters of the New York building de partment, and president of the Park Commission. He is now vice-president of the construction company which is build ing the new Manhattan Bridge over the East River from New York to Brooklyn. leaving school to make his own living at the age of 13, George W. Fairchild, new member from the Twenty-fourth New York district, started out as a farm boy, but when 14 apprenticed himself as a printer's "devil," tyus serving three fears In the office of an Oneonta news paper. He then worked as a printer In New York, but when 22 returned to On eonta and got a position on the Herald, of which he became part owner when 28. By the time he was 36 he had. acquired entire ownership. He has since acquired large real estate, manufacturing and financial interests and is the president of two manufacturing companies, the vice-president of two financial concerns and a director in several other big enter prises. Lay Wounded in , the - Field Seven Days. After lying wounded for seven days and nights oh the battlefield of Charles City CYoss Roads, Joseph G. Beale, new mem ber from Leechburg. Pa., was arrested and sent to Libby Prison. Afterward while released on parole and while an In valid from his wounds, he improved his time by studying law. He had begun life as a farm boy and the sedentary con finements of the law did not prove con genial: so he went Into mining. He re moved the coal from beneath what are today some of the most aristocratic sec tions of Pittsburg. He has since earned K 1 1$ a fortune not only in coal, but in steel and banking. He says that his forefath ers came to Pennsylvania with William Penn. What is most picturesque in our Wild West of the pioneer days color the stories of the early struggles of two of the rep resentatives from the new State of Okla homa. Bird S. McGuire was carried across the plains from Illinois to Missouri when an Infant of 2. He worked upon his father's farm until 17, when they moved on to Kansas. But shortly after settling in the new home his father met with reverses and young McGuire start ed out alone to earn money with which to educate himself. All of the present State of Oklahoma was then Indian Ter ritory, and for two years the young man herded cattle across the unbroken and unsettled prairies of the very district which he now represents. Once he went nearly a year without beholding a set tlement of his fellow-men. But after sell ing his cattle he found himself possessed of sufficient wealth to enter the Kansas Normal School, after which he taught school until he saved enough to go through the law department of the Kan sas State University. Then he returned home and when only 26 was elected County Attorney, being the youngest Prosecutor in the state. But the lure of the Wild West caught him again, and he returned to his old haunts in what was by now Oklahoma.. He had been there but two years when he became a Prosecutor for the Government. During his six years in this work he came to ex cel as a trial lawyer, frequently being called out of his county to conduct cases. In 1504 he was elected Delegate in Con gress and now that Oklahoma becomes a state he is the only Republican in her delegation. Part Indian and Former Cowboy. That he ts seven-sixteenths Chicka saw and Cherokee Indian and nlne-elx-teenths Scotch-Irish, is the boast of Charles p. Carter, new member from the fourth Oklahoma district. His pa ternal ancestor. Nathan Carter. Sr., was captured when a small boy by Shawnee Indians at the Lackawanna Valley massacre, when all the other members of the family except one of Nathan's sisters were killed. Nathan Carter was .afterward traded to the Cherokees, one of whose full-blooded squaws he married. Mr. Carter's fath er, a Captain In the Confederate army, added to this strain of Indian blood by marrying a one-fourth breed Chick asaw woman, a sister of Governor Guy, chief of the Chlckasaws. The new Representative wa born in a little log cabin near Boggy Depot, an old fort of the Choctaw Nation, 38 years ago. When 7 years old he was taken by his parents to Mill Creek, a stage-stand and postoffice on the west ern frontier of' the Chiikasaw Nation. When 11 he etarted to school at a log sehoolhouse near by. When 13 he en tered the Chickasaw Manual Labor Academy, where he finished when 18. Two of these five years at. the acad emy he missed in order to work as cowboy on his father's ranch. As cow puncher and broncho buster he began life for himself at Diamond Z Ranch, where the City of Sulphur now stands. He was then 18. When 20 he accepted a position In a store where he advanced from clerk to book keeper, cotton buyer and cotton weigh er. When 23 he was appointed Audi tor of Public Accounts for the Chicka saw Nation, and three years later be came a member of that Nation's coun cil. From this position he' advanced It 3f 41 to Superintendent of Schools and Min ing Trustee of Indian Territory. At the time of hie election to the new Congress -he was engaged in the in surance business. Such are the men of the Sixtieth Congress who find themselves high The Kaiser's THE park surrounding HIgheliffe Cas tle is well guarded. To the right, to the left, in front and behind, one caught sight of strange profiles whose identity was easy to guess, 'xhe very gardeners collecting the dead leaves, and raking the paths were evidently more ac customed to other occupations. "How many police are there?" I asked my guide. "Over a hundred." When we entered by a smalside door way the tic-tac of a telegraph instrument was the first thing that met my ear. "There are