Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1885 — THE OLD ROMAN’S TALK. [ARTICLE]

THE OLD ROMAN’S TALK.

Interview with Senator Thurman—Extravagance in Office as Compared with the Good Old Days— Recollections. A New York World correspondent rececently interviewed ex-Senator Alien G. Thurman, at his modest home in Columbus, Ohio: “In a quiet, unpretentious-looking twostory red brick house on High street, a few blocks away from the State Capitol Building, lives ex-Senator Thurman. He built the house when he moved from Chillicothe. Ohio, to Columbus in 1853, and it has been his home ever since. • There is no yard in front and the door is reached by a single stone step. I was let in by a little housemaid who lookedtas clean and prim and smooth as if she had just come from hearing one of Cotton Mather s sermons. Would I step into the library ? Mr. Thurman would be down iu a moment. I went back through the broad, high hallway that reminded me of a .Virginia house of the olden time, and found the library to be a large, square room with many easy chairs, a table with a lamp, shelves of books reaching to the ceiling on two sides, and a big, roaring fire. And in a moment in came the great ex-Sen-ator. I knew before I went there he was seventy-one years old, and I expected to see a man somewhat bent with age and very white-headed. But he was not bent, nor was he very white-headed. When he had sat down in a big arm-chair, which he comfortably filled, he looked very hale and comfortable. Ho was stronger, fur fresher and younger looking than two. thirds of the members of the United States Supreme Court, and a Hercules compared with Mr. Tilden when he was nominated for President in 1876." The correspondent asked Mr. Thnrman if he would talk for publication about the topic of the day, Cleveland’s Cabinet, at the same time stating that he, Mr. Thurman, had been mentioned for a place. The grand old man made answer as follows: “I do not thilik it would become me. Any expression of opinion from me now would be ill-timed and out of place. As to my going into the Cabinet, I will say only this: I have received a bushel of letters, I suppose, from kind friends all over the United States, expressing the hope that I would be selected as one of Mr. Cleveland’s advisers. I have not even answered one of those letters. Some of them are from gentlemen I esteem very highly, and I fear they think strange of my not having acknowledged the couitesy they have extended me, but I have felt, aud still feel, that not one word on this subject shall fall from my lips. I have not authorized a living soul to speak to Mr. Cleveland in my behalf. I have not seen him myself, and I have never said to anybody that I would either accept or decline a place in his Cabinet. Mr. Cleveland ought to be left to make up his executive family to suit himself. Positions in the Cabinet are not positions to be sought after. A man who seeks a Cabinet position or who has others to seek it for him is not of the material of which a Cabinet should be made. ’’ The topic of the day was not mentioned again, but the old statesman made the hours pass swiftly by his delightful recollections, told in such simplicity. He talked of Beuton, Clay, and Webster, and of the men of that epoch which gave America its renown. Asked about Webster, Mr. Thurman said: “I have heard him speik, and I have never heard his equal. Whenever I think of Webster, I feel that I appreciate the remark once made about him by Sydney Smith. Webster was in England on a visit, and somebody asked Sydney Smith if he had seen the great American. He said he had. Well, what did he think of him? ‘He is a cathedral,’he said. That is just my idea of him. I never saw such a play of ideas on any man’s face while speaking, the cavernous depths of his eyes seemed to be actually on fire. He had a most grave and solemn expression of countenance, but Vinton, who knew him intimately, told me he had a great fund of humor and good jokes, and that he could tell a story as well as Tom Corwin. ” Mr. Thurman was m Congress part of the time during Polk's administration, and has been pretty well acquainted with public men at Washington since 1840. Since there has been so much said recently about the expense of holding the office of Secretary of State, I asked him if he could tell me anything about the way Webster, Buchanan, Calhoun, Marcy, and othei* distinguished gentlemen had lived While they held that office. “Webster may have bought a house,” said Mr. Thurman, slowly, with a significant smile, as though he meant he might have bought it but never paid for it. Then he continued: “I believe every Secretary of State we had up to the war lived within his salary. Mr. Calhoun certainly did. I think he always, while at Washington, lived in the rooms near the Capitol, where he died, Mr. Marcy was a very economical man, and I am sure he never exceeded his salary. He was the last Democratic Secretary of State before the war. Mr. Buchanan was Polk’s Secretary of State,and I was in Washington much of the time while he was serving in that position, and I knew him well. He was probably the wealthiest Democrat who ever held the office. In his day he was considered a rich man. though there were no millionaires in public life at Washington in those times. Old Buck, as we used to call him, was a bachelor and a very polite and courtly gentleman, and yet I do not think that he owned a house in Washington. He gave an occassional dinner at his hotel, but never anything extravagant. He gave one ball, which was then considered the grandest one that had ever been given by a Secretary of State. The ladies got about him and told him he would never marry in the world if he did not give a ball. He finally consented to do so, and it came off at a place called Carnsi’s saloon. It was not a saloon in the sense of a drinking place, but a hall—-what in French we call a salon, if you please. There were over a thousand invitations, and the hall was crowded, but still it was after all a very modest affair compared with some of the entertainments now given at Washington. Mr. Seward came into the office of Secretary of State at the opening of the war, and he had a house where he extended frequent courtesies to foreign representatives. It was important that he should do so; hpt I doubt if he exceeded his sa ary. There was nothing extravagent during Andy Johnson’s rdministration, bat when Grant came in he made Mr. Fish Secretary of State. He was a very nch man and of a most hospitable disposition. He spent a great deal more than his salary, and was the first Secretary of State to do that. Those who hate followed him have fe t obliged to follow his example as far as they were able. Mr. Evarts, no doubt, spent three or four times his salary, though, of course, he did not bankrupt himself in doing so. I think the country will sustain a man who draws the limit at his salary. If public sentiment demands that the Secretary of State shall spend more than SB,OOO a year, then public sentiment will give the Secretary of State more salary. If this rule does not hold, then it will bo so that none but very rich men can hold the office. That would be an injustice aud a misfortune.**