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being Speaker of the House, when they joined forces in their present valuable combination. But both had been through drastic training in the legislative department of the field of men and measures.

For twenty years Busbey was with the Chicago Inter Ocean, first, in all the Mississippi valley states, then in Washington, watching national and political men and events. He was the best known and the best knowing of the political writers of the middle West. He was with President McKinley in his private car during the several trips and campaign tours he made. What he did not know of politicians and their ways and means when Cannon caught him would be hardly worth trying to find out. He had edited the Campaign Handbook for the Republican Congressional Committee, and supplied the press bureau with copy. Speaker Cannon was not mistaken in his man, as he usually is not.

Busbey is the gray-haired and bearded one among the secretaries of the mighty; but it is not the result of age. His tremendous shock of hair is just a bit frostbitten, and his beard and mustache are quite gray under the stress of his strenuous life. He has large, dark, wide-open eyes and a dominant nose of the kind that goes straight for the inwardness of men and measures political. If he were not,

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like his chief, a thoroughly honest man, like him he would be a thoroughly danger

ous man.

Busbey is a man who demands instinctive respect and commands confidence, while his long experience in the newspaper field has particularly fitted him for one of the most delicate duties of his position: purveyor of information to the press. As the source of information, legislative, he holds much the position which Loeb holds with news executive. Speaker Cannon trusts him to the limit with all the secrets of the throne, and newspaper men all realize the benefit of retaining his confidence. A grave responsibility rests upon his shoulders as to just what to give out and when, which few could bear without breaks. Busbey does it because he is the man for the place.

The secretaries of the mighty are a bigger, better, more important class of men to-day than ever before in the history of the nation. The imprint of their overshadowed individuality grows constantly deeper upon affairs of state. Their influence will continue to increase with every year of the country's development. The character and cast of the men in these offices, to-day, speaks volumes for the integrity, the honor and the ability of the administration.

FROM SADDLE TO SENATE

THE REMARKABLE CAREER OF
CHARLES CURTIS, A KAW INDIAN

BY

SHEFFIELD COWDRICK

HEN Charles Curtis took his seat as senator from Kansas, the Indian race for the first time received representation in the Senate of the United States. Senator Curtis is descended from the Kaw Indians, and has been formally recognized by the survivors of the tribe. It is the first time a state has sent to the Senate a man with any appreciable amount of Indian blood in his veins.

Although slightly less than one-quarter Indian, Curtis might, from his features and his swarthy skin, be taken for a fullblood. "The Indian" he has been called, sometimes in hate, sometimes in admiration, throughout his political career. "Beat the Indian" was the battle cry in many a hard-fought campaign. But it was not easy to beat the Indian who has just reached a dominating place in Kansas politics. Curtis has the wily per

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CHARLES CURTIS, THE FIRST UNITED STATES SENATOR OF THE INDIAN RACE.

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the foundation for future greatness by selling papers on the streets. Seldom, however, does a high career take its start in front of the judge's stand at the racetrack. Charles Curtis in his boyhood not only sold papers, but he rode races as a jockey on the track. The new Kansas senator still bears the scars left by a fall from a wild horse which, with characteristic boldness, he had undertaken to subdue. Another occupation of the future senator was driving a hack. For some time he drove a hack at night, sharing the receipts with the owner of the vehicle,

But, to whatever work he turned his hand in his early struggles for a livelihood, young Curtis always found time for reading and study.

One day the boy walked into the law office of A. H. Case, then one of the most prominent lawyers in Kansas. "I want to read law and pay for it by doing your office work," he announced.

"But, my boy," was the reply of the lawyer, "there are more poor lawyers now than the profession can support."

"But I'm not going to be a poor lawyer," " said the boy. "I want to be a good one." In two years he was admitted to

the bar.

When he was twenty-four years of age Curtis was elected county attorney of Shawnee county. Topeka, the state capital and Curtis's birthplace, was a "wideopen" town in spite of the prohibitory amendment which had been adopted in Kansas some four years before. Curtis himself was the lawyer who had defended the saloonmen against the efforts of the well-meaning temperance man who preceded him as county attorney. His election caused much grief to the people who believed in the enforcement of law.

Immediately after taking office Curtis sent word to the saloonkeepers that they must quit business. The saloonmen were delighted at the excellent witticism of

their friend 'Charley.' But in a few days another order came. This was carrying a joke too far. Curtis was rebuked for his presumption.

"It's no use, boys," he said. "You've got to close. I took an oath to enforce the law and I'm going to do it." There were pleas, angry expostulations, then open defiance. One month after the new county attorney took office there was not a saloon in Topeka, and a number of wealthy and more or less prominent citizens were in the county jail.

Charles Curtis is one of the most consummate politicians that ever lived in Kansas. With a political acumen equal to that of Senator Chester I. Long, he has a hold upon the affections of the people that gives him a strength immeasurably greater than any the other Kansas senator can ever possess. During his fourteen years in Congress he has beaten down the most powerful political combinations ever formed in the state.

Curtis is a man blameless in private life. "During all the campaign trips I have taken with him," said an old acquaintance of the Senator, "he has never tasted liquor or smoked a cigar. I have never heard him use an oath." Such is

the character of the man who began his career on the box of a night hack and in the silk jacket of a jockey.

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rience. Sir Alfred Jones, one of England's foremost men, and a party of eighty prominent English ladies and gentlemen had arrived a few days before on the large Direct Liner, the Port Kingston. Several hundred Americans brought to Jamaica for the winter months were in and about Kingston. Ninety miles away Ninety miles away in Guantanamo Bay rode a fleet of white American warships. The great Englishspeaking nations were on terms of extreme friendliness, not a jar had occurred between them in many years. The situation was quite ready for the interference of nature.

Somewhere under the earth there was a great upheaval. Kingston, built of brick and old masonry, was rattled down by the surface tremor, and Americans, English and Jamaicans were left foodless, roofless and distracted when the ensuing fire had swept over the depots of provisions.

Sir Alexander Swettenham immediately began to behave like the excited foreman of a ditch gang. When, on January 17, the battle-ships Missouri and Indiana and the destroyer Whipple arrived in Kingston and began the relief of the city after having had their formal offer of aid accepted by the authorities, Governor Swettenham contrived bluntly to insult Admiral Davis and his men and requested their withdrawal. The people of the United States. were amazed and angry. So were the diplomats of Great Britain, who immediately disclaimed responsibility for the governor's action. The American government hastened to accept the apology and close the incident. The government was ignorant of other and equally grave things that had transpired before Admiral Davis and his vessels arrived. Several hundred wounded and homeless refugees, including a number of Ameri

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Some idea of the force of the earthquake can be gained from the position of the telephone poles

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