Excerpt from Midshipman to Congress

As a man approaches his seventieth year he begins to "Stop, Look and Listen, " so far as his interest in this world's affairs are concerned. It is the great climacteric, and by the Psalmist there is very little of active life left in him. Many men live far beyond this milestone and do a great deal of work in the little time they have over the three-score and ten. Still, with the great average of persons at seventy their life has been lived and the good or bad they have done in their sojourning on this planet is "shoved behind them, " as Kipling says. To a man who has had a good deal to do with public men and affairs, as the writer of this book has had, in summing up his past he must of necessity seem more than egotistical in relating his own experiences and his own intercourse and relations with events and public men. Yet I have found, and think it is the experience of all men who have held public places and mingled with passing events of importance, and especially those who are great readers and interested in intellectual books, that they like personal matters and that which relates to men personally better than anything else.

We like very much indeed to read about those persons we have known and their actions, their history and life work. It is this which appeals to us. Such is this work, and I submit it to my friends in Delaware County and the State at large and my friends out and beyond the Keystone State - of whom I have a good big lot and who are a very warm-hearted and dear - to me - set of fellows.

"This is the place. Stand still, my steed!
Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy past
The forms that once have been."

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