FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



I also visited the Senate on several occasions (Blaine and 

 Lamar shortly vv^ent from the House to the Senate) . In the Senate 

 I was interested in John A. Logan and in Senator Vorhees, who 

 was then called the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," and who 

 was an orator of the florid type. The man who impressed me 

 most was George F. Edmunds of Vermont, who seemed to have 

 a very clear intellect and a tremendous grasp of all the subjects 

 that came up. I listened with intentness to everything that he 

 said. His adroitness in debate was extraordinary, and, as everyone 

 knows, he was the author of several laws of great importance. 

 It is curious to recollect that he impressed me at that time as a 

 venerable old man, already bald-headed, and with a nearly white 

 beard, but I learned many years later that he was still living (in 

 Pasadena, California), and in 1918 my friend, Dr. J. H. McBride, 

 of that city, told me that Edmunds was his neighbor and that 

 he frequendy called on him. He further said that at that time 

 he was intellectually as much alive as ever, although it was 

 forty years earlier when I had thought of him as a venerable 

 old man. 



Both House and Senate in those days were largely composed of 

 veterans of the Civil War, From a cultural standpoint, they 

 did not rank high, but, though I was disappointed in the gen- 

 eral character of the men I saw on the floor of the House and 

 whom I occasionally met in the boarding-houses and at the 

 hotels, I reflected that each was a representative selected from 

 a hundred thousand or more American citizens, and that there 

 must be something in his character that brought him out of the 

 mass. The country at that time worshipped war heroes, and in 

 a democracy where there is universal suffrage the demagogue 

 naturally has a very good chance. 



During this early period it happened that the alumni of 

 Cornell University who were living in Washington formed an 



[62] 



