The Days of a Man 1871 



E. L. R. manager of the affair was one Eaton La Rue Moses, a 

 Moses remarkable youth, short, stubby, rosy-cheeked, red- 

 haired, and round-faced, who belonged to the class 

 of '73 and came from Dundee. Not exactly scholarly, 

 he was nevertheless possessed of certain extraordi- 

 nary kinds of cleverness. He had all sorts of un- 

 canny information; he could write essays on any 

 side of any question he was in fact one of the 

 college "characters." In 1871 he produced an essay 

 on "What I Saw in Alsace-Lorraine." Of course he 

 had never been there, but having read the news- 

 papers, as he read everything, in omnivorous fashion, 

 he was able to frame striking pictures and relate 

 touching stories. He then persuaded Clark, himself 

 a clever and reckless fellow, to deliver the essay as 

 a lecture in Dundee, and had him billed as Water- 

 man T. Hewett, a young assistant professor in the 

 department of German. 



When Clark was called up as I have related, he 

 further exonerated himself by the plea that the 

 people said his lecture was far more interesting 

 than those of most of the Cornell professors they 

 had heard - -which was doubtless true. 



Moses, being a printer by profession, drifted about 

 after graduation from office to office, growing more 

 and more rotund, taking on more and more the 

 aspect of a Buddhist idol, until he finally settled in 

 A poiiti- Jamestown, Chautauqua County. There he aspired 

 cal . to be "the power behind the throne" in local politics, 

 and his views on all manner of topics were expressed 

 in crisp and cryptic language, with a wealth of 

 expletive Mr. Roosevelt might have envied. He 

 was always the center of a more or less admiring 

 group curious to know what he would say next and 



C 66 3 



