Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1899 — IN THE PUBLIC EYE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Mr. G. D. Ferris of Mexico, Mo., 1» a prominent business man who holds the nterests of his town above everything

else. He is not only the owner of the ‘Mexico Qpera House Sand other valuable .-property, but is an .athlete who goes in ; his shi.rt sleeves in ’ the depth of winter. • A street fair is to bn [held in Mexico and ■ the committee in

charge wished to secure some special at? traction to draw the crowds. They went to see Mr. Ferris and he came forward with a proposal which has at least the charm of absolute novelty. If the committee will raise SSO to be given to the brass band of Mexico Mr. Ferris Agrees to build on top of the court house dome a scaffold sixteen feet high. On top of this scaffold Mr. Ferris agrees to stand on lfis head between the hours of 2 and 3 o’clock each afternoon during the fair. W. L.. Dunlap, the newly elected commander, Indiana department, G. A. R., is 59 years old. He was born in Franklin,

Ind., and entered the Seventh regiment—the first one to leave the State, the one to lead the first charge in the four years’ war, the first one to have a soldier killed. He participated in the forty-one battles in which the regiment took part. He was near John Smith of Shelbyville

when he was killed. He was the first man killed in the Union ranks in recognized warfare, though four Massachusetts men been killed in the Baltimore riots. He was with the Seventh when it led the charge against the stone wall at Winchester —the charge which gave Gen. Stonewall Jackson his first defeat. He was in the charge at Phillippi June 3, 1861 —the charge that opened the war. He was at Gettysburg and on the other great fields of the North. There died a few days ago in Terre Haute, Ind., ah unassuming man who left behind him a diary covering fifty years of

active life. The book would not make exciting reading, because it tells only the simple story of a man whodid his duty faithfully and without fault. It is the . daily record of the I life of Andrew talker, railroad engineer. .It shows that during his fifty years of active service Mr. Walker

guided his engine over 1,000,918 miles of track, and that during all that time no train of which he was the pilot met with an accident of a serious character. Only once did Mr. Walker leave his work on the railroad. That was in 1862, when for a few months he tried farming near Indianapolis. >With that exception his service was continuous. * • • Civil service reformers, who are disturbed by President McKinley’s recent order, first gained national recognition in

1871. In that year Congress passed a bill authorizing President Grant to appoint a civil service commission. The members of this first .commission were George William Curtis, Alexander G. ‘ Cattell, Joseph Medill, D avidson A. Walker,

B. B. Ellicott, Joseph

H. Blackfan and David 0. Cox. In 1860 competitive examinations of applicants for certain positions were begun in a'limited way, but it took twenty years of agitation to induce Congress to act. In England free, open competition throughout the public service was established in 1870. The civil service commission of 1871 adopted rules governing the examination of candidates, which were in force until Congress refused to make an appropriation for the work, and President Grant declared them temporarily suspended in 1875. George Bruce Cortelyou, who has been appointed secretary of President McKinley during the indefinite absenee in Bo-

rope of . Secretary Porter, was mad* assistant secretary in 1888 and for the past few months has been filling the principal post and conducting affairs at the Whits House. Mr. Cortdyou is a native of New York and is a lawyer of ability. He has the degree

ot bachelor and master of laws and his extensive experience amply fits him for the present position.

w. L. DUNLAP.

ANDREW WALKER.

G. W. CURTIS.

G. B. CORTELYOU.