University of South Carolina Libraries
YORKVILLE ENQUIRER. l. m. orist's sons FaMi.her?. j % .jjfamilg Brrcspaper: |for the promotion of the political, Social, Agricultural and (flommeittial Interests of the fhople. {m^mi^r*., Nc?S??*eg' ESTABLISHED 1855. YORKVILLE, S. C., FRIDAY; NOVEMBER 24, 1905. NO. 94. ' ' ** " ** I - * WU.U.ll mk II ika * - THE QL A.n Historical . Ku Klu t ?????? BY THOMAS Copyright by the Author and Publlshec Book II?The Revolution. CHAPTER VI. The Gauqb of Battle. The day of the first meeting of the national congress after the war was o# Intonoo ovnltamant The galleries of the house were packed. Elsie was there with Bet. in a fever of secret anxiety lest the stirring drama should cloud her own life. She watched her father limp to his seat with every eye fixed on him. The president had pursued with per- j sistence the plan of Lincoln for the immediate restoration of the Union. Would congress follow the lead of the president or challenge him to mortal combat. Civil governments had been restored in all the southern states, with men of the highest ability chosen as governors and lawmakers. Their legislatures had unanimously voted for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, and elected senators and representatives to congress. Mr. Seward, the secretary of state had declared the new amendment a part of the organic law of the Nation by the vote of these states. General Grant went to the south to report its condition and boldly declared: . "I am satisfied that the mass of thinking people of the south accept the situation in good faith. Slavery and secession they regard as settled forever by the highest known tribunal, and consider this decision a fortunate one for the whole country." Would the southerners be allowed to enter? Amid breathless silence the clerk rose to call the roll of members-elect. Every ear was bent to hear the name of the first southern man. Not one was called! The master had spoken. His clerk knew how to play his part. The next business of the house was to receive the message of the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. The message came, but not from the White House. It came from the seat of the Great Commoner. As the first thrill of excitement over the challenge to the president slowly subsided, Stoneman rose planted his big club foot in the middle of the aisle, and delivered to congress the word of its new master. It was Ben's first view of the man of all the world just now of most interest. From his position he could see his full face and figure. He began speaking in a careless, desultory way. His tone was loud yet not declamatory, at first in a grumbling, grandfatherly, half-humorous, querulous accent that riveted every ear instantly. A sort of drollery of a contagious kind haunted it. Here and there a member tittered in expectation of a fiash of wit. His figure was taller than the average, slightly bent with a dignity which suggested reserve power and contempt for his audience. One knew instinctively that back of the boldest word this man might say there was a bolder unspoken word he had chosen not to speak. His limbs were long, and their movements slow, yet nervous as from some Internal fiery force. His hands were big and ugly, and always in ungraceful fumbling motion as though a se? parate soul dwelt within them. The heaped-up curly profusion of his brown wig gave a weird impression to the spread of his mobile features. His eagle-beaked nose had three distinct lines and angles. His chin was broad and bold, and his brows beetling and projecting. His mouth was wide, marked and grim: when opened, deep nnrl navcrnous: when closed, it seemed to snap so tightly that the lower Hp protruded. Of all his make-up his eye was the most fascinating', and It held Ben spellhound. It could thrill to the deepest fibre of the soul that looked Into It, yet it did not gleam. It could dominate, awe. and confound, yet It seemed to have no color or fire. He could easily see it across the vast hall from the galleries, yet It was not large. Two bold, colorless dagger-points of light they seemed. As he grew excited, they darkened as if passing under a cloud. A sudden sweep of his huge apelike arm in an angular gesture, and the drollery and carelessness of his voice were riven from it as by a bolt of lightning. , He was driving home his message now in brutal frankness. Yet in the height of his fiercest Invective he never seemed to strengthen himself or call on his resources. In its climax he was careless, conscious of power, and contemptuous of results, as though as a gambler he had staked and lost all and in the moment of losing suddenly become the master of those who had beaten him. His speech never once bent to persuade or convince. He meant to brain the opposition with a single blow, and he did it. For he suddenly took the breath from his foes by shouting in their faces the hidden motive of which they were hoping to accuse him! "Admit these Southern Representatives." he cried, "and with the Democrats elected from the north within one term they will have a majority in con. gress and the electoral college. The supremacy of our party's life is at stake. The man who dares palter with l such a measure is a rebel, a traitor to his party and his people." A #???? Win n turn uui 01 iiuiu tun iiciivuuivii! and his foes sat In dazed stupor at his audacity. He moved the appointment of a "Committee on Reconstruction" to whom the entire government of the "conquered provinces of the south" should be committed, and to whom all credentials of their pretended representatives should be referred. He sat down as the speaker put his motion, declared It carried, and quickly announced the names of this Imperial Committee with the Hon. Aus-. tin Stoneman as Its chairman. He then permitted the message of the president of the United States to be read by his clerk. Well, upon my soul." said Ben, taking a deep breath and looking at Elsie, "he's the whole thing, Isn't he?" The girl smiled with pride. "Yes: he Is a genius. He was born to command and yet never could resist the cry of a child or the plea of a woman. He hates, but he hates ideas and systems. He makes threats, yet when he meets the man who stands for all he hates he falls In love with his enemy." "Then there's hope for me?" "Yes. but I must be the judge of the time to speak." "Well. If he looks at me as he did once today, you may have to do the speaking also." "You will like him when you know him. He is one of the greatest men In America." "At least he's the father of the > greatest girl In the world which is far more important." "I wonder if you know how important?" she asked, seriously. "He Is the anple of my eye. His bitter words. his cynicism ann sarcasm, an- . the surface?masks that hide a great sensitive spirit. You can't know with what brooding tenderness I have alwavs loved and worshiped him. I will never marry against his wishes." "I hone he