University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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1914 QEutk5 HUD Earls 3 -AR- -P- SCAR WILDER UNDERWOOD enjoys the distinction of being the only Southerner who has since the breaking out of the War'rbe- tween the States stood any chance at all of reaching the Presidency, h f True, Champ Clark was born in Kentucky and lived in Missourig but bot o these, while slave states, were non-seceding and border rather than Southern States. That Underwood owes this distinction to the rare tact and ability that he displayed as Democratic Floor Leader in welding and holding together and guiding the Democratic forces in the American House of Commonsf' as Well as to his amiable, patient firmness and to unflagging industry in making himself master of the details necessary to the full understanding and wise direction of tariff legislation, there can be no question. He came to Congress well prepared ' d h House in the for public duty and has grown every day since he entere t e Fifty-Fourth Congress. He came upon this national parliamentary arena at the age of thirty-two, having been born on the sixth day of May, l86Z, at k H was prepared for public life by heredity as well as Louisville, Kentuc y. e ' Cl K t ck family of political lean- by education, He belonged to a good ol en u y ings, instincts, adaptiveness, and experience. 1 Q J

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4 Qljurks HUD QILIKIS 1914 His grandfather, Joseph Rogers Underwood, was a Senator from Ken- tucky from I847 to 1853 and was a colleague of Great Harry of the West in that then august body. He opposed secession and remained in spite of secession a Union man , although having reached the scriptural age of three score and ten, he saw no service as a soldier. The younger members 'of the Underwood family followed each his indi- vidual bent, as was so usually the case in the border states, where frequently brother stood embattled against brother-sometimes father against son. This was true in the Breckenridge as well as the Underwood family and in many others, if not most others. ln the border states-Kentucky and Missouri- and in the mountains of Tennessee and Western, afterwards West, Virginia, and in an isolated part of Northern Alabama alone did our great struggle lose its character as a War between the States and become really a civil war. Thus it came to pass that Oscar Underwoodis father was a sympathizer with the Confederate cause and people and was, when captured, placed by the Federals in prison for his pains, while one of his uncles, making his escape from Ken- tucky, served in the Confederate Army. His father owed his escape from Federal imprisonment to his grandfatheris intervention. It is no news to the reader that as long as Lincoln lived, old Whig families and men of standing in the border states exercised great influence with the authorities at Washington. Indeed, in all essentials of tradition, ideal, and temperament, Abraham Lincoln himself was a borderer and belonged more to the border states than to either section. Joseph Rogers was, or at any rate was thought by many people in Kentucky to be, one of these border state confidential advisers of Mr. Lincoln. It was never my fortune to be associated with Oscar at our Alma Mater- the University of Virginia. He was there from 1881 to l884, after my time, although a college contemporary of my younger brother, from whom l have learned that he was attentive, studious, clear-headed, and not pretentious, nor in any way over-self-demonstrative-indeed, as a student there foreshadowing himself as a congressman now. But, returning to our sheep, to the early history of this genial, whole- souled, warm-hearted, able, but unpretentious man-firm, yet conciliatory, tactful, yet purposeful. At the age of three years he was taken to Minnesota,