tradict the charge so constantly made by critics near home,
that I am a man of intense partisan and personal bitterness.

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.,
Mch 10th, 1903

SENATOR GEORGE F. HOAR,
Washington, D. C.

_Dear Sir:_

I would like very much to have a copy of your address lately
made before the Union League of Chicago. I see notices of
the speech in the newspapers.

Also your address made before the New England Society some
three years ago, if you have a copy.

Your picture, sent to me at my request, hangs in my room.
It is the face and form of a great American statesman. One
whom our people have learned to admire and love.

Our people venerate your years, still in vigorous life and
in full possession of great faculties of mind and heart.
We look to you and other great Northern men to keep us in
our sectional and racial questions. In one way these questions
mean so little to the sections of the country not immediately
interested in them, but they mean so much to the Southern
people who have to deal with them as live, every day matters.

I left the Attorney-General's office in this State on February
28th, ult., after fourteen years service and two years yet
to run. On March 4th, inst., I became Congressman from the
new Third Congressional district.

I go to Washington as a Democrat, but with full knowledge
that my party does not contain all the right or all the wrong
in it. And I hope that in the vexing questions of the future,
that by a temperate course of thought and action, that my
influence may be worth something, however small, to my people
beyond even a party view.

But after all I feel that great and representative men of
other sections can assist the Southern people in these questions
quite as much, if not more, than we can assist ourselves.

I hope to meet you next winter. The biography of my Uncle
Justice Lamar shows how much he esteemed you and your regard
for him. I am with much respect,

Very truly yours,
(Signed) W. B. LAMAR.

I was also placed by Mr. Blaine on the Committee to investigate
the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier. I shall
give an account of this matter in a separate chapter.

There was great public excitement on the subject. After
the report on the Union Pacific Railroad, and within about
a week of the end of Congress, the House adopted a resolution
to make a like investigation of the affairs of the Central
Pacific Railroad. It was absolutely