and I will always be good friends." said Ben. doubtfully. "You mus\" she replied, eagerly pressing his hand. CHAPTER VII. A Woman Lattohs. Each day the conflict waxed warmer AXSMAN. Romance of the x Klan. 5 DIXON, JR. I hv Doubledav. Paee & Co. between the President and the Commoner. The first bill sent to the Whitt House to Africanise the "conquered provinces" the president vetoed in a message of such logic, dignity, and power, the old leader found to his amazement it was Impossible to rally the two-thirds majority to pass it ovei his head. At first, all had gone as planned. Lynch and Howie brought to him a report on "Southern Atrocities," secured through the councils of the secret oathbound Union League, which had destroyed the impression of Genera) Grant's words and prepared his followers for blind submission to his committee. Yet the rally of a group of men in defence of the constitution had given the president unexpected strength. Stoneman saw that he must hold his hand on the throat of the south and fight another campaign. Howie and Lynch furnished the publication committee of the Union League the mat ler, ana tney pnntea iour imiuuu five hundred thousand pamphlets on "Southern Atrocities." The northern states were hostile to negro suffrage the first step of his revolutionary programme, and not a dozen men In congress had yet dared *o favor It. Ohio, Michigan, New York and Kansas had rejected It by overwhelming majorities. But he could appeal to their passions and prejudices against the "Barbarism" of the south. It would work like magic. When he had the south where he wanted It, he would turn and ram negro suffrage and negro equality down the throats of the reluctant north. His energies were now bent to prevent any effective legislation In congress until his strength should be omnipotent. A cloud disturbed the sky for a moment In the senate. John Sherman, of Ohio, began to loom on the horizon as a constructive statesman, and without consulting him was quietly forcing over Sumter's classic oratory a Reconstruction Bill restoring the southern states to the Union on the basis of Lincoln's plan, with no provision for Interference with the suffrage. It had gone to its last reading, and the final vote was pending. The house was in session at 3 a. m.. waiting in feverish anxiety the outcome of this struggle In the senate. Old Stoneman was in his seat, fast asleep from the exhaustion of an unbroken session of forty hours. His meals he had sent to his desk from the Capitol restaurant. He was seventy-four years old and not in good health, yet his energy was tireless, his resources inexhaustible and his audacity matchless. Sunset Cox, a wag of the house, an opponent but personal friend of the old oninr* Klo OAO f or\H anotnO> V/UIIllUUUCli paooiug Alio ovu K. atiu wvv...0 the head sunk on his breast In sleep, laughed softly and said: "Mr. Speaker!" The presiding officer recognised the young Democrat with a nod of answering humor and responded: "The gentleman from New York." "I move you. sir," said Cox, "that, In view of the advanced age and eminent services of the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, the sergeant-atarms be instructed to furnish him with enough poker-chips to last till morning!" The scattered members who were awake roared with laughter, the speaker pounded furiously with his gavel, the sleepy little pages Jumped up. rubbing their eyes and ran here and there answering imaginary calls, and the whole house waked to Its usual noise and confusion. The old man raised his massive head and looked to the door leading toward the senate just as Sumner rushed through. He had slept for a moment, hut his keen intellect had taken up the fight at precisely the point at which he left it. Sumner approached his desk rapidly, leaned over, and reported his defeat ind Sherman's triumph. "For God's sake throttle this measure In the house or we are ruined!" he exclaimed. "Don't be alarmed" replied the cynic. "I'll be here with stronger weapons than articulated wind." "You have not a moment to lose. The bill Is on Its way to the speaker's desk, and Sherman's men are going to force its passage tonight." The senator returned to the other end of the Capitol wrapped in the mantle of his outraged dignity, and In thirty minutes the bill was defeated, and the house adjourned. As the old Commoner hobbled through the door his crooked cane thumping the marble floor, Sumner seized and pressed his hand: "How did you do it?" Stoneman's huge Jaws snapped together and his lower lip protruded: "I sent for Cox and summoned the leader of the Democrats. I told them If they would Join with me and defeat this bill, I'd give them a better one the next session. And I will?negro suffrage! The gudgeons swallowed It whole!" aumiier imeu 1119 cyruiuno auu wrapped his cloak a little closer. The great commoner laughed, as he departed: "He Is yet too good for this world but he'll forget It before we're done this fight." On the steps a beggar asked him for a night's lodging, and he tossed him a gold eagle. The north, which had rejected suffrage for Itself with scorn, answered j Stoneman's fierce appeal to their passions against the south, and sent him a delegation of radicals eager to do his will. So fierce had waxed the combat between the president and congress that I the very existence of Stanton's prisoners languishing in jail was forgotten, and the secretary of war himself became a football to be kicked back and forth In this conflict of giants. The fact that Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee. and had been an old line Democrat before his election as a Unionist with Lincoln, was now a fatal weakness in his position. Under Stoneman's assaults he became at once an executive without a party, and every word of amnesty and pardon he proclaimed for the south In accordance with Lincoln's plan was denounced as the act of a renegade courting the favor of traitors and rebels. Stanton remained in his cabinet aealnst his wishes to Insult and defy him. and Stoneman, quick to see thf way by which the president of the Nation could be degraded and made ridiculous, introduced a bill depriving him of the power to remove his own cabinet officers. The act was not only meant to degrade the president: it was a trap set for his ruin. The penalties were so fixed that its violation would give specific ground for his trial impeachment, and removal from office. Again Stoneman passed his first acl to reduce the "conquered provinces" ol the south to negro rule. President Johnson vetoed it with 8 message of such logic in defence ol the constitutional rights of the states that it failed by one vote to find the two-thirds majority needed to becorrn a law without his approval. The old Commoner's eyes froze int( two dagger-points of icy light wher this vote was announced. With fury he cursed the president but above all he cursed the men of hi; own party who had faltered. As