An Autobiography of Seventy Years. Other chapters, treating of the period of Mr. Hoar's public service, are valuable, for example, those on "Political Conditions of 1869," and "Reconstruction,'7 in which the Republican view is stated—overstated the reviewer would venture to say—and sup ported. The passage on page 249 (vol. I.), about the Democratic party is not only unjustified but so partisan as to be almost sheer nonsense; for anybody knows that constructive legislation is impossible unless the party has a working majority in both branches of Congress as well as the Presi dency. This the Republicans have had, and the Democrats have had but once and for a short period. An indirect tribute to the despised Johnson is as just as it is unexpected in this chapter. "The conflict between the Senate and the Execu tive which arose in the time of Andrew Johnson, when Congress undertook to ham per and restrict the President's constitu tional power of removal from office, without which his Constitutional duty of seeing that the laws are faithfully executed cannot be performed, has been settled by a return to the ancient principle established in Wash ington's first administration." The chapters on "Political Corruption," "Credit Mobilier," and "The Sanborn Con tracts" are, however, more valuable and more interesting to the reader. The term reader is used advisedly, for the Senator has not written, nor did he intend in all probability to write, a book for the special student. The Autobiography of Seventy Years was probably meant to be taken up after the newspaper had been discarded, and the Senator unbosoms himself very much in the way that a distinguished and courtly gentle man might be expected to talk to a group of listeners in a drawing—or better—smok ing room after a not unwelcome dinner. There is no suggestion of the class-room in it, and it does not supply grist to the
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investigator. The Senator's confidences, however, are accurate enough, despite slips here and there, to give a fairly good picture of public life in our day, and the reader will doubtless gather some instruction as well аь pass his time very pleasantly. The throe chapters last mentioned will offer, him valu able and interesting information, for the Senator simply cannot be uninteresting. But to leave the book and return to Mr. Hoar. His fourth term in Congress would expire in 1877, and he was exceedingly de sirous to return to Worcester. So he stoutly refused to accept a renomination and stood by his refusal. Strange as it may appear, the genial Senator has had as hard a time to keep out of office as others have had to get in. As he himself says, speak ing of the renomination: "I supposed then that my political career was ended. My home and my profession and my library had an infinite attraction for me. I had become thoroughly sick of Washington and politics and public life." And in another passage he says: "But I had an infinite longing for my home and my profession and my library. I never found public employ ment pleasant or congenial. But the fates sent me to the Senate and have kept me there until I am now the man longest in con tinuous legislative service in this country, and have served in the United States Senate longer than any other man who ever re-, presented Massachusetts." His selection was in -a way accidental. Mr. Boutwell was Senator and would doubt less have been reëlected had it not been for the fact that he was regarded as either a partisan of General Butler, or that the two were over-intimate. Mr. Hoar was proposed by the opponents of General But ler and was elected to his present position. The office was unsought: it was really thrust upon him, and Mr. Hoar took the matter so lightly that with a single ex
