attention to the multitudinous trivialities with which senators, particularly from the newer states, are forever pestered. Within two or three years of his death, Mr. Scott was brought to the test through a tender on the part of the President of the United States of the Ambassadorship to Mexico.[1] And at another time he was informally tendered a similarly dignified post in one of the European countries.[2] In each instance he declined the honor with thanks. When it came to abandonment of his customary relationships and responsibilities and his familiar ways of life he was not willing to make the sacrifice. I suspect it would have bee'n the same in connection with any other office.
Among Mr. Scott's intimates—among those of us who knew him in all the phases of his character—it has always been a subject of speculation as to how he would have carried himself as a senator. I am frank to say that in my judgment he would have failed to satisfy any constituency, like that of Oregon, accustomed to a species of more or less eager subserviency on the part of officialism. If he could have represented a state like New York or Massachusetts where the demands upon a senator are of a large intellectual kind, he would have made a noble record. But where every man capable of making his cross feels at liberty to write to "my senator" for any service at Washington from the purveying of garden seeds to the securing of a contract for army supplies or the getting of a dissolute son out of jail, Mr. Scott would have been a disappointment. He simply would riot have done the things required; and not doing them he would have been thought neglectful of senatorial duties. Beyond a doubt Mr. Scott would have distinguished himself in discussion. While no orator in the conventional sense, he could still express himself with mighty force upon his feet; and in prepared argument there has perhaps not bee'n a man in the senate during this generation whom he did not more than match. But at the point of getting things done—and unhappily senators are expected to get things done—he would hardly have been what is called efficient. His habits of mind