he fumbled his big hands ner vously, he growled: "If I only had five men of genuine courage in congress, I'd hang the mat at the other end of the avenue from the porch of the White House! But I haven't got them?cowards, dastards, dolts, and snivelling fools?" His decision was instantly made. He would expel enough Democrats from the senate and the house to place his two-thirds majority beyond question. The name of the president never passi ed his lips. He referred to him always, even in public debate, as "as the man at the other end of the Avenue," or "the former Governor of Tennessee who once threatened rebels?the late lamented Andrew Johnson, of blessed memory." He ordered the expulsion of the new member of the house from India^ tt IKa nonr | na, jjaiiiei w. v uumiccoi auu vuv ?wn I senator from New Jersey, John P. Stockton. This would give him a majority of two-thirds composed of men s who would obey his word without a I question. i Voorhees heard of the edict with in1 dlgnant wrath. He had met Stoneman i In the lobbies, where he was often the ' centre of admiring groups of friends. * His brutal frankness, had won the ad- | miration of the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash." He could not believe such a man would be a party to a palpable I fraud. He appealed to him personally: "Look here. Stoneman" the young orator cried with wrath. "I appeal to your sense of honor and decency. My credentials have been accepted by your own committee, and my seat been awarded me. My majority Is unquestioned. This Is a high-handed outrage. You cannot permit this crime." The old man thrust his deformed i foot out before him, struck It meditatively with his cane, and. and, looking Voorhees straight In the eye, boldly said: "There's nothing the matter with your majority, young man. I've no doubt it's all right. Unfortunately, you are a Democrat, and happen to be the odd man In the way of the two thirds majority on which the supremacy of my party depends. You will have to go. Come back some other time." And he did. In the senate there was a hitch. When the vote was taken on the expulsion of Stockton, to the amazement of the leader it was a tie. He hobbled into the senate chamber, with the steel point of his cane ringing on the marble flags as though he were thrusting it through the vitals of the weakling who had sneaked and hedged and trimmed at the crucial moment. He met Howie at the door. "What's the matter in there?" he asked. "They're trying to compromise." "Compromise?the Devil of American politics," he muttered. "But how did the vote fail?it was all fixed before the roll-call?" "Morrill, of Maine has trouble with his conscience! He is paired not to vote on this question with Stockton's colleague, who is sick in Trenton. His 'honor' is involved, and he refuses to break his word." "I see," said Stoneman; pulling his bristling brows down until his eyes were two beads of white light gleaming through them. "Tell Wade to summon every member of the party in his room immediately and hold the senate in session." When the group of senators crowded Into the vice president's room, the old man faced them leaning on his cane and delivered an address of five minutes they never forgot. His speech had a nameless fascination. The man himself with his elemental passions was a wonder. He left on public record no speech worth reading, and yet these powerful men shrank under his glance. As the nostrils of his big three-angled nose dilated, the scream of an eagle rang in his voice, his huge ugly hand held the crook of his cant with the clutch of a tiger, his tongue flew with the hiss of an adder and his big deformed foot seemed to grip the floor as the claw of a beast. "The life of a political party, gentlemen," he growled in conclusion, "is maintained by a scheme of subterfuges in which the moral law cuts no figure. As your leader, I know but one law? success. The world is full of fools who must have toys with which to play. A belief in politics is the favorite delusion of shallow American minds. But you and I have no delusions. Your life depends on this vote. If any man thinks the abstraction called 'honor' is Involved let him choose between his honor and his life! I call no names. This Issue must be settled now before the senate adjourns. There can be no tomorrow. It is life or death. Let the roll be called again immediately." The grave senators resumed their s<>Ht8. and Wade, the acting vice president, again put the question of Stockton's expulsion. The member from New England sat pale and trembling, in his soul the anguish of the mortal combat between HIS furnan cunHcieiiL-e, me uuu Mintage of centuries, and the order of his captain. When the clerk of the senate called his name, still the battle raged. He sat In silence, the whiteness of death about his Hps. while the clerk at a signal from the chair paused. And th?n a scene the like of which was never known In American history! August Senators crowded around his desk, begging, shouting, Imploring and demanding that a fellow senator break his solemn word of honor! "Vote! Vote! Call his name again!" they shouted. For a moment pandemonium reigned. High above all rang the voice of Charles Sumner leading the wild chorus. crying: "Vote! Vote! Vote!" The galleries hissed and cheered? the cheers at last drowning every hiss. Stoneman pushed his way among the mob which surrounded the badgered Puritan as he attempted to retreat into the cloak-room. "Will you vote?" he hissed, his eyes Hashing polscn. "My conscience will not permit It," he faltered. "To hell with your conscience!" the old leader thundered. "Go back to your seat, ask the clerk to call your name, and vote, or by the living uoa I'll read you out of the party tonight and brand you a snivelling coward, a copperhead, a renegade, and traitor!" Trembling from head to foot, he staggered back to his seat, the cold sweat standing In beads on his forehead. and gasped: "Call my name!" The shrill voice of the clerk rang out in the stillness like the peal of a trumpet: "Mr. Morrill!" And the deed was done. A cheer burst from his colleagues and the roll-call proceeded. When Stockton's name was reached, he sprang to his feet, voted for himself, and made a second tie! With blank faces they turned to the i leader, who ordered Charles Sumner to move that the senator from New Jersey be not allowed to answer his name on an issue involving his own seat. It was carried. Again the roll was called, and Stockton expelled by a majority of one. In the moment of ominous silence : which followed, a yellow woman of sleek animal beauty leaned far over the gallary rail and laughed aloud. - -? The passage or eacn acr or uir rvr*lutionnrv programme over the veto of i the president was now but a matter of form. The act to degrade his office by ' forcing him to keep a cabinet officer i who dally Insulted him, the Civil Rights ' Rill, and the Freedman's Bureau Bill I followed