Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1885 — Interesting Sketeh. [ARTICLE]

Interesting Sketeh.

In one of Jap. Turpin’s racy Washington letters, published recently in the Indianapolis Sentinel, we find the following pleasant reference to a quarte te of Indiana’s most prominent and ablest men: # * * * * When Mr. Hendricks was last here I was at his rooms in the hotel one evening while he was conversing with Senator Voorhees. — I have often thought I would jot down for the JSentinelfragm ntsof the conversation, but it .continued to slip away from me when a pen was in my hand. Senator Voorhees saidihat nothing in the history of the politics of the country had lately given him so much pleasure as the speech made by Mr. Headricks at the Parnell meeting. And he was-delight-ed with the spirii of the enemy’s criticisms. With infinite gratification he saw the Republican press making a donkey of itself. In expressing sympathy for the Parnell party in Great Britain Mr. Hendricks only professed faith in the principles on which his own Government is founded. On that particular subject every American, whatever office'he may hold, is alway ; at liberty to speak and in duty bound to speak. They then talked of civtl service reform as the law was s- read upon he statute books by the Pen-, dleton bill Senator Voorhees has! told his friend George H. Pendleton: “That law will end your political life.” Personally their relations tn the Senate were always agreeable and cloge, remembering that Senator Voorhees, with Tilden, voted for Mr. Hendricks in the New York Conventi n in 1868 against Pendleton. Senator Voorhees said that in making an officeholding class —something so foreign to the spirit of our Government—there was a crime against society that no public man could explain to an / respectable part of the American people. Senator Voorhees insisted that where the idea was tolerated it was not understood. Mr. Hendricks not only agreed with him, but warmly applauded the position of Senator Voorhees. He replied that whatever doubts he might have had upon the subject were lately dispelled by asking the advic of certain public men in Indiana. “You know what a clear, logical mind Judge Turpie has,” continued Mr. Hendricks. “It is wonderful,” answered Senator Voorhees; “I have never known Judge Turpie’s equal in clearness of thought and powers of analyzation.” Senator Voorhees has since told me that Judge Turpie is the only man who ever, as a United States Senator, made a national reputation in six weeks; that within the scope of his acquaintance he was the most intellectual man. Coming from a member of the United States Senate, a man for full thirty years in public life, this surprised me, though I had frequently marveled at the extent and variety of Judge Turpie’s learning. ‘Well,’ continued Mr. Hendricks, “I lately conversed with Judge Turpie, and was at the conclusion astonished at the number a d force of the arguments he hurled against the system. That it is wrong and foreign to the spirit of our institutions and the philosophy of government; that if enforced it will lead to the grossest abuses. I arose from that interview without the shadow of a doubt. In addition to this I lately had a conver ■ sation with Governor Gray, and his remarks convinced me that it is something to which the American people never will or ought t: submit.” After hearing this conversation between Vice President Hendricks and Senator Voorhees, two men of such extraordinary skill, in grasping the central idea of the public inind, and hearing such men as Judge Turpie and Governor Gray quoted, I felt that I would not have

to wait until after the New York election to make up a verdict on the question of civil service reform as administered by Dorman B. Eaton.