SAM WARD, "KING OF THE LOBBY" by Lately Thomas. 533 pages. Houghfon Mifflin. $6.95.
"The uncle of the human race and prince of good livers!" The line appeared in London's Vanity Fair and described a beguiling American who counted among his friends Bismarck, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), Thomas Huxley, President Garfield, the Emperor of Brazil, Tennyson, Thackeray and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
But Samuel Ward was no mere social ornament. For more than 20 years, he was Washington's most influential lobbyistÂnot the first but certainly the most spectacular of that maligned but...
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