In rapid succession. Stoneman's crowning Reconstruction Act was passed, two years after the t war had closed, shattering the Union f again i^to fragments, blotting the names of ten great southern states from i its roll, and dividing their territory inf to five Military Districts under the ' control of belted satraps. ' When this measure was vetoed by ' the president, it came accompanied by a message whose words will be forever > etched in fire on the darkest page of ? the Nation's life. Amid hisses, curses, jeers and cat. calls, the clerk of the house read its ' bur-dng words: "The power thus given to the com mandlng officer over the people of each district is that of an absolute monarch. i His mere will Is to take the place of i law. He may make a criminal code of his own; he can make it as bloody as any recorded in history, or he can reserve the privilege of acting on the impulse of his private passions in each case that arises. "Here is a bill of attainder against nine millions of people at once. It is based upon an accusation so vague as to be scarcely intelligible, and found to be true upon no credible evidence. Not one of the nine millions was heard in his own defence. The representatives even of the doomed parties were exclu ded from all participation in the trial. The conviction is to be followed by the most ignominious punishment ever inflicted on large masses of men. It disfranchises them by hundreds of thousands and degrades them all?even those who are admitted to be guiltless? from the rank of freemen to the condition of slaves. "Such power has not been wielded by any monarch in Englan J for more than five hundred years, and in all that time no people who speak the English tongue have borne such servitude." When the last Jeering cat-call which greeted this message of the Chief Magistrate had died away on the floor and in the galleries, old Stoneman rose, with a smile playing about his grim mouth, and introduced his bill to impeach the president of the United States and remove him from office. CHAPTER VIII. A Dream. Elsie spent weeks of happiness in an abandonment of joy to the spell of her lover. His charm was resistless. His gift of delicate Intimacy, the eloquence with which he expressed his love, and yet the manly dignity with which he did it, threw a spell no woman could resist. Each day's working hours were given to his father's case and to the study of law. If there was work to do, he did It, and then struck the word care from his life giving himself body and soul to his love. Great events were moving. The shock of the battle between congress and the president began to shake the Republic to Its foundations. He heard nothing, felt nothing, save the music of Elsie's voice. , And she knew It. She had only played with lovers before. She had never seen one of Ben's kind, and he took her by storm. His creed was simple. The chief end of life is to glorify the girl you love. Other things could wait. And he let them wait. He Ignored their existence. But one cloud cast its shadow over the girl's heart during these red-letter days of life?the fear of what her father would do to her lover's people. Ben had asked her whether he must speak to him. When she said "No, not yet," he forgot that such a man lived. As for his politics, he knew nothing and cared less. But the girl knew and thought with sickening dread, until she forgot her fears in the Joy of his laughter. Ben laughed so heartily, so Insinuatingly, the contagion of his fun could not be resisted. He would sit for hours and confess to her the secrets of his boyish dreams of glory In war, recount his thrilling adventures and daring deeds with such enthusiasm that his cause seemed her own, and the pity and the anguish of he ruin of his people hurt her with the keen sense of personal pain. His love for his native state was so genuine, his pride In the bravery and goodness of Its people so chivalrous, she began to see for the first time how the cords which bound the southerner to his soil were of the heart's red blood. She began to understand why tfie war. which had seemed to her a wicked cruel, and causeless rebellion, was the one inevitable thing in our growth from a loose group of sovereign states to a United Nation. Love had given her his point of view. Secret grief over her father's course began to grow into conscious fear. Wi'h unerring instinct she felt the fatal day drawing nearer when these two men, now of her inmost life, must clash In mortal enmity. She saw little of her father. He was absorbed with fevered activity and deadly hate in his struggle with the president. Brooding over her fears one night, she had tried to Interest Ben in politics. To her surprise she found that he knew nothing of her father's real position or power as leader of his narty. The stunning tragedy of the war had for the time crushed out of his consciousness all political Ideas, as it had for most young southerners. He took her hand while a dreamy look overspread his swarthy face: "Don't cross a bridge till you come o it. I learned that in the war. Politics are a mess. Let me '.ell you ?om<>thing that counts?" He felt her hand's soft pressure and T-evorently kissed it. "Listen," he whispered. "I was dreaming last night aft^r I left you of the home we'll Milld. Just back of our place, on the hill overlooking the river, my father and mother planted trees In exact dun'lcate of the ones they placed around their house when they were married. They set these trees in honor of the first born of their love, 'hat he should make his nest there when grown. But It was not for him. He has pitched his tent on higher ground, and the others with him. This place will be mine. There are forty varieties of trees, all ?rown?elm. maple, oak. holly, pine cedar, magnolia, and every fruit a"d flowering siem mat btuws m uui 'riendly soil. A little house, built near he vacant space reserved for the homestead. Is nicely kept by a farmer, and hlrds have learned to build In every shrub and tree. All the year their music rings Its chorus?one long overture awaiting the coming of my bride?" Elsie sighed. "Listen. dear." he went on. eagerly. "Last night I dreamed the south had risen from her ruins. I saw you there. T saw our home standing amid a bower of roses your hands had Dlanted. The full moon wranped It in soft llghf. while you and I walked hand In hand In silence beneath our trees. But fairer and brighter than the moon was the face of her I loved, and sweeter than all the songs of birds the music of her voice!" A tear dimmed the girl's warm eyes and a deeper flush mantled her cheeks, as sHe lifted her face and whispered: "Kiss me." CHAPTER IX. The Kino Ampses Himself. With savage energy the Great Commoner pressed to trial the first impeachment of a president of the United States for high criries and misdemeanors. His bill to confiscate the property of the southern people was already pending on the calendar of the