Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1888-05-17
Eul0gy OF COnkIing.

VI ANCW 4 yin anu y ldLSt duuAtHGc az
the Academy of Music at Albany,
Wednesday, May 9:
Roscoe Conkling. a great man, an
orator, statesman, lawyer, dis
tinguished citizen of the Republic, in
the zenith of his fame and power has
reached his journeys end; and we are
met here in the city of his birth, to pay
our tribute to his worth and work. He
earned and held proud position in the
public thoughts. He stood for indie
tendance, for courage, and above all
for absolute integrity, and his name
was known and honored by many mil
lions of his fellow-men.
The literature of many lands is rich
with the tributes that gratitude, admira-
ton, and love have paid to the great
and honored dead. These tributes dis
close the character of nations. the ideals
of the human race. In them we find
the estimates of greatness-the deeds
and lives that challenged praise and
thrilled the hearts of men.
In the presence of death the good
man judges as he would be judged He
knows that men are only fragments,
that the greatest walk in shadow and
that faults and failures mingle with the
lives of all. In the grave should be
buried the prejudices and passions born
of conflict. Charity should hold the
scales in which are weighed the deeds
of men. Peculiarities, traits born of
locality and surroundings, these are
but the dust of the race. These are
accidents, drapery, clothes, fashions,
that have nothing to do with the man
except to hide his character. They are
the clouds that cling to mountains.
Time gives us clearer vision. That
which was merely local fades away
The words of envy are forgotten, and
all there is of sterling worth remains.
He who was called a partisan is a
patriot. The revolutionist and the out
law are the founders of nations, and he
who was regarded as scheming, selfish
politician becomes statesman, a phil
osopher, whose words and deeds shed
light.
Fortunate is that nation great enough
to know the great. When great man
dies, one who has nobly fought the
battle of life, who has been faithful to
to every trust, and has uttered his
highest, noblest thought, one who has
stood proudly by the right in spite of
jeer and taunt, neither stopped by foe
nor swerved by friend-in honoring
him, in speaking words of praise and
love above his dust, we pay tribute to
ourselves. How poor this world would
be without its graves, without the
memories of its mighty dead. Only the
voiceless speak forever.
Intelligence, integrity, and courage
are the great pillars that support the
state. Above all, the citizens of free
Nation should honor the brave and in
dependent mantle man of stainless in
tegrity, of will and intellectual force
Such men are the Aliases on whose
mighty shoulders rest the great fabric of
Flatterers, cringers, crawlers
are the dangerous citizens
of democracy. They who gain APP
plause and power by pandering to the
the prejudices, and passions
of the multitude are the enemies of
liberty. When the intelligent submit to
the clamor of the many, anarchy begins,
and the Republic reaches the edge of
chaos Mediocrity, touched with am
bition, fatters the base and calumniates
the great. while the true patriot, who
will do neither, is often sacrificed.
In a government of the people a
leader should be teacher; he should
carry the torch of truth. Most people
are the slaves of habit, followers of
custom, believers in the wisdom of the
past, and were it not for brave and
splendid souls 1.-THE dust of antique time
would lie unswept and mountainous
error be too highly heaped for truth to
overpeer. Custom is a prison locked
and barred by those who long ago were
dust, the keys of which are in the keep
ing of the dead Nothing is grander
than when a strong, intrepid man breaks
the chains, levels the walls and breasts
the many-headed mob like some great
cliff that meets the innumerable pillows
of the sea.
The politician hastens to agree with
the majority. insists that their prejudice
is patriotism, that their ignorance is
wisdom; not that he loves them but be-
cause he loves himself. The statesman,
the real reformer, points out the mis-
takes of the multitude, attacks the
of his countrymen, laughs
at their follies, denounces their cruelties,
and enlarges their minds, and
educates the conscience, not because he
loves himself, but because he loves and
serves the right and wishes to make his
country great and free. With him de-
feat is but spur to further effort He
who refuses to stoop, who cannot be
bribed by the promise of success or the
fear of failure, who walks the highway
of the right, and in disaster stands erect
is the only victor. Nothing is more
than to reach fame by crawl.
ing, position by cringing.
When real history shall be written BY
the truthful and the wise these men,
these kneelers at the shrines of chance
aud fraud, these brazen idols worshiped
once as gods, will be the very food of
scorn, while those who bore the burden
of defeat, who earned and kept their
self-respect, who would not bow to man
or men for place or power, will wear
upon their breast the laurel mingled
with the oak.
Roscoe Conkling was man of 81
purb courage. He net only acted with
out fear. but he had that forlitude of
soul that bears the consequences of the
course pursued without complaint He
was charged with being proud. Tho
charge was true. He was proud. lis
knees were as inflexible as the ''un.
wedgeable and gnarled oak but h..
was not vain, Vanity rests on the
opinion of others-pride on our own.
The source of vanity is from without
of pride from Within Vanity is vane
that turns, a willow that bends with
every breeze; pride is the oak that
deties the storm One is cloud, the
other rock. One is weakness, the other
This imperious man entered public
life in the dawn of the reformation, at
the time when the country needed men
of pride, of principle and courage.
The institution of slavery had poisoned
all the springs of power. Before this
crime ambition fell upon its knees
politicians, judges, clergymen, and
merchant-princes bowed low and
humbly with their hats in their hands.
The real friend of man was denounced
as the enemy of his country, the real
enemy of the human race was called a
statesman and patriot. Slavery was
a bond and pledge of peace, of union. of
national greatness. The temple of
American liberty was finished-the
auction-bloek was the cornerstone.
Ii is hard to conceive of the utter
demonstration, of the political blindness