HENDRICKS, SHERMAN, BANCROFT -1884 -1891 215 



talk in the House, and here they are in the New York 

 papers of this morning. &quot; 



During this visit to Washington I met at the house of 

 my classmate and dear friend, Bandall Gibson, then a 

 senator from Louisiana, a number of distinguished men, 

 among them the Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks, and Gen 

 eral Butler, senator from South Carolina. 



Vice-President Hendricks seemed sick and sore. He 

 had expected to be a candidate for the Presidency, with 

 a strong probability of election, but had accepted the Vice- 

 Presidency; and the subject which seemed to elicit his 

 most vitriolic ill will was reform in the civil service. As we 

 sat one evening in the smoking-room at Senator Gibson s, 

 he was very bitter against the system, when, to my sur 

 prise, General Butler took up the cudgels against him and 

 made a most admirable argument. At that moment, for 

 the first time, I felt that the war between North and South 

 was over; for all the old issues seemed virtually settled, 

 and here, as regarded this new issue, on which I felt very 

 deeply, was one of the most ardent of Confederate sol 

 diers, a most bitter pro-slavery man before the Civil War, 

 one who, during the war, had lost a leg in battle, nearer 

 me politically than were many of my friends and neigh 

 bors in the North. 



Senator Jones of Florida, who was present, gave us 

 some character sketches, and among others delineated ad 

 mirably General Williams, known in the Mexican War 

 as &quot;Cerro Gordo Williams, &quot; who was for a time sena 

 tor from Kentucky. He said that Williams had a wonder 

 ful gift of spread-eagle oratory, but that, finding no 

 listeners for it among his colleagues, he became utterly 

 disgusted and went about saying that the Senate was a 

 &quot;d d frigid, respectable body that chilled his intellect.&quot; 

 This led my fellow-guests to discuss the characteristics of 

 the Senate somewhat, and I was struck by one remark in 

 which all agreed namely, that &quot; there are no politics in 

 executive session.&quot; 



