The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-05-10
AN ELOQUENT EULOGY.
Col. IngersOll'S Grafton on
Roscoe COnkling.
A MASTERPIECES OF RHETORIC
aud Work OF the Great
Statesman.
IngersOlrs Eulogy on Conkllng

ALBANY, May S.-Ihlrty-nYe nunQrou
persons, IN the Academy of Music, this
city, listened to tbs Grafton by Colonel
Robert G. Ingersoll, to the memory oil
Roscoe Conkling, and one-fourth as
many more besiegad the bIrred doors,
while many climbed to the roof and
pesred through the skylights. The eere
monies were under the auspices of the
Senate and Assembly.
Co!oIe Ingersoll said, in substance
Roscoe ConKliug, the great man. ora :
tor, statesman, lawyer, distinguished
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. lie earned
and held a proud position in the
public thought. He stood for
independence, for courage, and, above
all, for absolute integrity, and his name
was known and honored by many mil
lions of his fellow-men. In the pres
ence of death, 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 mingie with the lives of all. In
the grave should be buried the preju-
dioes and passions born of conflict.
Charity should hold the scales in which
are weighed the deeds of mems peculi-
arities, traits born of locality and
surroundings. These are but the dust
of race, these are accidents, drapery,
clothes, fashions, that have nothing to
do with man except to hide his charac-
ter. They are clouds that cling to
the mountains. Time gives as
clearer vision, that which
was merely local fades away;
Words of envy are forgotten, and all
there is of sterling worth remains. He
who was called a partisan Is called a
patriot. Fortunate is that nation great
enough to know the great. 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
&he great pillars that support the
State. Above all, the citizens of free
nation should honor brave and indie
pendent man, man of stainless in
tegrity. OF will and intellectual force.
Such men are Aliases, on whose mighty
shoulders rest the great fabric of the
Republic. Flatterers crlnge, crawlers,
time-servers are dangerous citizens of q
Democracy. They who gain applause
and power by panderiug to the mis-
takes, preiudices and passions of the
multitude are enemies 10 liberty.
Most people are slaves of habit, follow
er5 of custom, believers in the wisdom
of the past, and were it not for the
brave and splendid souls, "the dust of
mountainous error be too highly
heaped for truth to overpeer." Custom
Is prison-locked and barred by those
who long ago were dust, the keys of
which are in the keeping of the dead.
Nothing is grander than when a strong,
intrepid man, who breaks the chains,
levels the walls and breasts the many
headed mob, like some great cliff that
mocks the innumerable pillows of the
sea. The politician hastens to agree
with the ma ority-insists that their
prejudice is patriotism, their ignorance
wisdom; not that he loves them, but
because he loves himself. The states
man, the real reformer, points out
the mistakes of the multitude, attacks
the prejudIces of his countrymen,
laughs at their follies, denounces their
cruelties, enlightens and enlarges their
minds and conscience-not because he
loves himself, but because he loves and
serves right, and wishes to make his
country great and free. He who re-
fuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by
the promise of success or fear of failure,
who walks the highway of right, and in
disaster stands erect, is the only victor.
When real history shall be written by
the truthful and wise, 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 brows a laurel
mingled with the oak.
Roscoe Conkling was man of superb
courage. He not only acted without
fear. but he had that forth
tuds of soul that bears the con-
sequences OF the course pursu ed,
without complaint. He was charged
with being proud. The charge was
true. He ,7as proud. His knees were
as infe2r bic as the "unwedgable and
gnsrled oak" but he was not vain.
Vanity is a vane that turns, willow
that bends with every breeze; pride is
an oak that defies the storm; one is
weakness, the other strength. This
imPerious man entered public life in
the dawn of the reformation, at time
when the country needed men of pride,
of principle and courage. The institu-
1AOh VI SAoNC4g A1A POsOOACO Oh 1A4O
springs of power. Before this,
ambition fell upon its knees; politi-
clans, judges, clergymen and merchant
princes bowed low and humbly with
their heads. Slavery was a bond and
pledge of peace, OF union and Of
national greatness; the temple of
American liberty was finished. The
auction block was the corner stone. 1t
is hard to conceive of the utter demon
alization of political blindness and the
immortality of patriotic dishonesty,
of cruelty and degradation of the peo-
pie, who supplemented the incompar-
able Declaration of Independence with
the fugitive slave law. Think of the
honored statesmen of that ignoble time,
who wallowed in this mire, and who,
decorated with dripping filth, received
the plaudits of their felIow-men. The
noble, really patriotic men, were the
victims of the mobs, and the shameless
were clad in the robes of Office.
1t 'a51 tie conflict came. The hosts
Of light and darkness prepared to meet
upon the fields of war. The question