Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1912 — Death Merciful to A. T. Rice [ARTICLE]

Death Merciful to A. T. Rice

Appointed Minister to Russia, He Could Not Have Maintained That =■ Position, for His Onee Large Fortune Was Dissipated. Very few persons probably now remember the late Allen Thorndike Rice, and to the younger generation the name means absolutely nothing. Yet twenty-five years ago Allen Thorndike Rice was thought to have the most promising future of any young Republican of New York state and was deemed a more interesting and piquant character than even Theodore Roosevelt, with whom Rice was intimately associated in politics of the late eighties. He was Boston born, but lived for tri Any years in Europe and was a graduate of one of the English universities. He returned to the United States about 1876 when he was only 23 years of age. He was reported to be the possessor of a very large fortune, and of a scholarly as well as a practical turn of .mind, a reputation that be justified by buying the North American Review, the oldest and staidest of American periodicals, and by entering upon a career of practical politics. He was a candidate for congress in 1886, in a New York city district, but was defeated, and he gained national notoriety by his advocacy of the Australian ballot. He want in fact, the-first to bring that form of ballot to the attention of the American people.* Benjamin Harrison was one of Mr. Rice’s intimate friends and after Harrison entered the presidency be nominated Mr. Rice minister to Russia and the nomination was promptly confirmed. Rice, however, never went to Russia. He was taken ill three days before the date fixed for his sailing and died from some acute intestinal trouble. Mr. Rice was a personal friend of “the late William R. Grace, who was twice mayor of New York, and it was from Mr. Grace" that I learned the following incident of Mr. Rice’s last hours. “Late one afternoon I was in an elevated railroad train on my way home when I saw, across the aisle, but some distance from me, someone beckon to me,” said Mr. Grace. "In an instant I realized that it was Allen Thorndike Rice and that he seemed to be In distress. I hurried to him and saw that he was seriously til. He was suffering Intense pain. He toM me that had been stricken after

he entered the car aqd that he was afraid he would not be able to reach - his, hotel, “He seemed grateful when I offered to accompany him to the Fifth Avenue hotel, where he lived. I had to support him upon my arm down the elevated station stairs, and lift him into the carriage which I summoned. I feared that he would lapse into unconsciousness before he reached the hotel. After we got him to his room and put him on his bed he seemed a little easier, and when the physician came Rice brightened up a little, so that I felt justified in saying to him that I hoped he would-recover from the attack by the next day so that he would be in good shape to sail for Russia. “He looked at me with a pathetic expression and motioned me to bend over him; and when I bad done so he told me in a whisper that he never would get to Russia, and that it was probably just as well. v "After I left him I thought there was something unusually significant in his remark that it would probably be just as well if he did not go to Russia. I did not, however, fathom the meaning until two pr three weeks after Rice’s death. Then every one of his friends was surprised at the revelations* which were made when the examination of his estate was finished. We bad all supposed that Rice was a very rich man; we found that there was little or nothing left of his estate. He had some personal belongings—books and brica-brac—and he owned the North American Review, which 1 think cost him more to run 4han he received from It In the way of income. He must have realized, therefore, that as minister to Russia he would not be able to maintain himself In the style to which he was accustomed and which was necessary at the Russian court, for he was not the kind of man who could live upon his salary. So I have always believed that when he realized that he Was stricken with a mortal illness he also felt that he would by it be spared tiie humiliation of being unable to maintain tfip luxury and entertainment at the Russian court which his manner of life and his reputation as a man of wealth would have exacted “We were never able to tell how great a fortune he brought to Ifce United States, or how he had used whatever wealth he bad obtained.”! (Copyright, 1911, by EL J. Ed wares. AH