“I know, perhaps, as much of the ability of the young lady
to whom it is proposed to give this job as most members
of this body. I have met her frequently, as other members
of this body have done; and surely she has shown no lack
of that peculiar talent known commonly as ‘lobbying,’ in
pressing forward her enterprise and bringing it to the
attention of Senators.”
The statue was made. Mr. Delano, Secretary of the Interior,
in a communication addressed to the Vice-President, January
10, 1871, reports: “The statue in marble has been completed
to my entire satisfaction, and I have this day instructed
the architect of the Capitol to take charge of it.”[58] The
feelings of artists found expression in words of Hiram Powers,
the eminent American sculptor, at Florence, which appeared in
the New York _Evening Post_:--
“I suppose that you, as well as all other well-wishers for
art in our country, have been mortified, if not really
disgusted, at the success of the Vinnie Ream statue of our
glorious old Lincoln. An additional five thousand dollars
paid for this caricature! ---- ---- was bad enough; but
this last act of Congress, in favor of a female lobby
member, who has no more talent for art than the carver of
weeping-willows on tombstones, really fills the mind of the
genuine student of art (who thinks that years of profound
study of art as a science are necessary) with despair.”
THE ONE MAN POWER _vs._ CONGRESS.