three, and telephones as well," a telegraph operator told me. "We don't stop working all day. D! patches are going and arriving without cease, because the Kaiser sends his official correspondence almost entirely by wire. In addition, two special messengers leave for Berlin every day." On arriving at the' kitchens my guide told me he wa3 going to introduce me to a fellow countrymen, M. Terrall, a Frenchman, who has charge of the Im perial cooking. - "What does his majesty like?" I asked. At first M. Terrail wished to entrench himself behind the ramparts of profes sional secrecy, but yielding to a fellow countryman's importunity he relented so far as to say: "His majesty likes everything that is light. He eats very little, but often. He is very partial t6 fruits, particularly pears. A favorite dish Is cold fat pullet. One day I sent up a sweet strawberry souffle, which ills majesty liked so much that he deigned to ask me the recipe." Then M. Terrail, growing interested in his story, violated the code of profes sional secrecy still further. "In the morning at nine o'clock the Emperor takes poached eggs with a little grilled ham, fruit and tea. At one o'clock I serve his lunch eggs or fish, an en tree of fowl or game. Often there is simply a biiffet. Perhaps you don't know what a buffet is? About, ten kinds of cold meats in jelly. As for dinner, it is a little more substantial. A typical menu includes soup, fish, saddle of mut ton, cold young turkey, salad, pears and cakes. Before going to bed the Kaiser eats two or three biscuits of Gerro-n make and drinks a glass of water." Then we passed through the corridors: corridor after corridor, and every one encumbered with trunks, big trunks, little trunks, flat trunks, all sizes and kinds. These are personal trunks of the Em porer; each contains a different uniform At length we reached the private rooms used by the Kaiser. First came the li brary, with thousands of books and the newspapers of every country. Then the private sitting room, where In the evening smoking a cigar William II. takes de light in listening to the gramophone or the mechanical piano. A small ante chamber separates this room from the dining room. "It is in this ante-chamber, said my guide, "that bis majesty's suite meet CPA) -,r upon the ladder of success, not one of them as the result of an Aladdln-llke rise by virtue of sudden fortune, ail of them as the result of dogged deter mination and the courage to meet each obstacle in their path of progress. Out of such clay were the fathers of our Republic made. Such careei . of fer an inspiration of encouragement to the American lad, be lie ever' so poor, ever so humble, ever so friendless. Washington, D. C, Doc. 23. Life in England before meals. The Kaiser is living here in the greatest simplicity, but he Insists all the same on etiquitte being observed. Nobody enters the dining-room before the Emperor. If his majesty deigns to smile everybody smiles', if he has a frown on his face nobody says a word. "At dinner the Emporer wears evening dress with decorations, generally the Golden Fleece, the Black Eagle and at the knee the Order of the Garter. As soon as his majesty has taken his place, at the table the imperial suite sits down. His majesty gives a sign to the nous steward and the meal begins. "During dinner the Kaiser drinks gen erally orangeade, lemonade or cider, and tea at the end of the meal, but no li quors." From the dining-room we went to the private rooms of the Kaiser. First of all was a bedroom decorated simply and in good taste. An Empire ibed of great his torical value constituted the chief furni ture. It was on this bed that Marshal Ney was laid on the evening of the day he was shot in 1815. A small table is scattered over with cigarettes. On the chimney 1 saw a wooden bow in which were two bracelets and four rings, one being ornamented with a miniature of the Empress. Many photo graphs were about, those of his sons, of King Edward and the Czar Nicholas II. "But this room serves chiefly as a uress-lng-room, as his majesty sleeps In an adjoining room. This second room, sim pler even than the former, contains a bed of copper covered with a counter pane embroidered in silk that once be longed to Marie Antoinette. On the night table by the bedside was a regulation army revolver In a doeskin cover. On a chest of drawers were still more photographs those of Xhe Empress r.nd his daughters-in-law. Immediately efter this bedroom comes the last of his maj esty's private rooms, ills workroom. I only had time to catch a glimpse of a. desk littered with letters, printed matter, etc. More photographs lay about and more books, among them the recently published "Letters bf Queen Victoria." Lots of pens were scattered about the desk, all goosequills, as the Emperor uses nothing else. He uses fine Band to dry his ink, never blotting paper. When the Bmperor is in one of his private rooms no one la allowed to ap proach him but the four servants at tached to his person. At night a faith ful guard placed at his door forbids entry to anyone. As I passed through the park to go away I heard the purring of an auto r."l my guide said: "Do you see that auto? Last Wednes day it disturbed the Emperor consid erably. He- was Just returning from a shooting expedition and as he put his foot on the step to get out a loud ex plosion occurred in the motor. William il turned sligMtly pale, but the engineer in charge of the Imperial autos quickly re assured him. Then the Kaiser smiled and said: 'Never mind, so long as it is in the past.' " Paris Matin.