Fifty Years of Public Service | Page 5

which was very hot and very crowded. I was rolled around in
the snow a while and speedily revived. I was immediately asked to let
one of the boys read the remainder of the address, but the heroic

treatment to which I had been subjected stirred me to profane
indifference respecting its fate. Later I was selected to deliver the
valedictory. So I suppose I must have enjoyed a reasonable degree of
popularity among my fellow students.
It was at Mount Morris that I first became intimate with the late Robert
R. Hitt. He and his brother John, who recently died, were classmates of
mine, their father being the resident Methodist preacher at Mount
Morris. Robert R. Hitt remained my friend from our school days until
his death. He was a candidate for the Senate against me at one time, but
he was no politician, and I defeated him so easily that he could not
harbor a bitter feeling against me. He was quite a character, and
enjoyed a long and distinguished public career in Illinois. One of the
early shorthand reporters of the State, the reporter of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates, he became intimate with Lincoln, and
Lincoln was very fond of him. He filled numerous important positions
at home and abroad, and married a most beautiful lady, who still
survives. He was later appointed Secretary of Legation at Paris.
Bob Hitt told me that he asked President Grant for the appointment,
and the President at once said that he would give it to him. Washburne,
who had been Secretary of State for a few days, and who was then
minister at Paris, was much astonished when Hitt appeared and said
that he had been appointed Secretary of Legation. Mr. Washburne
denounced both President Grant and Secretary of State Fish for
appointing anybody to fill such an intimate position without his
consent.
Ambassadors and ministers, however, are not consulted as to who shall
be appointed secretaries. These appointments are made by the President,
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; but Mr. Washburne,
as usual, though that he was a bigger man than any one else, and that an
exception should have been made in his case. But, when officially
informed of the appointment, he submitted gracefully, and they got
along together quite amicably. Strange to say, Hitt represented
Washburne's old district in Congress for a number of years--many more
years than Washburne himself represented it.

It was as a member of Congress that Mr. Hitt distinguished himself. He
did what every man should do who expects to make a reputation as a
national legislator; and that is to specialize, to become an expert in
some particular branch. He was peculiarly fitted for foreign affairs. He
was a man of education and culture, a student always, had served
abroad for years, had mingled in the highest society, and it is not
strange than in a comparatively few years he was recognized as the
leading authority on all matters coming before the House pertaining to
our foreign relations.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House is not nearly so important
a committee as the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, and I
may be pardoned for saying that I am chairman of the latter committee
myself.
The reason is this: the Constitution provides that treaties shall be made
only with the advice and consent of the Senate; hence it is that all such
treaties, and consequently the foreign policy of the general Government,
must pass the scrutiny of the Foreign Relations Committee of the
Senate while the House and its committees have nothing whatever to
do with them.
But nevertheless of all the House committees, that of Foreign Affairs is
at times the foremost, and it never had an abler chairman than Robert R.
Hitt. He was certainly in the most remarkable degree what might be
termed a specialist in legislation. He gave but scant attention to any
other branch of legislation. He had little time or liking for the tariff,
finance, appropriations, or for any branch of legislation that failed to
come within his own especial province. He was, in fact, so indifferent
to the general business of the House that he told me one day that he did
not even take the trouble to select a regular seat; that when any question
came up in which he was interested he would talk from the seat of
some absent colleague. Hence it was that he was seldom seen on the
floor of the House except when some question was raised concerning
our foreign relations; at which time he was immediately sent for. And it
is only justice to him to say that he was the only man in the House in
his time, and no one has since appeared