The Hon. Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, was the successor of the lamented Kerr as Speaker of the House. As such he presided during the last session of the forty-fourth Congress, and during the two Congresses immediately succeeding. He had long been a member, coming in with Blaine and Garfield just before the close of the war. Able, courageous, and thoroughly skilled in parliamentary tactics, he had achieved a national reputation as the leader of the minority in the forty-third Congress. During the protracted and exciting struggle near its close, over the Force Bill—the House remaining in continuous session for fifty-six hours—Mr. Randall had displayed wonderful endurance and marvellous capacity for successful leadership. He was more than once presented by his State in Democratic national conventions for nomination to the Presidency. He was an excellent presiding officer, prompt, often aggressive, and was rarely vanquished in his many brilliant passages with the leaders of the minority. One incident is recalled, however, when the tables were turned against the Speaker, no one joining more heartily than himself in the laugh that followed. Mr. Conger, of Michigan, with great earnestness and persistency, was urging the consideration of a resolution which the Speaker had repeatedly declared out of order. By no means disconcerted by the decision, Mr. Conger, walking down the aisle, was vehement in his demand for the immediate consideration of his resolution. At which the Speaker with much indignation said, "Well, I think the Chair has a right to exercise a little common sense in this matter." To which Mr. Conger instantly responded, "Oh, if the Chair has the slightest intention of doing anything of that kind, I will immediately take my seat!"
The Hon. David Dudley Field, elected to fill a vacancy, was a Representative from the city of New York during the closing session of the forty-fourth Congress. He was an eminent lawyer, and, at the time, stood at the head of the American bar. His name is inseparably associated with many important reforms in legal procedure during the last half century. He had been instrumental in securing the appointment of a committee of distinguished jurists, chosen from the leading nations, to prepare the outlines of an international code. His report accompanying the plan, to the preparation of which he had given much thought and time, received the earnest commendation of leading publicists and jurists in Europe, as well as in his own country. His untiring efforts, looking to the substitution of international courts of arbitration for war, have given his name honored place among the world's benefactors.
Mr. Field was the eldest of four brothers, whose names are known wherever our language is spoken. The family was distinguished for talents of the highest order. It would indeed be difficult to find its counterpart in our history. One of the brothers, Stephen J. Field, was for a third of a century a distinguished justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The youngest, Dr. Henry M. Field, was eminent alike as theologian and author. The name of the remaining brother, Cyrus W. Field, is, and will continue, a household word in two hemispheres. After repeated failures, to the verge even of extremity, "the trier of spirits," the dream of his life became a reality. The Atlantic cable was laid, and, in the words of John Bright, Mr. Field had "moored the New World alongside the Old."
The Hon. Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, was a representative during the closing session of Congress. As the editor of a great journal, Mr. Watterson was already well known to the country. His talents were of a high order. In his chosen field he had no superior. For many years he was a recognized leader of his party, and one of the chief managers in all its national conventions. His contributions to the literature of three decades of political campaigns were almost unparalleled. As a forcible, trenchant writer he is to be mentioned with Greeley, Raymond, Prentice, and Dana. His career, too, as a public lecturer, has been both successful and brilliant. The Congressional service of Mr. Watterson terminated with the session just mentioned. His speech, near its close, upon the bill creating an electoral commission to determine the Tilden-Hayes Presidential controversy was listened to with earnest attention, and at once gave him high place among the great debaters of that eventful Congress.
While a passenger on a train to Washington, to be present at the opening of Congress, my attention was directed to a man of venerable appearance, who entered the sleeping-car at a station not many miles out from Cincinnati. He was dressed in "Kentucky jeans" and had the appearance of a well-to-do farmer. Standing in the aisle near me, he was soon engaged in earnest conversation with the porter, endeavoring to secure a berth. The porter repeatedly assured him that this was impossible, as every berth was taken. He told the porter that he was quite ill, and must get on his journey. I then proposed that he share my berth for the night. He gladly did so until other accommodations were provided.
