nted to accommodate Senator Mitchell, and
I told him that I would consent to be transferred, but at the same
time I was not at all anxious to leave the Committee on Commerce.
The transfer was made in due course, and I have served continuously
on the Foreign Relations Committee since that time, 1895.

John Sherman was chairman of the committee when I became a member
of it. It was at a period when there were very few material foreign
matters to engage the attention of the Senate. Sherman served as
chairman of the committee, at different periods, for nearly ten
years. He was a wise, conservative chairman; not especially
brilliant, as was Senator Davis, or Senator Sumner; but every one
had confidence in him and felt that in his hands nothing unwise or
foolish would emanate from the committee.

I was chairman of the Committee on Interstate Commerce at that
time, and the work of that committee, added to the work devolving
upon me as a member of the Committee on Appropriations, engrossed
most of my time; and while I regularly attended the meetings of
the Committee on Foreign Relations, I cannot say that I took a
prominent part, or, indeed, a very deep interest, in it until I
became its chairman, succeeding the late Cushman K. Davis in 1901.

Cushman K. Davis was a warm personal friend of mine. As the years
passed by and I grew to know him more and more intimately, I became
more deeply attached to him, and my respect for him as a statesman
constantly increased. He was what I would term a specialist in
legislation. He took little or no interest in any other subject
than matters pertaining to our foreign relations. He was a prominent
figure in public affairs for many years. A soldier in the Civil
War, serving in many prominent places in civil affairs in his State,
including the position of Governor, he came to the Senate as a
ripened statesman. He entered the Senate in 1887, and in 1891
became a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and very early
became one of its leading members. Succeeding the late Senator
Sherman, in 1897, he became its chairman and served in that position
until his death. Few more scholarly or cultivated men have ever
occupied a seat in the Senate.

He was a peculiar man in many respects, and did not court, or even
encourage, the advice of his colleagues on the committee, or even
of the Secretary of State. I had served on the Committee on Foreign
Affairs of the House when Mr. Seward was