raphrase, which will show its application.
'Into what crime has he fallen? By what informer has he been
accused? What judge has passed upon him? What witness has
testified against him? Not one or any of these. A verbose
and turgid message has come over from Capri. That settles
it. I will interrogate no further.'"
The most ardent admirers of the then President, Mr. Cleveland,
could not help joining in the laugh.
Mr. Davis took great delight in his descent from the early
settlers of Plymouth, and valued exceedingly the good will
of the people of Massachusetts. The members of the Society
who were fortunate enough to meet him will not forget their
delight in his pleasant companionship, when he visited Massachusetts
a few years ago to attend our meeting and contribute a paper
to our Proceedings. He had hoped to repeat the visit.
I prefer, instead of undertaking to complete this imperfect
sketch by a new portraiture of my honored friend, to add what
I said in the Senate, when the loss of Mr. Davis was still
recent:--
"Mr. President: There is no Senator who would not be glad
to lay a wreath of honor and affection on the monument of
Cushman K. Davis. That, however, is more especially the right
of his colleague and his successor and the members of the
great Committee where he won so much of his fame. I ought
to say but a few words.
"The Senate, as its name implies, has been from the beginning,
with few exceptions, an assembly of old men. In the course
of nature many of its members die in office. That has been
true of thirty-eight Senators since I came to the Capitol.
Others, a yet larger number, die soon after they leave office.
Of the men with whom I have served in this Chamber fifty-
eight more are now dead, making in all ninety-six, enough
and to spare to organize another Senate elsewhere. To that
number has been added every Vice-President but two. Upon
those who have died in office eulogies have been pronounced
in this Chamber and in the House. The speakers have obeyed
the rule demanded by the decencies of funeral occasions--nil
de mortuis nisi bonum--if not the command born of a tenderer
pity for human frailty--jam parce sepulto. But in general,
with scarcely and exception, the portraitures have been true
and faithful. They prove that the people of the American
States, speaking through their legislative assemblies, are
not likely to select men to represent them in this august
assembly who are
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