Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1907 — Webster, Choate and Edmunds. [ARTICLE]

Webster, Choate and Edmunds.

I once heard the distinguished Senator Edmunds from Vermont, when he he was a leader in the senate, tell this story of his young days: He was a student of law and was making his first visit in the city of Washington. Of course the supreme court Interested him greatly. The law library was close at hand and was by far the finest law library which the young man had ever seen. When he was not listening in the courtroom, he was apt to be reading in the library. One day he was sitting happy In an alcove, reading in a black letter treatise which he had never seen before. There entered from the courtroom, without observing him, two gentlemen in earnest conversation. These wpre Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate, eagerly discussing some intricate point. They had come in from the courtroom to talk it over. They paid no attention to the young man who sat reading, but he could not help but hear, and I think he had a right to listen. At a critical moment in the discussion be turned over the leaves of the quaint old book, put his finger on an essential passage and handed it to Mr. Choate. Choate read it quickly, as he did everything, and passed it to Webster, for it wholly confirmed his argument. “I am very much obliged to you, young man,” he said. Webster read it lii hls turn and passed it back to Edmunds. “I am not obliged to you at all!” he said, with his own sweet smile.—Edward Everett Hale in Woman’s Home, Companion.