Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1902 — THOS. B. REED DEAD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THOS. B. REED DEAD

FORMER BPEAKER BUCCUMBB TO URAEMIC POISONING. Close of a Great Career—Record of a Man Who Wielded Tremendous Influence In Public Affairs Famous Ruling on Quorums in Congress. Ex-Speaker Thomas B. Reed died in Washington at ten minutes after midnight Sunday morning. At 12 o’clock word came from Mr. Reed’s room direct from Dr. Gardner, the family physician, that Mr. Reed was dying. A complete condition of uraemia had set in which it was impossible to relieve. Dr. Goodno, an. eminent specialist in uraemic diseases, arrived from Philadelphia shortly before 11 o’clock and extreme methods were advised by him to carry the patient through the erisis. These were at once used, but without avail. I His Early Life. Mr. Reed was born in Portland, Me., Oct. 18, 1839. Thomas Bracket Reed, Sr., the father of the dead statesman, was a watchman in a sugar house. He sent his son regularly to school, nevertheless, and the lad was graduated from the Portland High School at the age- of 16. Thence Ire went to Bowdoin College. I For a time Mr. Reed taught school in one of the good old red schoolhouses, in which teachers headed toward fame always thrashed big pupils of whem- nothing is ever heard again. He had that

experience. Then he went to California for a year, and was admitted to the bar, but he found he liked Maine better. He returned home, and toward the end of the Civil War served a year in the navy as Acting Assistant Paymaster. Begins Practice of Law. He then began to p££ctice law in Portland, and in the course of two years he made himself well enough thought of to secure for himself -a nomination to the lower branch of the Maine Legislature. He was elected, and it is a notable fact that* ever after that time until his voluntary retirement in 1§99 he had always a public office of some kind to fill. Two terms in the Legislature were followed by a term in the Senate, nnd three years as Attorney General of the State. He then became solicitor for the city of Portland. His twenty-two years of continuous service in Congress began in 1877. The preceding year after a hot struggle in the party convention, he had secured tbe> nomination and had won his district by 1,200 votes. His renomination for term after term was always unanimous, nnd only once did he have a real fight for election, and that was in 1880, when tlie Democratic-greenback movement was exceedingly strong in Maine. The next three Congresses were all Democratic, and Mr. Reed became the recognized lender of the minority, twice receiving the Republican caucus nomination for Speaker. In 1889, however, the political whirl had come, and Mr. Reed was elected Speaker for the House in the Fifty-first Congress. Faces Hard Problem.. His situation was a most perplexing one. His party was in control by a narrow majority, and the opposition was strong nnd determined. The difficulties might well have seemed, insurmountable, but Mr. Reed had the knowledge and the courage combined to enable hint to become master. Democratic obstruction was the thing that he had first to throttle. He did it to start with by his famous reversal of the long-standing rule of the House in regard to quorums. The custom had been to make use of the fiction that a Congressman present in the room was not present at roll call unless he chose to answer. In this way the opposition could block action, although its members were present watching every move in the game. “Czar” Reed simply ordered the clerk one day to record as present nil the Democrats who were in the room and who had refused to answer to roll call. Then pandemonium began. The Democratic side of the Honse was in an uproar, but Speaker-Jiteed, gavel in hand, did not lose his temper. “I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count me present,” shouted Representative McCreary of Kentucky. Mr. Reed answered: “The chair is merely making a statement of the fact that the gentlemen is present. Does he deny it?” For two days he refused to permit an appeal to the House from his decision, bnt when the appeal came he was sustained, and so thoroughly did he make his point that in succeeding Congresses with the Democrats in power his rule was maintained. The victory on this, point established the right of the majority to transact business, and more than that, it made the majority assume full responsibility for the way in which it exercised its power. Mr. Reed was one of the noted figures of American politics. If hia name a not enrolled on the list of the country's great statesmen, there will certainly be no one to dispute his claim to a place among those who in their day and generation exercised influence over their follows.

THOMAS B. REED.