Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/108

Rh one of the rules it was declared that when “a member rises to speak, he shall take off his hat and address the speaker.”

Boston sent John C. Gray, John C. Park, Charles Francis Adams, George T. Bigelow (afterwards Chief Justice of the State), Edmund Dwight, Charles P. Curtis, George T. Curtis, John G. Palfrey and others who were men of mark.

From other parts of the State there were Alvah Crocker, of Fitchburg; Henry Wilson, of Natick; Thomas Kinnicutt and Benjamin F. Thomas, of Worcester; John P. Robinson and Daniel S. Richardson, of Lowell; Samuel H. Walley, Jr., of Roxbury, and others.

Mr. Gray was a son of William Gray, the leading merchant of Boston at the close of the last century. Mr. Gray was kept in the House for many years. He was familiar with the rules and usages, and his influence within certain limits was considerable. His integrity was undisputed. Nobody suspected him of personal interests in anything. As chairman of the Committee on Finance, he guided the expenditures of the State with economy and rigid justice. As a speaker his powers were limited to a statement of the facts bearing upon the case. To argument in any high sense he did not aspire.

John C. Park was a good talker. His resources were at his command. His style was agreeable, his argument clear, his positions reasonable, and yet his influence was extremely limited. His experience as a lawyer was the same, substantially. He was not capable of carrying the mind of the hearer to conclusions from which there was no escape.

Of the Whig members, Charles Francis Adams was the person of most note—due to his family and name. He was then thirty-five years of age. He was born into a family of culture, and from the first he enjoyed every advantage that could be derived from books and from the conversation of persons of superior intelligence.

If we include the earliest period of life, the majority of