Fifty Years of Public Service | Page 2

Why, I date
almost back to the Revolution! President Taft jocularly remarked to me
recently: "Here's my old friend, Uncle Shelby. He comes nearer
connecting the present with the days of Washington than any one
whom I know." And I suppose there are few men in public life whose
careers extend farther into the past than mine.
During my early life the survivors of the Revolutionary War, to say
nothing of the War of 1812, were very numerous and abundantly in
evidence. Up to that time, no man who had not served his country in
some capacity in the Revolutionary War had been elevated to the
Presidency, and this was the case until the year 1843.
During the year 1829 the crown of Great Britain descended from King
George IV to King William IV. That reign passed away, and I have
lived to see the long reign of Victoria come and go, the reign of Edward

VII come and go, and the accession of King George V. Charles X ruled
in France, Francis I in Austria (the reign of Francis Joseph had not yet
begun), Frederick William III in Prussia, Nicholas I in Russia; while
Leo XII governed the Papal States, the Kingdom of Italy not yet having
come into existence. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
had not yet a population of 24,000,000, all told.
From the dawn of this epoch may well date the practical beginning of a
long cycle of political and intellectual upheaval, and the readjustment
of relations which go to make up world-history, arriving at a
culmination in our great Civil War.
In the last half-century--nay, I might say, within the last two
decades--there has been a mighty impulse in the direction of scientific
investigation, of mechanical invention, of preventive medicine, of
economic improvement, and the like. Germany, in some respects, has
led, but our own country has not been far behind. Independent research
has been wonderfully productive, and rivalry has been keen. Often the
mere suggestion of one scientist has been taken up and elaborated (or
discredited) by other scientists; the idea of one inventor has been seized
upon and bettered, or possibly proved valueless, by other inventors.
The paths to the remote and inaccessible have been toiled over by rival
explorers; new records have been made by rival aviators; while
competitive and co-operative activities in every line have known a
phenomenal growth. New names have been placed in the Pantheon of
the immortals, new planets discovered in the solar system, new stars
added to the clear skies of our nightly vision. Out of all the striving has
come a sweeping advance in lingual requirements. In most departments
of Science, Art, and Manufacture, the processes and methods of to-day
are not those of yesterday, and the doers of new things have freely
coined new words or given new meaning to old ones. The most
complete and exhaustive encyclopaedia of yesterday is to-day found
not entirely adequate to the already increased wants. Upon all these
momentous factors must these "Recollections," in one way or another,
touch from time to time.
Shelby M. Cullom.

Washington, D. C. July, 1911.
FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE
CHAPTER I
BIRTH TO ADMISSION TO THE BAR 1829 to 1855
Tides of migration set in about the close of the Revolutionary War,
originating in the most populous of the late Colonies (now States),
debouching from the western slopes of the mountain border-passes into
the headwaters of Kentucky's rivers, and mingling at last in the fertile
valley through which those rivers, in their lower reaches, find an outlet
into the Ohio.
The westward flowing current brought with it two families--the
Culloms of Maryland, and the Coffeys of North Carolina--who settled
in a beautiful valley, not far from the banks of the Cumberland, which
bore the euphonious name of Elk Spring Valley. Richard Northcraft
Cullom, of the first-named family, married Elizabeth Coffey. They
remained in Kentucky until seven children had been born to them, I
being the seventh, the date of my birth occurring on the twenty-second
day of November, 1829. We were a large family, but not
extraordinarily numerous for those times, there being five brothers and
seven sisters.
Kentucky was a Slave State, and my father did not believe in slavery.
He was fairly well to do, and after considering the situation he
determined to seek a home in a Free State and live there to the end of
his days.
A treaty with the Indians in 1784, at Fort Stanwix, had secured from
the Iroquois all claims to the lands which now make up the States of
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. At the time of our removal the State of
Illinois was only eleven years old, and but a small portion of it had any
considerable settlements. These were mainly