Fifty Years of Public Service / Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois

by Shelby M. Cullom

President McKinley appointed him a member of the Paris Peace Commission to frame the treaty of peace with Spain. How well he performed that service those of his colleagues on the commission who are still living, can attest. He returned from Paris and had charge of the ratification of the treaty in the Senate.

I have always believed that Senator Davis's death was the result of his indolent habits. I do not believe he ever took any physical exercise; at least he did not do so during the time that I knew him. He was so much of a student, and so interested in books, that he seemed to think that time devoted to the proper care of his physical condition was so much time wasted. The result was that when disease attacked him he became an easy prey, and when he passed away it was said that he bore all the marks of a very old man, even though he was comparatively young in years. It was my sad duty, as a member of the United States Senate, to attend his funeral in St. Paul, in 1900.

The northwest section of the United States has not now, and never had before, as capable a scholar and statesman as Cushman K. Davis.

I succeeded Senator Davis as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. I have enjoyed my work on the committee more than I have enjoyed any other work that I have done in the Senate. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the members of the committee, during my service, have been particularly able and agreeable men, and during those years some of the greatest men of the Senate have been numbered among its members. Aside from one, whom I have long since forgiven, I do not recall now that I have had a single controversy or unkind word with any member. In addition, the work is not only of the greatest importance, but it has been very satisfactory, because partisanship has not at all entered into the disposition of matters pertaining to our foreign affairs. The members of the committee during my time have always seemed to take a deep interest in the work coming before them, and, unlike most of the committees of the Senate, it has never been difficult to secure the attendance of a working quorum. In the ten years that I have been chairman, I do not believe the committee has ever been compelled to adjourn for want of a quorum when any important business was before it.

Until his death in 1911, Senator Wm. P. Frye, of Maine, was in point of service the oldest member of the committee. He had served as one of its members ever since 1885. He could have been chairman, by right of seniority, when Mr. Davis was made chairman in 1891, on the retirement of Mr. Sherman; and again he could have become chairman when Senator Davis died. He did act in that capacity for nearly a year, but he always seemed to prefer the chairmanship of the Committee on Commerce.

I believe that the late Senator Hanna had a good deal to do with Senator Frye's declining to succeed the late Senator Davis as chairman. Ship-subsidy and the building up of the merchant marine of the United States were then before the Senate, and Senator Hanna, a ship owner himself, was deeply interested in that legislation. Senator Hanna and Senator Frye were devoted friends; and, although I do not know, I have always felt that it was Senator Hanna who induced Senator Frye to remain at the head of the Committee on Commerce.

Senator Frye was a very capable and faithful Senator, and enjoyed the confidence and respect of the people of his State to a greater degree than any other Maine statesman, with the exception of Mr. Blaine. As chairman of the Committee on Commerce, I would say he dominated that committee, and at the same time he was a most satisfactory chairman to every Senator who served on it. He was thoroughly familiar with every question pertaining to rivers and harbors, the shipping interests, and the multitude of matters coming before the committee. Senator Burton, of Ohio, is probably the only member of the United States Senate at present who is as well posted on matters before the Committee on Commerce.

Mr. Frye was an active member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and during the brief periods when I have been compelled by reason of illness to remain away from the Senate I always designated Senator Frye to act in my stead.

Among his colleagues in the Senate, he enjoyed the greatest degree of popularity; and aside from one or two occasions when his own colleague opposed him, no Senator ever objected to any ordinary bill which Senator Frye called up and asked to have placed on its passage. In fact it was his custom to report a bill from his committee, or the Committee on Foreign Relations, the only two working committees of which he was a member, and ask for its immediate consideration. No one ever objected, and the bill went through as a meritorious measure without question, on his word alone to the Senate.

He was an ideal presiding officer. For years he was president pro tempore, and the death of Vice-President Hobart, and the accession of Mr. Roosevelt to the Presidency, necessitated his almost constant occupancy of the chair. With the peculiar rules existing in the Senate, the position of presiding officer is comparatively an easy one. Senator Frye made an especially agreeable presiding officer, expediting the business of the Senate in a degree equal to that of any presiding officer during my service.