At eighteen, he was a country school teacher himself. The scene is laid
in Victor Center, Illinois, in a yellow schoolhouse; and, while it is
only a stepping-stone in a career full of more exciting episodes, it
is worth while to note that the youth of eighteen was able to do what
his predecessors had failed to accomplish,—make an orderly, successful
school out of a very turbulent lot of youngsters. On one occasion he
quelled a fight by simply looking at the combatants.
The law, and the wide, free west captured the young man a few years
later, the former for a profession, the latter for a home. Fort Dodge,
Iowa, welcomed the little family in 1880, and there the future senator
wrestled with life’s serious problems in earnest. Inevitably he was
drawn into politics, that field which always has use for men of active
brain and silvery tongue. Dolliver had both. James G. Blaine, for
whom he delivered scores of speeches, predicted, in 1884, that this
dark-haired young orator of the west would enjoy a conspicuous future.
The prophecy was not long in reaching fulfilment. From 1890, when he
was first elected to congress, until 1900, when he took his seat in the
senate, he rose steadily in importance as a great leader and debater,
until he had no superior in the great forum of the nation.
His wit is one of the most attractive of his gifts. He can tell a story
with wonderful effect. His keen sense of humor would have made him a
comedian, if nature had not cast his other faculties in a more serious
mould. Therefore, his fun only crops out at times.
When I asked him when and where he first began to consider himself
famous, he said:—
“My first term in congress gave me my first sense of exaltation. The
people up in the Iowa hills had a little lake, and they named it after
me. Then a new postoffice was named in my honor, and a colored woman
named her baby after me. I began to think of engaging a niche in some
temple of fame.
“But, in my second term, I was disillusioned. A climatic disturbance
dried up the lake, free delivery wiped out the postoffice, and the
child died,—and I found myself back at the very place whence I had
started!”