Smyrna times., 1890-09-03
Eloquent Tribute of Senator
Ingalls, on the Late Sena-
tor Beck.

Saturday, 23rd ult., was devoted in
the U. s. Senate to eulogies on the late
Senator James Beck of Kentucky
Among the friendly tributes was that
of John H. Ingalls,, of Kansas. Mr.
ingalls, is known principally as a mas
ter of political sarcasm, but the follow
ing extract of his grafton shows that
he is as fresh, original and polished
where the tender sentiments are called
in play:
Mr.. Ingalls, said that Mr.. Beck's ca
reer could not be considered otherwise
than as an extraordinary and of singu-
lar and unusual distinction. In a great
state, proud of its history, of the line
age of its illustriOus families, of the
horror of its heroic names, of the achiev.
ments of its warriors and statesmen.
that stranger had surpassed the swift.
est in the race of ambition and the
strongest in the race for supremacy.
he has departed, Mr.. Ingalls, contin-
ued: his term has not expired but
his name has been stricken from the
rolls of the Senate. His credentials
remain in the archives but an hon
ored successor sits unchallenged in his
place. He has no vote or voice but
the consideration of great measures
affecting the interests of every citizen
of the republic is interrupted, with
the concurrence and approval of all
that the representatives of fOrtv-twO
commonwealths may rehearse the vir-
tues and commemorate the career of
an associate who is beyond the reach
OF praise or censure, in the kingdom of
the dead. The right to live is, in hu-
man estimation the most sacred, the
most inviOlable, the most inalienable.
The JOY of living is such a splendid
and luminous day as this, is inconceiv-
able. To exist in exultation. To live
forever is our sublimest hope. Ami
hilation, extinction, and eternal death
are fOrebodings of despair. Nations
die and races expire humanity itself
is destined to extinction. The last man
will perish, and the sun will rise upon
an earth without an inhabitant. With
the disappearance of man from earth
all traces of his existance will be lost.
The palaces, towers, and temples he
has reared, the institutions he has es-
tablished. the cities he has builded, the
books he has written, the creeds he has
constructed, the PHILOSOPHERS he has
tOrmulated-all science, art literature
will be oblterated and engulfed
in empty and vacant oblivion. The
great globe Itself, yea, all which it in
herited, shall dissolve, and like this
unsubstantial pageant, faded, leave no
track behind. There is an intelligence
so vast and enduring that the flaming
interval between the birth and death
of a universe is no more than the flash
of href1ies above the meadows of sum-
mer; colossal power by which these
stupendOus Orbs are launched in the
abyss like bubbles blown by child in
the morning sun, and whose sense of
justice and reason cannot be less poten-
tial than those immutable statutes that
are the law of being to the creatures he
has made, and which compel them to
declars that, if the only object of crea-
ton is destruction, if infirmity is the
theatre of uninterrupted series of ir-
reparable calamities, if the final cause
OF lie is death, then time is an mex
plicable tragedy and eternity an illog-
ical and indefensible catastrophe.
Mr.. President, this ObseQuy is for the
quick, and not for the dead. 1t is not
an incOnsOlable lamentatiOn. 1t is a
strain of triumph. 1t is an affirmation
to those who survive that, as our de-
parted associate, contemplating at the
close of his life monument of good
deeds he had erected, more enduring
than brass and loftier than the pyra-
mids of kings, might exclaim with the
Roman poet, non Omnis mortar; so,
turning to the silent and unknown fu-
ture, he could reply with just and rea-
sOnable confidence upon that most i'm
pressive aud mOmentOus assurance
ever delivered to the human race, he
that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live and whosoever
liveth and believeth in me, shall never
die.