souri entered the Senate two years
before I did, and has been there ever since. He is a man
of great sincerity and integrity, of great influence with his
own party, and highly esteemed by his Republican associates.
He can generally be depended upon for a fair vote, certainly
always for an honest and incorruptible vote, and to do full
justice to a political opponent. He used for many years to
prepare one speech, in each session, in which he went over
the political issues of the two parties in a violent and extreme
fashion. He would give us the whole history of the year and
point out the imperfections and weakness and atrocity of the
party in power in a most unsparing fashion. This speech he
would frank home to Missouri. He seemed to think his duty
as a Democratic politician was done, and he would betake himself
to statesmanship the rest of the year. I think he has of
late discontinued that practice. I do not want what I have
said to be taken too seriously. There is scarcely a member
of either side in either House who would be more missed from
the public service, if anything were to happen to him, than
Mr. Cockrell, nor for whom all men have a kindlier and more
affectionate regard. Like Mr. Allison, he knows the mechanism
of administration and legislation through and through. He
would be entirely competent to fill a chair of public administration
in any college, if, as I hope may be done, such chairs shall
be established.

When Justin Morrill died, not only a great figure left the
Senate Chamber--the image of the ancient virtue of New England--
but an era in our national history came to an end. He knew
in his youth the veterans of the Revolution and the generation
who declared independence and framed the Constitution, as
the young men who are coming to manhood to-day know the veterans
who won our victories and the statesmen who conducted our
policy in the Civil War. He knew the whole history of his
country from the time of her independence, partly from the
lips of those who had shaped it, partly because of the large
share he had in it himself. When he was born Washington had
been dead but ten years. He was sixteen years old when Jefferson
and Adams died. He was twenty-two years old when Charles
Carroll died. He was born at the beginning of the second
year of Madison's Presidency, and was a man of twenty-six
when Madison died. In his youth and early manhood the manners
of Ethan Allen's time still pr