The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-08-13
THE LATE MIR. LOWELL.

James Russell Lowell was typical Amer
lean. He came of good stock and was
gifted with a clear head and an honest
heart; he settled down while quite young
man as q member of that coterie which in
cluded Emerson, Holmes, Whittier and
Longfeilow, and which stamped its impress
on the American mind. These men crap
pied with public questions as they arose
and studied them in the light of reason and
honor without thought of expediency; they
never crooked the pregnant hinges of the
knee that thrift might follow fawning; they
told the truth as it was given to them to see
it and took the consequences. To say that
they nodded American opinion for half
century would be entirely too much, for
there we're statesmen whose teachings were
paramount.
Mr.. Loweli's distinguishing characteristic
was the capacity of expressing himself in
such homely, pithy phrase that he was al
ways understood. He struck the nail ON
the head with such directness that it went
through the board and held. If wit be, as
Sunset Cox said, the presentation of new
and striking views in an unexpected turn of
phrase, he was the wittiest of men. Many
years before be became famous he and his
friends opposed the Mexican War. He
wrote that war was murder, God had SO de-
cIared it.
An you've got to git up airly
Eff you want to take in God.
Ell you take sword an drJr it,
An go stick feiier thru.
COMMENT amt 10 answer for 1t,
God'Il send the bill to you.
Mr.. Lowell lived to realize that some wars
are unavoidable. From the first mutterings
of the slavery storm he threw himself into
the cause. He sent his eldest son to the
front. The boy delayed his departure long
enough TO marry the girl he loved; then, at
the head of negro regiment, fastened to
Charleston, where he fell, leading a forlorn
hope against Fort Sumter. The yietors con-
temptuously refused to return his body /;
threw it into a ditch, as they delicately
phrased it with the niggers he loved so
we'll" The father sterEly replied that he
asked for no better grave for his son. Many
years afterward, when the post OF Commits
sioner of Charities in New York became
vacant Governor Tilden appointed the girl
widow, Josephine Lowell, to the office, sin
partial recognition of the heroic death of
Robert Lowell"
Throughout the war Mr.. Lowell, like a
modern Tyrteus, cheered the courage of the
North by series of poems, which, though
in dialect. thrilled the blood like bugle
blast. Perhaps the best of these was the
set of verses on England's sympathy for the
South. They are household words, but on
this occasion quotation may be forgiven
1t don't seem hardly right John,
When both my hands full,
To stump me to fight John,
Your cousin. tn. John Bull
We know we've got cause, John,
That's honest. just and true:
We thought 'twould win applause, John,
IF nOwheres else, from you.
God means to maze this land, John,
Clear thru from to sea,
Believe an understand, john
The wuth o. ben' free.
Old Uncle Sam. SEE he, II guess
Gods price is high" SEE he;
" But Dutbin' else than wat he sells
Wears long. and that J. b.
MAJ arn, ike you and me-"
When these lines We're written, lust after
the surrender of Mason and Slidell, the Ell
glish WINGED. but did not appreciate. But
eighteen years afterward, when their author
appeared in London as Minister Plenipo-
tertiary OF the United States to the court of
st. James, England fell at his feet. 1t has
been the good fortune of this country to be
frequently represented in England by able
men. But no Minister before or since ever
received such adulation as MIR. Lowell.
And he deserved it. In erudition he was
the equal of the most learned men in Lon
don, and be was the superior of almost all
In tact. lie was, moreover, not an anglo
cized American, who got his thinking done
in the country to which he was accredited.
He was thorough, al-round American,
racy of the soil. reaching conclusions from
American principles and never forge ting
that he hailed from the west side of the