Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

WILLIAM B. REED. 55
rial columns are frequently enriched by contributions from the
finished and fertile pen of William B. Reed, for a long time the
most brilliant and effective of the antagonists of the Democratic
party in Pennsylvania. Mr. Reed was an earnest advocate of
Mr. Buchanan for the Presidency in 1856. He did much for
his election. He was eminently loyal to his new friend; and
when he was sent forth on the Chinese mission, he was true to
that friend, and entered heartily into the extreme views of those
who sympathized with the rebellion. Let us not forget that his
very intensity in that strife was only a copy of his intensity on
the other side, and that his course in both experiences is perhaps the very best proof of his sincerity. As I read his articles
in The wWorld, so caustic and courteous, I have but one regret,
and that is that they are not in logical accord with his old antislavery record. Nobody in Philadelphia who knows W. B.
Reed, whatever his present feelings, will deny that if he had
followed this record he would have been among the dictators
of the Republican party. As I study men like Mr. Reed, and
notice that Hon. Isaac E. Hiester, the Whig son of a Federal
father, in the county of Lancaster, Pennsylvania-both having
served that great district in the Congress of the United States,
and both chosen by the anti-Democratic vote, and the son dying a few weeks ago one of the captains of the Democracy-I
feel that I have no right to question motives. Hiester Clymer,
who ran for Governor against John W. Geary, of the same State,
in I866, is another instance. Perhaps the most thoughtful
member of the Philadelphia bar was the late George M. Wharton, an " Old-line Whig," and yet his last hours were filled with
sympathy with the Democratic party.
It is difficult, and often disreputable, to divine the motives
of men who change religions or politics. Yet it is interesting
to know how they excuse themselves. Consistency is often a
species of moral cowardice. Many shelter themselves under
this shadow, and lie through a life-time, publicly indorsing an