house. This bill was the most remarkable ever written in the English language or introduced Into a legislative body of the Aryan race. It provided for the confiscation of ninety per cent or tne land of ten grreat states of the American Union. To each negro in the south was allotted forty acres from the estate of his former master, and the remaining millions of acres were to be divided among the "loyal who had suffered by reason of the Rebellion." The execution of this, the most stupendous crime ever conceived by an English law-maker, Involving the exile and ruin of millions of Innocent men, women, and children, could not be Intrusted to Andrew Johnson. No such measure could be enforced so long as any man was president and commander-in-chief of the army and Navy who claimed his title under the constitution. Hence the absolute necessity of his removal. The conditions of society were ripe for this daring enterprise. Not only was the ship of state In the hands of revolutionists who had boarded her in the storm stress of a civic convulsion, but among them swarmed the pirate captains of the boldest criminals who ever figured in the story of a nation. The first great Railroad Lobby, with continental empires at stake, thronged the Capitol with its lawyers, agents, barkers, and hired courtesans. The Cotton Thieves, who operated through a ring of treasury agents, had confiscated unlawfully three million bales of cotton hidden in the south dur lng the war and at Its close the last resource of a ruined people. The treasury had received a paltry twenty thousand boles for the use of Its name with which to seize alleged "property of the Confederate Government." The value of this cotton, stolen from the widows and orphans, the maimed and crippled, of the south was over $700,000,000 In gold?a capital sufficient to have started an impoverished people again on the road to prosperity. The agents of this ring surrounded the halls of legislation, guarding their booty from envious eyes, and demanding the enactment of vaster schemes of legal confiscation. The Whisky Ring had Just been formed, and began its system of gigantic frauds by which It scuttled the treasury. Aoove mem ail towered the ngrure of Oakes Ames, whose master mind had organised the Credtt Moblller steal. This vast infamy had already eaten Its way Into the heart of congress and dug the graves of many illustrious men. So open had become the shame that StonemaJi was compelled to Increase his comhnittees In the morning, when a corrupt majority had been bought the nlcht before. He arose one day, and, looking a' the distinguished speaker, who was himself the secret associate of Oakes Ames, said: "Mr. Speaker: "While the house slept, the enemy has sown tares among our wheat. The corporations of this country having neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be lost, have perhaps by he power of argument alone, beguiled from the majority of my committee the member from Connecticut. The enemy have now a majority of one. I move to Increase the committee to twelve." Speaker Colfax, soon to be hurled from the vice president's chair for his oart with those thieves, increased his committee. Everybody knew that "the power of areument alone" meant ten thousand dollars pash for the gentleman from Connec'iput, who did not appear on the Poor for a week, fearing the scorpion tongue ojf the old Commoner. A congress which found It could make and unmake laws in defiance of the executive went mad. Taxation soared to undreamed heights, while the currency was depreciated and subject to the wildest fluctuations. The statute books were loaded with laws that shackled chains of monopoly on generations yet unborn. Pub lie land* wide as the reach of empires were voted as gifts to private carpers' Ions. a"d subs Idles of untold millions fixed as a charge upon the people and their children's children. The demoralisation incident to a ereat war, the waste of unheard-of urns of money, the giving of contracts involving millions by which fortunes wr" mime in a night, the riot of speculation and debauchery by those who tried to get rich suddenly without labor. had created a new Capital of the Nation. The vulture army of the base, venal, unpatrotic, and corrupt, which bad swept down, a black cloud, in warime to take advantage of the misfortunes of the Nation, had settled in Washington and gave new tone to Its life. Prior to the Civil War the Capital was ruled, and the standards of Its social and! political life fixed, by an arls ocracy founded on brains, culture, and blood. Power was with few exceptions intrusted to an honorable body of high-spirited public officials. Now a negro electorate controlled the city government, and gangs of drunken nePToes, its sovereign citizens, paraded the streets at night firing their muskets unchallenged and unmolested. A new mob of onion-laden breath, mixed with perspiring African odor, became the symbol of American Democracy, , A netf order of society sprouted in this corruption. The old high-bred ways, tastes and enthusiasms were driven into the hiding-places of a few families and cherished as relics of the oast. Washington, choked with scrofulous wealth, bowed the knee to the Almighty Dollar. The new altar was covered with a black mould of human blood? but no questions were asked. A mulatto woman kept the house of the foremost man of the Nation and received his guests with condescension. In this atmosphere of festerl-g vice and gangrene passions, the struggle between the Great Commoner and the president on which hung the fate of the sou'h approached Its climax. The whole Nation was swept Into the whirlpool, and business was paralysed. Two years afUr the close of a victorious war. the credit of the Republic dropped until Its six per cent bonds sold In the open market for seventy-'.hree cents on the dollar. The revolutionary junta In control of the Capital was within a single step of the subversion of the government and the establishment of a dictator In the White House. A convention was called In Philadelphia to restore fraternal feeling, heal the wounds of war, preserve the constitution. a d restore the Union of the fathers. It was a grand assemblage represen Ing the heart a-d brain of tha Nation. Members of Lincoln's first cabinet, protesting senators and congressmen. editors of great Republics ' and Democratic newspapers, heroes of both armies, long estranged, met for a common purpose. When a group of famous negro worshippers from Boston suddenly entered the hall, arm In arm with ex-slaveholders from South Carolina the great meeting rose and walls * ? ?