102 POLITICAL LIFE-IV 



the Senate several years, had been a county judge, and 

 was destined to become assistant treasurer of the United 

 States at New York, chief justice of the highest State 

 court, and finally, to die as Secretary of the Treasury of 

 the United States, after the most crushing defeat which 

 any candidate for the governorship of New York had ever 

 known. He was an excellent lawyer, an impressive 

 speaker, earnestly devoted to the proper discharge of his 

 duties, and of extraordinarily fine personal appearance. 

 His watch upon legislation sometimes amused me, but al- 

 ways won my respect. Whenever a bill was read a third 

 time he watched it as a cat watches a mouse. His hatred of 

 doubtful or bad phraseology was a passion. He was 

 greatly beloved and admired, yet, with all his fine and 

 attractive qualities, modest and even diffident to a fault. 



Another man whom I then saw for the first time in- 

 terested me much as soon as his name was called, and he 

 would have interested me far more had I known how 

 closely my after life was to be linked with his. He was 

 then about sixty years of age, tall, spare, and austere, 

 with a kindly eye, saying little, and that little dryly. He 

 did not appear unamiable, but there seemed in him a sort 

 of aloofness : this was Ezra Cornell. 



Still another senator was George H. Andrews, from 

 the Otsego district, the old Palatine country. He had 

 been editor of one of the leading papers in New York, 

 and had been ranked among the foremost men in his pro- 

 fession, but he had retired into the country to lead the 

 life of a farmer. He was a man to be respected and even 

 beloved. His work for the public was exceedingly valu- 

 able, and his speeches of a high order. Judge Folger, 

 as chairman of the judiciary committee, was most useful 

 to the State at large in protecting it from evil legislation. 

 Senator Andrews was not less valuable to the cities, and 

 above all to the city of New York, for his intelligent pro- 

 tection of every good measure, and his unflinching oppo- 

 sition to every one of the many doubtful projects con- 

 stantly brought in by schemers and dreamers. 



