Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1896 — THE “SILENT SECRETARY.” [ARTICLE]

THE “SILENT SECRETARY.”

Lamont Absorbs Everything and Never Tells Anything. Secretary of War Lamont knows more of the inside history of the present administration and say less about it than probably any member of the President's official family. He absorbs everything and never tells anything. This trait has caused him to he variously known as the “Silent Secretary” and the “Political Sphinx.” All of his visitors contribute to his knowledge, but none of them learns from him anything but what he thinks it proper to impart. He has a great knaCk of pleasing his visitors. They usually leave him under the impression that he wished them to linger, but that they could not do so without infringing upon his multifarious duties. He is never idle. When not occupied in consultation, he is either reading or writing. Magazines and newspapers are his favorite literature. He writes a great deal and seldom resorts to dictation, although he has several expert stenographers available. He composes easily and writes rapidly, and finds that he can do more work and with greater personal satisfaction in that way than by trusting to the mechanical assistance of others.

He is remarkably abstemious in his habits. He does not smoke, drink or chew tobacco, and he has no time for card playing or any games of skill or chance. His only pastime is fishing, and he indulges- it to the full on his summer vacations. His unbroken good nature and his quiet wit and philosophy have made him a great favorite in society, and the entertainments at his house are among the most attractive at the national capital. Naturally modest, he avoids everything approaching notoriety, and .at every public function where his presence is necessary he endeavors to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. One strange fact about his career as a public official is that he has never been known to make a set speech either at a banquet, a political gathering or at any sort of public ceremony. His peculiarity in this respect is attributed mainly to diffidence and to a chronic distaste to everything approaching display or ostentation. He is as gentle as a child, and one of the most even-tempered men in the world. No one ever saw him show the least signs of temper, and it is said of him that he never used a harsh or unkind word to any human being, no matter how great the provocation to do so may have been.