The Portland daily press., 1866-06-12

AUGUSTA, June y, 1885,.
| This very State of Maine owes him a COM
Portable home and good living in his old
| age" This was said to the writer the other
| gentleman who, though now in the down hill
| of life, has been most earnest friend and
benefactor of this his native State,-a man
who has devoted his talents, land they are
more than ordinarily and his fortune, which
was once respectable, to the furtheranee Of
whatever could advance the pecmiary, the
social and the moral interests of Maine. We
have known that gentlemen long-for mole
than forty years; and during all that time, we
have witnessed his selfsacriicing spirit for
the State of his birth. He has travelled from
one end of it to the other for the purpose of
ascertaining its capacities and its wants, and
then he has devoted himself by means OF
the press and otherwise, to encourage its peo-
pie in every good word and work. He has
never been wanting in the habits Of industry
or temperance; he has labored hard and long
in his calling, and has never eaten the ''bread
of idleness." But now, more generous to-
wards the public than he has been to himself,
in his old age he is left quite without the
means that are necessary to make the last
years of his worthy life independent and COM
Portable. Do the public owe no duty to such
manP He has lived whole life for their
good. Is it just that he should now be left to
suffer?
This is what suggested the protestation of
my friend-"This very State of Maine owes him
comfortable home and good living in his
Old age" 1t does, indeed, owe him this; but
the State of Maine, in such matters, is slow
or poor paymaster. She acknowledges no
debt OF this sert. Her laws have made no
provision for the comfort of such of her pa
triots. They may labor and suffer and starve
and the State owes them no return. II man,
on drunken revel, some glorious Fourth of
July, has his arm or his leg shot off by the
bursting OF a cannon, perhaps the Legislature
Will grant him pension; but if virtuous
citizen devotes his whole temperate and use
full life to the promotion of the pecuniary, So
cial and moral welfare of the commonwealth
which he loves, and then comes to poverty
and want in consequence of such devotion,
the State has no pension for him. In Eng
land, if man, either in the literary, the artistic
or the moral world has devoted his life to the
good of his fellow subjects, the Crown has the
power to provide for his honorable support !;
but in this country, we being Republic and
living under better government, there is no
such power conferred, as we think there should
be, upon either our State or National Execu-
tives. And without such provision there is
no responsibility upon the masses of the peo-
pie that will provide for the necessary and de-
served relief of meritorious men. What is to
be done for that gentleman we know not
Private friends must help him, or he may be
oonged to become an inmate of the almshouse
"nu 20 down to a pauper's grave.
we KNOW of another gentleman who has
uo'o iiiore ior this city in which his life was
epen' 'iah any other man in it. Though in
nulioie circumstances, he devoted more time
and money to the furtherance of ito vor;o,e
interests than certain other ;,,,1;,,;d,,o, -
owned half the city, and had more at stake in
its prosperity than majority of its citizens
His whole private life was one without stoin
or blemish, and his public one was devoted 70
the city of his residence. And yet, when the
hoar-frosts of winter had made his head white
he was left in poverty, having family de-
pendent upon him, without home. That c-
ey owed him an honorable living, and yet his
Fellow citizens could and did look on and see
MN suffer without the means of feeding
MS children, or holding an honorable
intercourse with society at large. He
was sent "out backn to the Poor Farm
and there saw him die on pallet of straw.
and his remains followed to the orovo h.,
family ofpaupersl
The public,-the "dear public" is acorpor-
a'lon without SOUL" 1t confesses to no per-