Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1887 — THE CABINET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CABINET.

The Promotion of Secretary Lamar Necessitates Several Changes. Portraits and Biographical Sketches of the Sew Members of the Ministry. [WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENCE j L. Q. C. Lamar, to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; William F. Vilas, to be Secretary of the Interior; Don M. Dickinson, to be Postmaster General; Charles S. Fairchild, to be Secretary of the Treasury; George L. Rives, to be Assistant Secretary of State; Isaac H. Maynard, to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Sigourney Butler, of Massachusetts, to be Second Controller of the Treasury; James W. Hyatt, of Connecticut, to be Treasurer of the United States. The sending of these appointments to the Senate for confirmation was almost the first thing which President Cleveland did after the organization of the Fiftieth Congress. Inasmuch as it was

pretty well understood in well-informed political circles that the Cabinet changes herein proposed had been determined upon by th* President some weeks in advance, the announcement of the appointments created no surprise. It has been said that Mr. Lamar will either be promptly confirmed or else a long and stubborn fight will be made against him. What reasons the President has to think he can control enough Republican Senators to insure an early confirmation can only be guessed at. With Faulkner of West Virginia out, the Democrats have not their full strength by one vote, but they do not seem uneasy. LUCIUS Q.' C. LAMAR. Mr. Lamar was born at Oxford, Putnam County, Ga., Sept. 17, 1825, and received his early schooling in his native town. He graduated at Emory College, Georgia, in 1815. He studied law at Macon, Ga., and was admitted to the bar in lr-47. He moved to Oxford, Miss., in 1849, and was elected Adjunct Professor of Mathematics in the Mississippi State University. He resigned in 18 jO, and went to Covington, Ga., where he devoted himself to the practice of law. In 1853 he was elected to the Georgia Legislature, and in the following year returned to Mississippi, where he settled on a plantation in Lafayette County. He was elected to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses, and resigned in 1860. He entered the Confederate army in 1861, as Lieutenant Colonel of the Nineteenth Mississippi Volunteers, and was soon promoted to the Colonelcy. In 1863 he was sent to Russia by the Confederate Government on an important dijdomatic mission, lie returned to Mississippi at the close of the war, and in 1866, was elected Professor of Political Economy and Social Science in the university of the State. A year later he was transferred to the Professorship of Law. He was elected to the Fortythird Congress and re-elected to the Fortvfourtb. In the winter of 1876-’77 he was elected to the Senate, where he served until his appointment as Secretary of the Interior. He was a widower until a few months ago, when he married a Georgia widow who had been bis sweetheart in their youth, and has. no fortune outside his official salary. He lives quietly, and often passes intimate friends unrecognized when he is in a brown study. CHARLES S. FAIRCHILD, Charles S. Fairchild was bom at Cazenovia, N. Y., in 1842, was graduated at Harvard, and began the practice of law at Albany, N. Y., where he was very successful. In 1876 he was elected Attorney General of New York on the Democratic ticket. He was a candidate for renomination in 1877, but was defeated in the convention by Augustus Schoonmaker, Jr. Mr. Fairchild held no public office since that year, until, in 188 >, he was appointed by President Cleveland to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. In the meantime he was President of the New York State Charities Aid Association. WILLIAM FREEMAN VILAS. Mr, Vilas was bom at Chelsea, Orange County, Vt., July 9, 1840. When he was 11 years old he went to Wisconsin, where, a few months after, he was entered as a pupil of the preparatory department of the university of that State. In 1853 he matriculated in the freshman class of that institution, and was graduated therein 1858. After taking his academical degree ho studied law in Albany, N. Y., and was graduated from the law school of that city in 1860. After his admission to the Supreme Court of New York he removed to Wisconsin, where, on his birthday, July 9, 1860, ho made his first argument before the Supreme Court of that State. Upon the breaking out of the war Mr. Vilas entered the army as Captain in the Twenty-third Wisconsin Volunteers, and rose to be Major and Lieutenant Colonel. He resigned his commission and resumed the practice of the law January 1, 1864. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin appointed Colonel Vilas one of the revisers of the statutes of the State in 1875, and the revision of 1878, adopted by the State, was partly made by him. He has held various position sos trust in Wisconsin, and in 1884-’BS was a member of the lower house of the Legislature. He is a fine orator, his famous eulogy of Grant at the Chicago banquet giving him a national reputation. He presided over the National Democratic Convention which nominated Cleveland. DON M. DICKINSON. Don M. Dickinson was bom in Port Ontario, Oswego County, New York, Jan. 17, 1846. In 1848, when Don M. was but 2 years old, the Dickinsons moved to Michigan. After passing through the public schools in Detroit he entered the law department of the State University. He was a good student, and the degree of LL.B. made the young Detroiter a fullfledged scholar. Ho achieved almost instant success as a lawyer, and it was not long before his practice became the most lucrative in the State. Much of his attention was turned to bankruptcy cases, and he aided largely in framing the Michigan insolvency laws. His most recent success was as counsel in the telephone case before the United States Supreme Court.

LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR.

WILLIAM F. VILAS.

DON M. DICKINSON.

ISAAC MAYNARD.

CHARLES S. FAIRCHILD.

JAMES W. HYATT.