/ ! v*r\r\f en ?i or wllll thlinHoP nOH 1Q fl f applause. Their committee, headed by a famous editor, Journeyed to Washington to appral to the Master at the Capitol. Thev sought him not In the Whi'e House, but In the little Black House In an obscure street on the hill. The brown woman received them with haughty dignity, and said: "Mr. Stoneman can not be seen at his hour. It is after 9 o'clock. I will submit to him your request for an audience tomorrow morning." "We must see him tonight," replied the editor, with rising anger. "The king is amusing himself," said the yellow woman, with a touch of malice. "Where is he?" Her cat-like eyes rolled from side to side, and a smile played about her full lips as she said: "You will find him at Hall & Pemberton's gambling hell?you've live in Washington. You know the way." With a muttered oath the editor turned on his heel and led his two companions to the old Commoner's favorite haunt. There could be no better time or place to approach him tha 1 seated at one of Its tables laden with rare wines and savory dishes. On reaching the well-known number of Hall & Pemberton's place, the editor petered the unlocked door, passed with his friends along the soft-carpeted hall, and ascended the stairs. Here the loor was locked. A sudden pull of the hell, and a pair of bright eyes peeped through a small grating In the center rattoulorl hv thp flllHlne of Its panel. The keen eyes glanced at the proffered card, the door flew open, and a well-dressed mulatto Invited them with cordial welcome to enter. Passing along another hall they were ushered Into a palatial- suite of rooms furnished In princely state. The flpors were covered with the richest and softest carpets?so soft and yielding that the tramp of a thousand feet could not make the faintest echo. The walls and ceilings were frescoed by the brush of a great master, and hung with works of art worth a king's ransom. Heavy curtains, In colors of exquisite taste, masked each window, excluding all sound from within or without. The rooms blazed with light from gorgeous chandeliers of trembling [crystals, shimmering and flashing from the c<?lltngs like bouquets of diamonds. Negro servants, faultlessly dressed, attended the slightest want of every euest with the quiet grace and courtesy of the lost splendors of the old south. The proprietor, with courtly manners. extended his hand: "Welcome, gentlemen: you are my guests. The tables and the wines are at your service without price. Eat. drink, and be merry?play or not, as you please." A smile lighted his dark eyes, but faded out near his mouth, cold and rigid. At the farther end of the last room hung the huge painting of a leopard so vivid and real its black and tawny colors, so furtive and wild Its restless eyes, it se med alive and moving be- I hi d Invisible bars. Just under It, gorgeously set in its tewet-studded frame, stood the maalc green table on which men staked their gold and lost their souls. The rooms were crowded with congressmen, government officials, officers of the army and navy, clerks, contractors, paymasters, lobbyists, and professional gamblers. The centre of an admiring group was a congressman who had during the last session of the house broken the '"bank" In a single night, winning more than a hundred thousand dollars. He had lost It all and more In two weekB, and the courteous proprietor now held orders for the lion's share of the total pay and mileage of nearly every member of the house of repre- 1 sentatlves. Over that table thousands of dollars of the people's money had been staked and lost during the war, by quartermasters, paymasters and agents In charge of public funds. Many a man , had approached that green table with a stainless name and left It a perjured thief. Some had been carried out by those handsomely dressed waiters, and ( the man with the cold mouth could point out, if he would, more than one stain on the soft carpet which marked 1 the end of a tragedy deeper than the pen of romancer has ever sounded. ! Stoneman at the moment was playing. He was rarely a heavy player, bu' irtxA Q fnfon*v-Hnl'or J IIC liau juoi avai\cu a b?va?.,r %>v. gold-piece and won fourteen hundred dollars. Howie, always at his elbow, ready for a "sleeper" or a stake, said: 1 "Put a stack on the ace." I He did so, lost and repeated It twice. , "Do It again," urged Howie. "I'll stake my reputation that the ace wins 1 this time." ' With a doubting glance at Howie, j old Stoneman shoved a stack of blue chips worth fifty dollars, over the ace. 1 playing It to win on Howie's judgment 1 and reputation. It lost. I Without the ghost of a smile the old , statesman said: "Howie, you owe me five cents." As he turned abruptly on his clubfoot from the table, he encountered the , editor and his friends, a western man- . ufacturer, and a Wall Street banker They were soon seated at a table In a ' private room, over a dinner of choice < oysters, diamond-back terrapin, canvas-back duck, and champagne. They presented their plea for a ' truce In his fight until popular passion I had subsided. He heard them In silence. His answer was characteristic: "The will of the people, gentlemen. 1 Is supreme," he said, with a sneer. \ "We are the people. 'The man at the ( other end of the Avenue' has dared to defy the will of congress. He must go. 1 If the supreme court lirt? a nnger in thlR flght. we will reduce that tribunal | to one man or Increase It to twenty at our pleasure." "But the constitution?" broke In the chairman." 1 "There are higher lawR than paper | compacts. We are conquerors treading conquered aoll. Our will alone Is the ' source of law. The drunken boor who s claims to be president Is In reality an j alien of a conquered province." "We protest." exclaimed the man of mo-ey. "against the use of such epl- 1 thets In referring to the Chief Magls- | trate of the Republic!" , "And why, pray?" sneered the Commoner. 1 "In the name of common decency i law. and order. The president Is a | man of Inherent power, Aven If he did ( learn to read after his marriage. Like ma~y other Americans he Is a selfmerfe man?" i "Glad to hear It." snapped Stoneman. , "It relieves Almighty God of a fearful responsibility." They left him In disgust and dismay, i TO BE CONTINUED. HANNA AND THE PICKPOCKET. ] Ohio Statesman Was Convinced That Pickpockets Really Exist. The late Edwin Cowles, editor of the Cleveland Leader. numbered ' among his accomplishments that of pocket-plcklng. Of course he picked '( pockets as an amateur only, but It Is ^ doubtful wnetner mere ever was a. professional who could play the llghtflngered game more skillfully than the able editor did occasionally for fun. It was during the administration of a mayor who had been elected as a protege of M. A. Hanna, who was then starting In Cleveland upon the political career which gave him national prominence, that the Leader began a crusade against vice. Articles were published dally in which it was asserted that the city was full of thieves, gamblers and other crooks, and the mayor was taken severely to task for not having them driven away. Hanna. being the power behind the municipal throne, came In for censure, In an indirect way, and meeting Cowles In the street one day he expostulated with him concerning the