Cumberland County, Maine – Hon. Thomas Brackett Reed
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Biography
Hon. Thomas Brackett Reed
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 27-29


Hon. Thomas Brackett Reed, Speaker of the House in the Fifty-fourth Congress, in
political life today the most prominent citizen of Maine, has long been
recognized as one of the ablest leaders of the Republican party.

He was born in Portland on October 18, 1839, son of Captain Thomas B. and
Matilda Prince (Mitchell) Reed. His father was a native of Peak's Island, and
was of old Colonial stock, his mother, from whom, it is said, he inherits his
ready wit, being a native of North Yarmouth. One of his remote ancestors was
George Cleeve, the pioneer white settler of the Neck -- as Portland was formerly
called -- two of whose grand-daughters married brothers, named respectively,
Anthony and Thomas Brackett, a Brackett great-grand-daughter eventually marrying
into the Reed family.

In 1856 Thomas B. Reed entered Bowdoin College, where he was more fond of the
library than of the curriculum, and did not especially shine in the class-room
until near the end of his course. At his graduation in 1860 he won the first
prize in English composition. He was an assistant teacher in the Portland High
School for a year, and then applied himself to the study of law. On April 19,
1864, he was appointed Acting Assistant Paymaster in the United States Navy,
being assigned to duty on the "tin-clad" " Sybil," at that time engaged in
patrolling on the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers.
After the war Mr. Reed was admitted to the Cumberland County bar, and began
practicing law in Portland. In 1867 he was elected a member of the State
legislature, and began his long and conspicuous political career. During his
first term he secured the passage of a bill giving a superior court to
Cumberland County. In 1869 he was reelected to the lower house, and in 1870 he
was chosen State Senator. In the same year he was called to the office of
Attorney-general, and assumed his duties at the age of thirty, being the
youngest man to serve in that capacity since the organization of the State. He
became City Solicitor of Portland in 1874, and remained in office four years,
his experience and ability being of great advantage to the city, which had at
that time large interests at stake. In 1876 he was elected to Congress; and he
has remained a member of that body up to this date, 1896, being now, as
mentioned above, Speaker of the Fifty-fourth Congress. For several years before
his election as Speaker of the Fifty-first Congress he had been the acknowledged
leader of the Republicans in the House.

The greatest service Mr. Reed did to the country during his first term as
Speaker was the death blow which he gave to the assumed right of the minority to
obstruct legislation. His complete triumph and the adoption of his rulings by
his Democratic successors are still fresh in the mind of the public.

The chief characteristics of Congressman Reed are admirably shown in his
conversation with Robert F. Porter, who asked him how he felt when he was being
held up as the "czar" a man whose iron heels were crushing out American popular
government.

"Oh," he promptly replied, "you mean what were my feelings while the uproar
about the rules of the Fifty-first Congress were going on, and while the
question was in doubt? Well, I had no feeling except that of entire serenity;
and the reason was simple--that I knew just what I was going to do if the House
did not sustain me, and when a man has decided upon a plan of action for either
contingency there is no need for him to be disturbed, you know. ''

"And what, may I ask you, did you determine to do if the House decided
adversely?"

"I should simply have left the chair, resigning the Speakership, and left the
House, resigning my seat in Congress. There were things that could be done, you
know, outside of political life; and for my own part I had made up my mind that,
if political life consisted in sitting helplessly in the Speaker's chair and
seeing the majority powerless to pass legislation, I was ready to step down and
out. Did it ever occur to you that it is a very soothing thing to know exactly
what you are going to do if things do not go your way? You have, then, made
yourself equal to the worst, and have only to wait and find out what was
ordained."

"You never had a doubt in your own mind that the position was in perfect
accordance with justice and common sense?"

"Never for a moment. Men, you see, being creatures of use and wont, are
naturally bound up in old traditions. While every court which had considered the
question had decided one way, we had been used to the other. Fortunately for the
country, there was no wavering in our ranks."

Robert F. Porter says: "Mr. Reed is a born debater, aggressive and cautious,
able to strike the right nail on the right head, and at critical moments to
condense a whole argument with epigrammatic brevity. His epigrams are worthy the
literary artist, in that they are perfect in form: though struck out on the spur
of the moment, you cannot take a word from them nor recast them."

At one time, after a sharp reply to a member who attacked him, Mr. Reed quietly
concluded in this way: "Since I have embalmed this fly in the liquid amber of my
remarks, I will proceed with the main question."

A writer in McClure's Magazine says: "Reed has shown better than any
parliamentarian living how the turbulent battling of legislative bodies, so
chaotic in appearance, are not chaos at all to one who has the capacity to think
with clearness and precision upon his feet. Such a man assimilates the substance
of every speech and judges its relative bearing upon the question. At the
beginning it is hard to tell where a discussion will hinge; but gradually, as
the debate goes on, the two or three points which are the key of the situation,
become clear to the true debater."

Mr. Reed will neither vote for a man whom he distrusts nor a measure which he
detests, no matter how much his constituents clamor for it. He is not one who
can be "all things to all men." Socially, he is serene and good-natured, and his
conversation sparkling and exhilarating. He belongs to the Cumberland Club,
whose one hundred members are of the different political parties. Most of them
have been boys together at school and call each other by their Christian names.
There reigns supreme a fine spirit of equality, an unpretentious, give-and-take
sort of intercourse, which is the ideal object of a club. Mr. Reed says such a
club is only possible in a conservative city tike Portland.

Mr. Reed has never allowed his engrossing duties as a public man to interfere
with his literary pursuits. He is well versed in English and foreign
literatures, and he has contributed political articles to some of the leading
magazines of the day. He takes cheerful views of human life and society, and is
not one of those who look backward for a golden age. His words give no uncertain
sound: "Whoever doubts progress doubts God. The rich have grown richer, but so
have the poor --richer in rights and privileges, richer in comforts and
happiness."

Mr. Reed married in 1870 a daughter of the Rev. S. H. Merrill, who served in the
war as Chaplain of the First Maine Cavalry. The Portland residence of Mr. Reed
and his charming wife and daughter is a substantial three story brick house,
commanding a fine view bf Casco Bay and picturesque shores.