I was talking the other day to that brilliant orator, Benjamin Butterworth, of Ohio, and the conversation turned to Tom Reed, as Butterworth affectionately called him. Said Butterworth: “The way Reed’s constituents have stood by him is one of the most gratifying things to me in American politics. During one of his campaigns, in which I spoke for him, I met some Democrats in his district. I said, ‘Gentlemen, I do not know anything about your politics, but you have a man of sterling qualities to represent you.’ ‘Yes,’ they replied, ‘he is an intense Republican and has peculiarities, but we like him because he represents the best thought of the district, and we vote for him on the sly.’”
That plain-speaking man, whose chief characteristic is to be true to his own convictions, is a pretty good specimen of the Puritan. Had he been in Cromwell’s army he either would not have prayed at all or he would have prayed just as long as Cromwell did. In either case he would have fought for what he believed to be the right, all the time, and given no quarter.
Apropos of what might be called his blunt frankness, I recall an incident 386 told me by a member who had charge of what was known as the Whiskey Bill. Mr. Reed had baffled the attempts of the whiskey men to get it up, but in his temporary absence, through the inadvertence or incapacity of a member, the bill was forced on the House. Reed ran down to the fellow, and vented his feelings in the remark, “You are too big a fool to lead, and haven’t got sense enough to follow.”
MR. REED’S PORTLAND LAW OFFICE.
If his bits of speeches flung about in the heat of debate, either in retort or in attack, were gathered, they would make a mighty interesting book. No other man has like him the power to condense a whole argument in a few striking words. His epigrams are worthy of the literary artist in that they are perfect in form. Though struck out on the spur of the moment you cannot take a word from nor recast them. They have for solid basis a most profound knowledge of human nature, of life, and they exhibit to a luminous degree the possession in their author of that prime quality of a true man—horse sense. I remember this fragment of a speech of last session: “Gentlemen, everybody has an opinion about silver, except those who have talked so much about it that they have ceased to think.”
There are many people who believe that Mr. Reed himself disproves one of his epigrams, that “a statesman is a successful politician who is dead.” As for me, I venture to say that Mr. Reed is right, but he has there formulated a rule to which he is one of the rare exceptions.