Leader's style of warfare. "Look here, Cowles," he said, "what's the use of all this racket? You're making a mountain out of a molehill. There are no more crooks in town than there have been right along, and it would be foolish to expect any mayor to drive all the lawbreakers out, no matter how hard he tried or how good his Intentions might be." Cowles Insisted that his paper was right, and he expressed the belief that there were then more pickpockets In Cleveland than had ever Infested the city before. "Pickpockets!" snorted Hanna, "I don't believe there's a pickpocket In the town. And anyway. I have no sympathy for anybody whose pockets are picked. No one but a jay could ever be robbed in that way." "You don't know," said Cowles. "how skillful some of these llght-flngered fellows become. It would be possible for one of them to go through your pockets while talking to you as I am now." Hanna laughed derisively and said any pickpocket that ever got a hand into his clothes without being caught at It was welcome to anything he could extract. As they were parting. Cowles turned to ask what time it was, and Hanna felt for his watch. It was gone. "That's strange," he said, "I guess I must have forgotten when I dressed this morning to put it in my pocket." "Speaking of forgetting things," Cowles answered, "I forgot my wallet when I left home. Could you lend me J10?" Hanna felt for his money, but found none. He put his hand into one empty pocket after another and was be ginning to look sneepisn wnen towies handed him back his watch, his mon- ' ey, his keys and a bundle of letters. ' "Very well, Cowles," said the future ? senator, "I'll see what can be done 1 about driving the pickpockets away." ?Chicago Record-Herald. Many prayers are long only because they are so thin. Jflisfcllancdus ileatlinq. MOUNT MITCHELL AND VICINITY Bcenery and Life In the Blue Ridge About Aeheville. Follow the beautiful Swannanoa river from Ashevllle for twenty miles and the tourist will find himself In a little cove shadowed by the tallest peaks of the Appalachian system. So towering are the mighty slopes that daylight Is very slow In reaching the cove. When Old Sol peeps over the head of Gray Beard in these autumn mornings it is 9:15 by the clock and when he sinks behind the black crags of Craggy it is but 4:46. Without any twilight at all, night descends and the little bit of heaven above is luminous with the glitter of the stars that In this pure atmosphere shine with transcendent lustre. Through the gap that affords a trail to Mount MitchelT, and from the summit of a lofty peak of the Black Mountains, a stream of crystal water comes dashing and leaping over rocks and boulders. It gleams like snow as It falls in from beneath the shadows of spruce and hemlock and as it breaks into the sunlight reflected from tiger illy tints of the maple, it sparkles like some gorgeous sunburst. Falling from the brink?as soft as carded wool?a cascade from the left enters the North Fork. Fifty feet aelow a dam ten feet high backs the water up into a silent pool, whose outlet is the intake of the Ashevllle water works. The water enters through a small grating, the first reservoir, the dimensions of which are 40 by 40 feet, and ten feet In depth. After filtering through pipes, it passes into a smaller reservoir, from which it flows In a slxteen-inch terra cotta pipe for 18 miles to Ashevllle. Both reservoirs are partitioned and so constructed :hat as the water flows from one the ether can be drained and thoroughly cleansed from sediment The Intake Is 485 feet higher than the city square, while the reservoir on the mountain ridge above the city Is 285 feet lower. This height gives 150 pounds pressure on pipes made to withstand a pressure of 60 pounds?a force of inestimable value to the Are department but a constant source of trouble to the residential population. The plumbers, of course, reap the benefit of this havoc to pipes and do i rushing business. Bight hours is the time consumed by the water in its passage from the Intake to the city reservoir. In case of obstruction air enters the pipe and ?tops the progress of the water for Fourteen hours. As the city's reservoir capacity is only sufficient for twentyfour hours' supply of water, the greatest care is exercised to guard against accidents. Two men are employed to spend their entire time inspecting the eighteen miles of pipe lines so as to give immediate report on lefects. The intake and- surrounding water sheds are protected by the vigilance of two very responsible men, who, with their families, dwell in the cove and devote their energies to the care of Ashevllle'8 water supply. Five thousand acres of wooded mountain land, on either side of the North Fork and Left Fork, are now the city's property. The lumber mills that a few years ago were greedily engaged in demolishing timber have been banished and the water sheds are recovering from their devastations. Ferns, mosses and galex leaves cover the rich mould of earth relalning the moisture that trickles in " ? *>- - 1 thot liny veins liuu me lai ^ci at icu?o ? > ? feed the streams, so that there Is no possibility, even in a great drought, of the water giving out. To the eye of the unobservant the business of the Wardens of the Intake appears peaceful and poetic. To live away from the feverish rush of humanity, amid the wild grandeur and magnificence of nature, with apparently no occupation more arduous than picking up chestnuts, squirrels and apples. But lo! the winds blow and the leaves fall and threaten to choke up the grated entrance of the Intake, and a night and day struggle with forks and rakes is necessary to relieve the situation. More perilous is It still to battle with logs that come swirling down the torrent occasioned by some heavy freshet or cloudburst, threatening ruin and destruction to the intake. Even this, however, is not so severe a task as Is the ceaseless hacking of ice during the zero spells of water, when Jack Frost determines to take possession of the reservoirs and cut the pipes off from any connection with Asheville. Clad in rub Der SUllS ine iwu siamau iituuui.Mii. men. with picks and axes, chop and hack. Sometimes for three days and nights, almost dead from exhaustion, they work unceasingly In an atmosphere more freezing than a Siberian mine and are barely able to keep the pipes from becoming choked. When not engaged on these herculean tolls they roam around the barbed wire fencing to see that it is In ?ood order, they examine the posters that give warning to trespassers; they exercise police vigilance in driving off Intruders; for campers, greasers, hunters and fishermen are allowed no juarter on the city's property. All the labor and life's blood of these men eosts the city of Ashevllle only about 10 per cent of what It used to cost to pump by machinery the dirty mud of the Swannanoa, that a few years ago furnished drinking water to the population. The