24
THE SPEAKER OF THE NEW
YORK ASSEMBLY.
FREMONT COLE, who has just been elected
Speaker by the Republican majority of the As-
sembly, is, since EDMUND L. PITTS was elected in
1867, at twenty-seven years of age, the youngest
man who has been called to preside over the
Lower House of the New York Legislature. He
was born during the Fremont t campaign, and upon
the 18th of September last he celebrated his thirty-
first birthday. Speaker COLE comes of old New
England stock. The DENISONS, his mother's fam-
ily, were among the earliest English colonists who
settled Connecticut, the family at one time living
near Stony Creek. To a retired sea-captain who
emigrated from Massachusetts to Putnam County,
this State," lopped the bushes" around a consider-
able tract of land, thus establishing an undisputed
title to the territory so marked out, and founded
Cole's Mills, do the COLES trace their origin. DAN-
IEL., the paternal grandfather of the Speaker, was
born in Carmel, Putnam County, in 1779, and
moved thence to Seneca County early in the pre-
sent century, where with other pioneers he found-
ed the town of Covert. Both grandsires of the
Speaker were soldiers in the war of 1812.
Mr. COLE is the third son of a family of eight
children, all of whom were reared in Covert, upon
a farm which has been in the possession of the
COLE family for nearly a century, and which is
still the home of his mother and his father, IRA
D. COLE. The first nineteen years of his life were.
spent upon this farm. His education was that
afforded by the district school during the winter
months. At the age of twenty he was a student
in the law office of O. P. HURD, then judge of the
neighboring county of Schuyler. He was admit-
ted to the bar in 1880, and is now engaged with
his brother in a lucrative practice in the village
of Watkins.
The political life of the Speaker began with his
appointment as Clerk of the Surrogate of Schuy-
ler County in 1877. He next attracted the at-
tention of his locality by attacking and smashing
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
HON. FREMONT COLE, SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY.
VOLUME XXXII., NO. 1621.
the so-called Post-office Ring of Watkins, which
had been managing the politics of Schuyler with
an iron hand. He was elected to the Assemblies
of 1885, '86, '87, and now enters upon his fourth
term in the Lower House. For the past two ses-
sions he served as chairman of the Committee on
Railroads, and as such earned the outspoken hos-
tility of the lobby. He has also been
of the Judiciary Committee and of the commer
on General Laws and on Banks-bodies which af-
ford valuable experience in the shaping of public
affairs. In all of his political movements Mr.
COLE has been fortunate in possessing the confi-
dence and support of the younger men of his
committees
The rival of Mr. COLE in the Speakership con-
test was General JAMES W. HUSTED, who has
served seventeen years in the Assembly, and who
was ambitious to surpass the record of all prede-
cessors by wielding for the sixth time the gavel
of the Speaker. In the caucus which nominated
Mr. COLE he received the votes of fifty-one of the
seventy-two Republican members of the Assem-
bly, against those of nineteen who supported
General HUSTED. He was presented as distinct-
ively a representative of the young men of the
Republican party, and his selection was urged for
the encouraging effect it would have more espe-
cially upon that class.. In formally accepting the
office from the Assembly itself Mr. COLE gave ex-
pression to a sentiment which was warmly en-
dorsed by his associates. "It should," said he,
"be our high aim and purpose, kept ever in view,
to preserve this session free from the stric-
tures of merited criticism, and to adjourn it as
speedily as our duties, honestly and worthily
done, will permit." It will be his effort to make
this, if possible, the shortest session of recent
years.
The new Speaker is of medium height, slight
of figure, with a quick elastic step. He has keen
brown eyes and dark brown hair. In debate he
makes his points clearly, arranges his arguments
logically, and presents the whole with clearness
and force,
Komoded an
HENRY IRVING AS JINGLE-DRAWN BY FREDERICK BARNARD.-[SEE PAGE 26.]
