Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-07-18
SIMON CAMERoN's DEATH.
The Lesson Taught by a Long and Useful
Public Life.

The Lesson Taught by a Long and Useful
| Public Life.
| As the funeral rites are being per-
| formed over the mortal remains of
Simon Cameron it will not be unin-
structive to recall the historical
period covered by the busy years of
his life He was of the race OF states
men whose active careers began not
before the war era simply, but before
the era of agitation. of excitement and
I OF tumult in which the emancipation
movement was engendered. He was
| in public life when slavery existed I'M
challenged over half the Union, when
| it was the leading Industrial and pro-
ductive interest of The country, when
it ruled in society, in the State and in
the church, when it controlled poll
tics and legislation Sixty years ago
the owners of three million slaves
made and unmade parties; they nom
mated the candidates of all parties;
their influence in politics extended to
the remotest districts where Congress
men were elected; church members
mobbed reformers who preached the
abolition of slavery; and Shareholders
held the throttle-valve by which every
movement of National progress was
regulated. The youth and early man.
hood OF Simon Cameron were contem-
porary with the dark ages of Ameri-
can progress and civilization. He lived
30 ri hr-
slavery and treason in arms, to note
the tragic events of the greatest civil
wa in history, to join in the triumph
of loyalty and union and to see enfran-
chised the race which had given to
slavery its malign power in every re-
lation that the Government, that COM
merce and industry bore to the people
He saw the fullness of the salvation
that had been prepared for his coun-
try, and died with the era of its great
est progress, prosperity and glory re-
vealed to his fading eyesight that yet
cleaned with the light of the prophe-
sizes in which its youth had been
bath,d and Illuminated.
Thsre is something romantic and
pictui esque in the scene which closes
the fe of an American statesman
ninety years old. His birth was CO.
eval with the infancy of the Repub-
lie During the earlier years of his
life the name of Washington was
voiced hourly in his ears; the illustri-
Gus Father of his Country was yet in
Imagination, at least. almost living
presence among his countrymen. The
man ninety years old was contempt
rary in his youth with John Adams.
Thomas jefferson, James Madison and
James Monroe in their mature or ad-
vanced age. Simon Cameron was
mature jackson Democrat while Jack
son was President He saw the birth
and death of the Wing party. He saw
the Abolition party, the Liberty par
ty, the Free Soil party and the other
parties of freedom out of which the
Republican party of the war and of
to-day was evolved. Contemporaries
of his middle life were William Lloyd
Garrison, Charles Sumner, Horace
Greeley, Thad Stevens. William H.
Seward, Stephen A. Douglas, Abra-
ham Lincoln, Henry Wilson and 9TH
ers of the great leaders of emanci-
patton and loyalty. Thad Stevens
alone of this great class of statesmen
was Mr. Cameron's senior. Had
Stevens lived till now he would have
been 90 years old. Had Garrison lived
till now he would have been So; Sum-
ner would have been rs; Greeley |
would have been IS; Seward would |
have been So, two years younger than
Cameron; Douglas would have been |
76; Wilson would have been Il; Abra-
ham Lincoln would have been so. We |
can grasp the sections of American
life that are marked by its greatest
men only when we consider the age
which they would have reached had
they lived to the present time.
What the Republican party needs to
learn when it reviews the records of its
statesmen its heroes and its martyrs,
is TO ask for a new revelation of the
spirit by which they were animated.
1t needs new baptism in the faith of
its founders. 1t should be re-habili-
tated in their doctrines. their zeal.
their faith, their devotion. 1t should
live anew in the career outlined by
them. and in which the great triumph
of union and freedom in the civil war
was accomplished Chicago journal.