surest test of the absolute purity of the city water Is that the speckled trout live In It. The city authorities are unable to account for the presence of these fish In the reservoir, and are Inclined to think that drift Ing eggs have hatched there. A year ago, In a big Are on Main street persons were astonished to find trout, three and four Inches long, that had dropped from the nozzle of the hose upon the street. Such opportunities is these afford the inhabitants the only opportunity of tasting the great delicacy of speckled trout from our mountain streams, for although Ash can be bought In this market that come from Columbia river, the Gulf of Mexico ind Labrador, a speckled mountain trout Is as rare as a sea serpent. Life at the Intake is a strenuous one to the wardens and a strenuous one to the visitors who lodge there for a few hours on their journey to the summit ui muuui m iLviicti* i uc trail mat enters the gorge close to the intake at its best was steep and rugged, and has now, from lack of all attention, become well nigh Impassable. Fallen trees block the narrow passage and * k? have either to be squeezed under or straddled over or sidled around on a' precipitous slope. The rocky bed of the path trickles and streams with water and the slime and mud and holes have to be slipped or stumbled over by man and beast. Travellers usually start out bravely on horseback' to make the ten mile ascent, they ride until they feel that death is staring them in the face, when they dismount to hobble along along until they drop In their track; then as they realise that they are going to be killed anyhow they climb into the saddle agaJn, hoping to ease their Journey to the other world. Strange as It may appear, considering the dangers, no very serious accident since that which cost Professor Mitchell his life has ever occurred. Women have wept and men have groaned and beasts have quaked and gnashed their teeth on this wild mountain trail, but they have all lived to come down, and some have even ventured again to make the terrible climb and the hazardous descent. The millionaire candy manufacturer, Huyler, who has been Instrumental In building up a little village eight miles from the cove, called Montreat, has engineered a new trail to Mount Mitchell. It traverses several high peaks and keeps on the top of dlssy ridges. The vistas to be seen on every side are magnificent, but the length and roughness of this new trail is even greater than the old one. much of an altitude, when compared to the great peaks on the Pacific slope, but Mount Mitchell is so unapproachable, so hemmed in by high mountains that the difficulty of reaching Its summit is exceedingly great The view from the dome, at Prof. Mitchell's grave, Is sublime and glorious beyond description. Once when the moon was rising over a world floating between earth and sky, the wonderful hush was broken by the voices of campers uplifted In the hymn of "Nearer, My God, to Thee." It seemed as If earth could bring humanity no nearer to the great white throne than at that moment. Another scene, even more solemn and Impressive, occurred one August morning when the clouds, with a crimson sun bursting over them, made it appear as If the pinnacle of Mount VUaKaII urate an altar* nf nnvw aHflfnP from a sea of Are. Great waves of flames leapt upward In swirling columns mingling with the sky, and strange as it may seem, there was nothing terrible in this spectacle, for the flames were as soft as the curtains to God's tabernacle and the stillness of it all unearthly. There, upon an altar v of stone amid a glory almost celestial, knelt two priests offering up to the Creator of all, the Holy Sacrifice of' the Mass. Such scenes as these are lifting to the grandeur and majesty oT this monarch of the Appalachians! It is always with a pang that one bids farewell to this upper world of gorgeous visions to descend to the commonplace beaten track of mortals ?to tumble almost head over heels down to the Intake. Probably the traveller will spend the night in the little cove, if he lives to tell the tale. If the weather is fair and no breezes blow, he may hear, mingling with his dreams a lonely fox barking on a distant crag?an owl breaking Into shuddering laughter, or perchance the low, savage growl of a prowling wild cat. The wolves and bears do not venture from their lairs in the deep ravines. Tears ago the writer heard when camping on Crag gy, the howls from packs of wolves, but the forests have been so disturbed In these days of saw mills that wolves and bears have retired to impenetrable fastnesses and their cries are heard no more. It Is no uncommon occurrence for a party of tenters to have their provisions routed at midnight In great excitement they report their hairbreadth escape from a bear, but investigation never falls to prove that the marauder was but an ordinary stray hog. These tenters always consider discretion the better part of valor. If a storm is brewing there is no sleep for lodgers near the intakes, for even at the most exposed lighthouses the wind and waves make not half the commotion that is created in this tiny cove. Through Balsam Gap the blasts swoop down straight from the North Pole, meeting the Antarctic current that belches forth from the gap of the Blue Ridge. Fanned on mighty pinions the forest sways and shrieks and roars, while the gorges and deep rock crevices emit booming, thunderous, earthquaking reverberations. that mingle with the artillery echoes of the streams into a crescendo of wild chaotic sounds that it would seems the very earth was being riven asunder. And this is the strange little cove i>?t ViophnpB tho intake and supplies Asheville with the coolest, purest, cleanest water ever distilled from heaven for earth.?Helen Morris LewIs In News and Courier. A Wonderful Automaton. In the year 1770 the most wonderful automaton that has ever been constructed was exhibited at Exeter exchange, London. This automatic wonder represented a country gentleman's house, and was of such Intricate and elaborate construction that no one disputed the claim of the exhibitor when he declared that he had worked twenty-seven years In perfecting It. It showed the regulation English country house, with parks, gardens, cascades, temples, bridges, etc., besides over 100 appropriately clad human figures In the gardens, on the bridges, chooDinsr wood and at various build lng operations. In the park were sev- * eral deer moving naturally about and four horses and a coach following the meandering road. Besides the above the figures of boys were seen fishing from the bridges, while a boat load of ladles and gentlemen regularly rowed across an enlattement In the brook, much to the cMUkternatlon of the natural looking figure* of geese and ducks which were-paddling about In the water. The wholie of these animate and inanimate figures were inclosed in a space only four and onehalf feet square.?Exchange.