However, that “bright young man” remained permanently without a name.  I also asked Mr. Gorman, if he did not wish to give us the name of his informant, to give us the date of the examination in which he was supposed to have taken part; and I offered, if he would send down a representative to look through our files, to give him all the aid we could in his effort to discover any such questions.  But Mr. Gorman, not hitherto known as a sensitive soul, expressed himself as so shocked at the thought that the veracity of the “bright young man” should be doubted that he could not bring himself to answer my letter.  So I made a public statement to the effect that no such questions had ever been asked.  Mr. Gorman brooded over this; and during the next session of Congress he rose and complained that he had received a very “impudent” letter from me (my letter was a respectful note calling attention to the fact that, if he wished, he could by personal examination satisfy himself that his statements had no foundation in fact).  He further stated that he had been “cruelly” called to account by me because he had been endeavoring to right a “great wrong” that the Civil Service Commission had committed; but he never, then or afterwards, furnished any clue to the identity of that child of his fondest fancy, the bright young man without a name.[*]

[*] This is a condensation of a speech I at the time made to the St. Louis Civil Service Reform Association.  Senator Gorman was then the Senate leader of the party that had just been victorious in the Congressional elections.

The incident is of note chiefly as shedding light on the mental make-up of the man who at the time was one of the two or three most influential leaders of the Democratic party.  Mr. Gorman had been Mr. Cleveland’s party manager in the Presidential campaign, and was the Democratic leader in Congress.  It seemed extraordinary that he should be so reckless as to make statements with no foundation in fact, which he might have known that I would not permit to pass unchallenged.  Then, as now, the ordinary newspaper, in New York and elsewhere, was quite as reckless in its misstatements of fact about public men and measures; but for a man in Mr. Gorman’s position of responsible leadership such action seemed hardly worth while.  However, it is at least to be said for Mr. Gorman that he was not trying by falsehood to take away any man’s character.  It would be well for writers and speakers to bear in mind the remark of Pudd’nhead Wilson to the effect that while there are nine hundred and ninety-nine kinds of falsehood, the only kind specifically condemned in Scripture, just as murder, theft, and adultery are condemned, is bearing false witness against one’s neighbor.