768 GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR, 



semble his elder brother the judge, who was thus described in one of those 

 piquant analyses in which the late Col. Henry Lee delighted, " strong, 

 but would swear that black was white if contraried." Ko public man in 

 America ever found himself in a more lamentable position than did Sen- 

 ator Hoar when Senator Foraker began to exhibit the " deadly parallel " 

 between the Massachusetts senator's Panama speech of December 17,1 903, 

 and that of February 22, 1904. It recalled the statement long since at- 

 tributed to President McKiuley, " Senator Hoar is the man who furnishes 

 our opponents with their arguments and us with his votes." '• It was," 

 said the " New York Evening Post," speaking of the Senator's change, " a 

 moral eclipse visible all over the United States." " It was," said the New 

 York Commercial Advertiser " (Republican), an exhibition " with the 

 facile grace of lifelong practice of his ' right about face ' ; " or, as the 

 "Providence Journal" (Republican) more tersely said, "The worthy 

 Massachusetts statesman once more went to dinner when the dinner bell 

 rang." Not that he cared so much for the actual dinner, but it came 

 hard to him to see his old table mates sitting down without him. 



It sometimes happens that the best test of a public man throughout 

 his life is not to be found in his main or official functions, but in col- 

 laterals, in matters where he was entirely free and could be judged by 

 his wholly volunteer action. My own admiration for Mr. Hoar, for I 

 have my share of admiration, has rested largely upon his willingness to 

 take up unpopular causes which could yield him nothing, but rather led 

 to criticism. His loyalty to Woman's Suffrage, for instance, brought 

 him little more than censure or ridicule; it may have cost him votes; 

 it is pretty certain that it yielded him none. The same was true of his 

 unvarying justice for the Roman Catholic church and to the Irish- Ameri- 

 can race. It was repaid in a warm personal loyalty on the part of those 

 whose cause he espoused, but his political success was in spite of these 

 things, not because of them. It is quite needless, on the other hand, 

 to reproduce the long list of his special public services. Most important 

 of all these is the crowning fact that upon the great national question 

 which dwarfed all others in his very latest years, — that of imperialism as 

 shown in the Philippines, — he held his course with superb courage and 

 was true to the last ; being almost alone in the Senate in what he deemed 

 the most momentous of all causes, that of saving the nation from dwin- 

 dling into an empire. For this he might well be received, as he was, with 

 applauses such as those amid whicli the ancient Roman senators marched 

 forth from the city to meet the Consul Terentius Varro, after his army 

 had been almost annihilated by Hannibal at the great battle of Cannai. 



