Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1888 — PERSONAL TRAITS. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL TRAITS.

Judge Fuller as a Man, a Lawyer, a Litterateur, and a Politician. [From the Chicago Tribune.] He has always had a predilection for politics. Loving his profession well, and his home and his boons even better, he has found it impossible to keep away from the council fire and the hustings. Not that he has cared for office —he is the last man to think of himself. Always being “mentioned" for something, always declining, always working for some other man, he has now many friends and no enemies. AS A POLITICIAN. In politics he has never trained with “the boys, ’’ but his fairness, frankness, and generosity have made him a prime favorite among thjm. He believes in fair play even to one’s opponents, in straightforwardness and loyalty. as a litterateur. Mr. Fuller is first a gentleman and a lawyer, and he is more of a dilletante than a politician. He loves books—Macaulay and all the essayists, history, poetry, even fiction. His reading is as broad as it is incessant. How he manages to turn oqt such prodigious grists from his legal mill and at the same time keep familiar with the whole range ot current literature is a puzzle to his friends. Yet he does it, and he would rather talk of a new book than of a new client. He takes interest iu the reading of his friends, too, and when given half a chance makes suggestions to them which they are sure to thunk him for. He finds time to write a good many book reviews for a literary weekly, and once criticised a new opera for a daily newspaper. A poem of thought and beautj' on the death of Grant came from his pen, and he has on several other occasions dallied profitably with the muse. He reads all the more conspicuous novels that come from the presses, and if he had time would like to write one for himself AS A LAWYER. It is generally conceded that Mr. Fuller stands foremast at tne bar in the chief inland city of the country. There may be one or two lawyers in Chicago who make more money, but they are corporation attorneys, and Mr. Fuller regularly represents no corporation, and has aiways declined such connections. His learning is as broad as his clientage is diversified. Cases of his appear in fully one hundred Hlinois reports, and many of his cases are known among lawyers as “leading” ones, marking some new departure, settling some disputed point er confirming a doubtful one. For twenty years he has certainly exercised greater influence upon the decisions of the Supreme Court ot this State than any other lawyer. In the United States Supreme Court, too, he has met many of the leading legal lights of the country and iu the reports of that tribunal his cases ore quoted in scores of volumes. A hard worker, early and late in his office, still ambitious and energetic in his profession, he is nevertheless sufficiently independent to select his clients. Only a few months ago he was Offsrai a 95,000 f*e by a large corporation, but

h« replied :"I ean’t take it at any price. There la no case. * AS AN ORATOR. "Mel" Fuller, as he is almost universally called in Chicago, not familiarly but admiringly, is a son of Maine and a'native of Mr. Blaine's town of Augusta He came West in 1856. Almost frem the ‘first he took to the stump, and the audiences of that early day admired his ardency and rhetoric almost as much as they did the Little Giant, whose follower he was. Fuller was a good speaker even then, and though his voice was Ulin, as it still is, and though he indulged in literary illustrations and citations, whose point the common claas sometimes m.ssed, as it does to this day, he was happy in his choice of words and phrases, greatly in earnest, and full of the winning quality of sincerity. AS A CHRISTIAN. Mr. Fuller himself is orthodox, and for twenty years has been a vestryman of St. Mark’s. He loves to mingle with the doctors of the church, and is never so happy as when a lay delegate and measuring wit with the subtle and unctuous fathers. Returning from a national synod at Philadelphia, a year or two since, he met a friend in the street, and, in response to inquiry concerning his vacation, told where he had been, and added : “Egad, but it was glorious to sit there and hear the old doctors expound the law!" NOT TOO ARISTOCRATIC TO SMOKE A PIPE. “Mel" Fuller is one of the few men who are pointed out and spoken of on the streets of Chicago. His is always a conspicuous and welcome figure, though not from its size, for he is slight of frame and short of stature. His face is remarkably youthful for one of his age—he is 55—and though his hair is gray his eye retains all ot the brightness of a quarter of a century ago. He is active, vivacious, genial, approachable, quick with a smile or a sally, as intuitive as a woman, and almost as sympathetic. He is a man with sunshine in his face ant brains behind it. In his office he is neither sobitey as to require cards to be sent in on a silver salver nor too aristocratic to smoke a pipe. EVERYBODY IN CHICAGO PLEASED. There was no one in Chicago who had a word to say against the appointment. It was received with such general approval that no one can hereafter doubt the high regard and warm personal feeling entertained for Mr. Fuller as lawyer and man by all who know him, whether Democrats or Republicans. DECLINED OFFICE FIVE TIMES. It is an undoubted fact that the tender of the Chief Justiceship is tLe sixth appointment which the President has offered Mr. f uller. He wanted the Chicago lawyer to go abroad to take one of the first-class missions. This was declined. Then Mr. Cleveland wanted him to take a place on the Civil Servi e Commission, which was not acceptable. The place of Solicitor General was thought in keeping with his legal talents, but be wanted none ot it. The Interstate Commission was then suggested by the President without meeting with favor, 'finally Mr. Cleveland wanted him to become a member of the Pacific Railway Commission, which would not interfere with his private practice, but thia, too, was declined. It may be, for all any one knows, that there hav« been other tenders.