MARYLAND MANUAL. 17

successful until now his judgment in business matters is highly
valued. Of recent years he has given much attention to his
farms, where he grows strawberries and small fruits on a large
scale.

In 1890 he was appointed a school commissioner, which was
his first public office, and while discharging these duties his
worth as a public official was plainly stamped. The same energy
and aggressive spirit which characterized his business life
followed him in his school relations, and the cause of popular
education was quickened wherever he went. So high was the
appreciation with which he was held by the teachers, that they
presented him a handsome watch chain and charm, when he
severed his relations with the schools to assume new official
duties. In 1893 he was nominated for the State Senate by the
Democratic County Convention, and received the largest vote
any candidate had been given f or twenty years. His value as a
Legislator was conceded by every one, for he always had the
courage to fight in and out of season for what he believed to be
right. Among the bills passed during his first term was one to
build a new court house, the provisions of which have been
carried out.

Although a busy man, he finds much time to spend with his
family, to whom he is much attached. Senator Smith is noted
for his domestic tastes.

He is distictively a public spirited man. No town in his county
has had a mere phenominal growth nor gives promise of more
steady development than Ridgely, with whose advancement no
man has been more closely identified than Senator Smith. Since
early manhood he has been a member and also a trustee of the
Ridgely M. E. Church. His services in this particular have been
no less energetic and marked than in other directions. For
several years he has been chorister, and in all movements which
promised increased usefulness of the church society, he has been
prominent, and was one of the building committee which erected
the present handsome church edifice, which is one of the chief
adornments of the town.

Anyone who knows him will bear out the assertion that
Senator Thomas A. Smith is one of those indispensable charac-
ters whose life is an inspiration to those about him, for, aside
from any consideration of his energies and push, he possesses
those qualities of mind and heart which endear him to his
constituents.

He is chairman committee on printing, on committee on cor-
porations, chairman of committee on sanitary condition of State,
chairman of committee on library, on committee on Article S,
2