Omaha daily bee., 1888-05-10
A TRIBUTE TO MANLY WORTH.
Colonel Ingersolrs Memorial Ad-
dress on Roscoe Conkling.
AS PURE AS THE STARS ABOVE,
The Brilliant Orator Extols the Vir-
tues and Praises the Unblem-
ished Character of New York's
Dead Statesman.
Roscoe Conkling Memorial.

Roscoe Conkling Memorial.
ALBANY, N. Y, May 9.-Thrty hundred
persons in the Academy of Music tonight
listened to an oration by Colonel Robert G..
Ingersoll in memory of Roscoe Conkling, and
one-fourth as many more besieged the barred
doors while many climed to the roof and
peeped through the slkylights. The ceremo-
nies were under the auspices of the senate
and assembly.
Colonel Ingersoll said in substance:
"Roscoe Conkling-great man, orator,
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. He
earned and held a proud position in public
thought. He stood for independence, for
courage, and above all for absolute integrity,
and his name was known and honored by
many millions of his fellow 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 the shadow, and that faults and failutes
mingle with the lives of all Inthe grave should
be buried the preiudices and ssions born
of conflict. Charity should hold the scales
In which are weighed the deeds of men. The
peculiarities, traits born of locality and sur
roundings-these are the dust of the race
these are the accidents, drapery, clothes,
fashions, that have nothing to do with man
except to hide his character They are the
clouds that cling to the mountains. Time
gives us clearer vision. That which was
merely local fades away"
The orator went into a comparison of
statesmen and politicians ut some length,
and continued: Roscoe Conkling was a
man of superb courage. He not only acted
without fear but he had that fortitude of
soul that bears the consequence of course
pursued without complaint He was charged
with being proud. His pride, WIS as
infexibe as the 'unwedgeable and
gnarled oak' but he 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
the vane that turns, a willow that bends with
every breeze Pride is the oak that defies the
storm. One is a cloud-the other rock.
One is weakness-the other strength"
The dead senator was then traced into pub
lie life. "At the dawn of the reformation"
said Tngersol, the chaotic condition of af
fairs just preceding the great rebellion was
alluded tol "the war was fought and a
greater period of reconstruction followed.
Men were either traitors or trusted. Roscoe
ways stood in the front rank; he never way
cred; he never swerved. He battled for the
nations life; for the rights of the slaves; for
the dignity of labor; for the liberty of all.
Roscoe Gonkling was an absolutely is honest
tative, faithful and incorruptible.
He believed his constituents and his country
were entitled to the fruits of his expert
encc to his best and highest thought. No
man ever held the standard of responsibility
higher than he. He voted according to his
Judgment and conscience. He made no bar
gains-he neither bought nor sold: He had
the taste of a prince, the fortune of a peasant,
and yet he never swerved. No corporation
was great enough or rich enough to purchase
him. His hand was never touched by any
bribe, and on his soul there never was a
sordid stain. Above his marvellous intel
lectual gifts-above al the places he ever
fused-rises his integrity like some
great mountain peak-and there it
stands, as firm as the earth beneath, as pure
as the stars above. He was great lawyer.
He understood the frame work, the anatomy,
the foundations of law was familiar with the
great streams and currents and tides of
authority. He knew the history of legisla-
tion-the principles that had been settled
upon the fields of war. He knew the maxi
mum of those crystalizations of common
sense, those hand grenades of argument
'He was an orator-carnest, logical, in
tense and picturesque. He laid the founda-
tion with care, with accuracy and skill, and
rose by cold gradation and well-balanced
form from the corner stone of statement to
the doomed conclusion. He filled the stage,
he satisfied the eye the audience was his.
He had that indefnable thing called pres
ence. Tall, commanding, erect, ample in
nunciaton, rich in illustration, prodlgal of
comparison and metaphor, and his sentences,
measured and rhythmetcal, fell like music on
h0proo the Ph,san tar0ng He o,thaS as
all conscientious fraud. He had
IA profound aversion for those who insist on
putting base motives back of the good deeds
of others. He was no mask. He knew his
friend-hs enemies knew him. He had no
patience with pretence-wlth patriotic rea-
sons for unmanly acts. He did his work
and bravely spoke his thoughts. Sensitive
to the last degree, he keenly felt the blows
| and stabs of the envious and obscure-of the
smallest of the weakest-but the greatest
could not drive him from his convictions.
He would not stOop to ask or give an eXpla-
nation. He left his words and deeds to JUS
tify themselves. He held in light esteem the
friend who heard with half believing ears
the ISLANDERS of foe. He walked highway
of his own and kept the company of his self
respect.
"He would not turn aside to avoid foe
to greet or gaia friends, In his nature there
was no compromise. TO him there were but
two paths-the right and the wrong, He was
maligned, misrepresented and mlsunder
stood, but he would not answer. He knew
that character speaks louder far than any
words. He was as silent then as he is now,
and his silence was be4er than any form of
speech; it refuted every charge. He was an
Amercan-proudo of his country that was and
ever will be proud of him. He did not find
pef1eCtlOH only III Olhef ldlluS, Tie ulu nOt
grow small and shrunhen, withered and apol-
ogetic in the presence of those upon whom
greatness had been thrust by chance. He
could not be overawed by dukes or lords,
nor tiattered into vertebrateless subservi-
ence by the patronizing smiles of kings. In
the midst of conventionalities he had
a feeling of suffocaton. He believed in the
royalty of man, in the sovereignty Of the
citizen and in the matchless greatness of this
republic. He was OF classic mould-a fig
ure from an antique world He had the pose
of great statues the pride and bearing of an
intellectual Greek, of conquering Roman,
and he stood, with a free air, as though with
in his veins there flowed the blood of hun
dred kings. And as he lived he died. Proudly
he entered darkness-or the dawn that we
call death. Unshrnking he passed beyond
our horizon, beyond the twilight's purple
hills, beyond the utmost reach of human
harm or help-to that vast realm of silence
or of JOY where innumerabIe dwell, and he
has left with us his wealth of thought and
deed-the memory of brave, imperious,
honest man, who bowed alone to death"
Conkling's viii.
UTICA, N. V, May 9.-The will of Roscoe
Conkliug, which was offered for probate to-
day, bequeaths all his property TO his wife