On the Monday following, when the House was in the process of organization, the name of James D. Williams of Indiana being called, my sleeping-car acquaintance, still attired in blue jeans, stepped forward with his colleagues to the Speaker's desk and was duly sworn in as a member of Congress. This was his first term, but he soon became quite well known to the country. As chairman of the Committee of Accounts, having to do with small expenditures, he closely scrutinized every claim presented, and scaled to the lowest many pet measures. His determination to economize, as well as his peculiarity of dress and appearance, soon made him an especial object of amusement to newspaper correspondents. He was the butt of many cheap jokes; one being his alleged complaint that hundreds of towels were being daily used by members at the Capitol, at the public expense, while at his home, on his farm, one towel would last a week, with eleven in the family. Despite, however, all jokes and gibes, he soon became the most popular man in his State. "Blue Jeans Williams" became a name to conjure with; and in the celebrated campaign of 1876, after an exciting contest, he was elected Governor, defeating an able and popular leader, who, twelve years later, was himself elected President of the United States.
No sketch of "the American Commons" during the last fifty years would be in any measure complete that failed to make mention of the man who was nineteen times elected a Representative, the Hon. William S. Holman, of Indiana. Whatever the ups and downs of party supremacy, despite all attempts by gerrymandering to relegate him to the shades of private life, Judge Holman, with unruffled front, "a mien at once kindly, persuasive, and patient," held sturdily on his way. Amid political upheavals that overwhelmed all his associates upon the ticket, his name, like that of Abou Ben Adhem, led all the rest. From Pierce to McKinley—whatever the issues, and howsoever determined—at each successive organization of the House "the gentleman from Indiana" was an unfailing respondent to the opening roll-call. An old English stanza comes to mind:
"And this is law, that I'll maintain
Until my dying day, sir,
That whatsoever King shall reign,
Still I'll be vicar of Bray, sir."
His integrity was unquestioned; his knowledge of public business, phenomenal. With no brilliancy, little in the way of oratory, Judge Holman was nevertheless one of the most valuable members ever known to the House of Representatives. The Lobby regarded him as its mortal foe. He was for years the recognized "watch-dog of the Treasury." Personal appeals to his courtesy, to permit the present consideration of private bills, had, in the main, as well have been made to a marble statue. His well known and long to be remembered, "I object, Mr. Speaker," sounded the knell of many a well devised raid upon the Treasury. It may be that he sometimes prevented the early consideration of meritorious measures, but with occasional exceptions his objections were wholesome. He kept in close touch with the popular pulse, and knew, as if by instinct, which would be the safe and which the dangerous side of the pending measure. It sometimes seemed that he could even "look into the seeds of time and tell which grain will grow and which will not."
It has been said that even great men have at times their little weaknesses. An incident to be related will show that possibly Judge Holman was no exception to that rule. The consideration of sundry bills for the erection of post-office buildings in a number of districts having "gone over" by reason of his objection, the members having the bills in charge joined forces and lumped the several measures into an "omnibus bill" which was duly presented. The members especially interested in its passage, to "make assurance doubly sure," had quietly inserted a provision for the erection of a Government building in one of the cities of Holman's district. When the bill was read, Judge Holman, as he sat busily writing at his desk, was, without solicitation upon his part, the closely observed of every member. Apparently oblivious, however, to all that was occurring, he continued to write. No objection being made, the bill was in the very act of passing when an exceedingly bright member from Wisconsin, "being moved and instigated by the devil," no doubt, rushed to the front and exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker, I desire to call the attention of the gentleman from the fourth district of Indiana to the fact that the Treasury is being robbed!" Unmoved by the appeal, the Judge continued to write, and, as one of his colleagues afterwards remarked, "was chewing his tobacco very fine." After a moment of suspense, and amid applause in which even the galleries took part, the member from Wisconsin, in tragic tones, exclaimed, "Ah, Mr. Speaker, our watch-dog of the Treasury, like all other good watch-dogs, never barks when his friends are around!"