The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-07-01
IN MEMORIAM.
Noble Words Fifty Spoken at MIR. At
waters Funeral Exercises.

Atwater on Sunday last:
FRIENDS :-A little more than five years
ago two lawyers, whose acquaintance
reached back more than twice that num-
Der of years farther, sat conversing, and
the conversation ran, as on many prev
ious occasions it had run between them,
upon the great problem which the heart
of man has struggled with from time be-
fore there were, 60 far as we can tell,
systems of religion the problem which
even yet the human intellect seems to
have made little progress in solving:
Whence we are, why we are, and what
we shall be. In this speculative strain,
and with the sort of solemn sympathy
whicth his question always brings be-
tween those who talk oft, the CONVERSE
| ton ran, until one of them said: .sWhen
shall have met the inevitable, / should
desire that there be no great pageant
about nay burial. l should desire that
no Grafton be spoken; but / should de:
sire that q lawyer should say some kind
things to few friends who might gather
at that place because, of all the profess
| sions and of all the guilds amongst men,
there are none where men know each
other SO well as lawyers know each other
and because the lawyers life is a contin-
uous course of investigating and study
ing the intentions, the motives, the i'm
pulses that govern human conduct.
| And believe,'' he added. .sthat they
have generally arrived at the conclusion
! that most men are as good as their Or
ganizations and surroundings will allow
them to be. / want such a man to
speak of me-
| Today all that is visible to human
eyes of him who thus spoke lies in this
narrow casket, in the sleep that shall
never be broken, and the other comes
with loving hands to drop flower on
his tomb-to lay little stone on the
monument of his memory.
Joseph E. Atwater, whose body lies
here, was born in the province of Nova
Scotia in 1887. When he was but a little
child his parents removed to the United
1 States, and settled in the state of Wis
consin. There Joseph was reared; there
he received the education which the
schools of that western country gave: |:
and there he began his career as man.
/ When he had attained to his majority,
pursuing an aptness for letters which
| he had developed in his school days, he
became the editor of a newspaper at the
town of Jefferson, Wisconsin. This en-
terprise he carried on until the war of
the rebellion broke out. Then, follow
ing that impulsiveness which was al
ways, before and after, characteristic
of his life-ready TO make any sacrifice
he gave up his newspaper to go to the
UcIcn66 Oh IlI6 SOuulIY, Lnt'
army as a lieutenant and serving two
years, during which time he was pro-
NOTED to the position of captain in the
First Wisconsin cavalry. At the end of
two years he resigned his commission in
the army, and returning home entered
as a student the law Office of Angus
Cameron, then an able and distinguish
ed lawyer, afterwards United States SEN
! ator from the state of Wisconsin. After
q ffNf fl1ka hQr he rQmnuQd n Min
nesota and entered upon the practice of
the profession In 1870, while yet very
young, he was elected a member of the
legislature of the state of Minnesota.
After his term as legislator expired, and
in the year 1874 he came to Oregon, set
tling in Portland. Then my first ac-
quaintance with him began, an acquain-
tance which soon ripened into the warm
est friendship. In 1877 he came to The
Dalles, which has been his home ever
since.
In the nature of our constitutions are
the beginnings of what we shall be.
We do but build on foundations which
are laid we know not how. Nature did
much for Mr.. Atwater. recollect him
when we first became acquainted, before
i'll health had impaired his vigor, as you
who were here in the early years recol-
lect him-one of the most brilliant men
to whom it was my privilege, to whom
it was your privilege, to Lis en-. He had
a mind capable of the quickest grasp,
able to comprehend in the shortest time,
and with the briefest statement, all the
details of any matter which might be
brought before him. Indeed, think
amongst all the men with whom have
come in contact in thirty years of asso-
citation with men in a profession where
contact means attrition, / have met no
man who seemed to grasp all of COM
plex and complicated matter with a eel
Gritty that this man did. And his power
of expression was but the counterpart of
that quickness and thoroughness which
marked the attention of his mind always.
A whole complication of matters could
be by him condensed into a single SEN
tence, yet without that involvement
which oftentimes obscures the idea.
Clear, lucid, no one could hear and not
understand. So with his pen. He was
one of the most facile writer's ever
knew. His sentences needed no modif-
cation; they fell round, complete.
And deeper than all these gifts lay the
| gift of large heart and generous mind.
ecould not wound In the temptations
that come in the court room Il speak of
him now as a brother in the profession
4 of law, for that has been his life and
s. mine); in the conflicts that come in the
court room he was the readiest of all OF
us at repartee, and the only one of us
who in repartee never wounded. His
wit was perennial fountain, but it was
of that most happy kind that made even
his adversary feel better for the thrust.
So keen was his sense of humor that
sometimes the most serious things took
ON, to him, a humorous aspect. He
would laugh at that which others would
think was a serious thing to himself.
He was among the few men have ever
known who could laugh at his own dis
comfture heartily with another-even