Marse Henry | Page 9

Indian Office. I supposed he had returned home at the
adjournment of Congress until he called to-day. I doubt whether he has
any business in Washington, but fear he has been detained by

dissipation."
The second of Mr. Polk's entries is a corollary of the first and reads:
"About dark this evening I learned from Mr. Voorhies, who is acting as
my private secretary during the absence of J. Knox Walker, that Hon.
Felix G. McConnell, a representative in Congress from the state of
Alabama, had committed suicide this afternoon at the St. Charles Hotel,
where he boarded. On Tuesday last Mr. McConnell called on me and I
loaned him one hundred dollars. [See this diary of that day.] I learn that
but a short time before the horrid deed was committed he was in the
barroom of the St. Charles Hotel handling gold pieces and stating that
he had received them from me, and that he loaned thirty-five dollars of
them to the barkeeper, that shortly afterward he had attempted to write
something, but what I have not learned, but he had not written much
when he said he would go to his room.
"In the course of the morning I learn he went into the city and paid a
hackman a small amount which he owed him. He had locked his room
door, and when found he was stretched out on his back with his hands
extended, weltering in his blood. He had three wounds in the abdomen
and his throat was cut. A hawkbill knife was found near him. A jury of
inquest was held and found a verdict that he had destroyed himself. It
was a melancholy instance of the effects of intemperance. Mr.
McConnell when a youth resided at Fayetteville in my congressional
district. Shortly after he grew up to manhood he was at my instance
appointed postmaster of that town. He was a true Democrat and a
sincere friend of mine.
"His family in Tennessee are highly respectable and quite numerous.
The information as to the manner and particulars of his death I learned
from Mr. Voorhies, who reported it to me as he had heard it in the
streets. Mr. McConnell removed from Tennessee to Alabama some
years ago, and I learn he has left a wife and three or four children."
Poor Felix Grundy McConnell! At a school in Tennessee he was a
roommate of my father, who related that one night Felix awakened with
a scream from a bad dream he had, the dream being that he had cut his
own throat.

"Old Jack Dade," as he was always called, lived on, from hand to
mouth, I dare say--for he lost his job as keeper of the district
prison--yet never wholly out-at-heel, scrupulously neat in his person no
matter how seedy the attire. On the completion of the new wings of the
Capitol and the removal of the House to its more commodious quarters
he was made custodian of the old Hall of Representatives, a post he
held until he died.

VIII
Between the idiot and the man of sense, the lunatic and the man of
genius, there are degrees--streaks--of idiocy and lunacy. How many
expectant politicians elected to Congress have entered Washington all
hope, eager to dare and do, to come away broken in health, fame and
fortune, happy to get back home--sometimes unable to get away, to
linger on in obscurity and poverty to a squalid and wretched old age.
I have lived long enough to have known many such: Senators who have
filled the galleries when they rose to speak; House heroes living while
they could on borrowed money, then hanging about the hotels begging
for money to buy drink.
There was a famous statesman and orator who came to this at last, of
whom the typical and characteristic story was told that the holder of a
claim against the Government, who dared not approach so great a man
with so much as the intimation of a bribe, undertook by argument to
interest him in the merit of the case.
The great man listened and replied: "I have noticed you scattering your
means round here pretty freely but you haven't said 'turkey' to me."
Surprised but glad and unabashed the claimant said "I was coming to
that," produced a thousand-dollar bank roll and entered into an
understanding as to what was to be done next day, when the bill was
due on the calendar.
The great man took the money, repaired to a gambling house, had an

extraordinary run of luck, won heavily, and playing all night, forgetting
about his engagement, went to bed at daylight, not appearing in the
House at all. The bill was called, and there being nobody to represent it,
under the rule it went over