Speaking to thirty or forty people at a club in Boston of the power and greatness of the Republic, he said: "If we cannot say of our country, as Mr.Webster said of England, 'that her morning drum-beat circles the earth with an unbroken strain of her martial airs,' we can at least say that before the sun sets upon Alaska he has risen upon Maine." In my first Congress the leadership was shared between my colleague, Mr.Dawes, and Robert C.Schenck of Ohio.

General Schenck was an old Whig.

He had served with distinction in the time of Webster and Clay and Calhoun and Corwin.

He had the gift of vigorous, simple Saxon English.

He was a very powerful debater, a man of wisdom and of industry.