The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-12-22
eaBle
NJ. NJ. MURDOCH. Editor
OUR DEAD SENATOR.

"a good. great heart that all men knew,
q. iron nerve, to true occasion true;
FALLEN at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square TO All the WINDS tnat
blew"
Apolitical slave of untiring feet and I'M
wavering devotion has sank under the
burdens of his people, to rise no more.
The great Kansas commoner has fallen,
carving down unnumbered individual
interests, the political aspirations of a
thousand adherents, and the hopes Of a
state. The hero of historical battle fields
for million of people, and their most
trusted champion in the national forum,
has yielded the trust of many faithful
years, and of the rude and unexpected
shock there remains only fearful regrets
and bemoanings.
Whether cropping his way in the dead
hour of a winter night bearing relief to a
total stranger dying of smallpox in
deserted cabin on the bleak prairie, or at
the head Of his regiment on the field of
glory, or later standing as representa-
tive in the legislative councils of his
state and of the nation, his great heart
ever throbbed responsive to the hopes,
needs and ambitions of the people of
whom he considered himself but peer
and an equal
No man Of all her brief but brilliant
line Of adopted sons ever stood so close
to the great commonalty of Kansas, as
Preston B. Plumb. But yesterday and
he knew more of all the corporate, ma
terial, political and social interests of
this entire commonwealth; could recog-
pize the faces Of and call the names of a
greater number of the high and the low,
of the rich and the poor men and women
of Kansas than could any man that ever
boosted his home on freedoms SOIL"
And yet he could hardly be called an
adopted son of the state, for he came to
Kansas before hs had reached his ma
iority; came flushed with the ambitions
of boy in the hour of her troubles, ere
she had been dignifed with statehood,
and for thirty-ffve years, and down to
the moment of bis death, paramount to
all other earthly ties, and transcending
his own hopes of preferment was his
masterful devotion to the star of his peo-
pies destiny, a devotion at once as
picturesque and isolated as it was in
tense, rugged and unyielding.
His was an eventful life. But fifty
four years old, yet within that compare
lively brief period of but scarce more
than half full lifes span, few men of
any time or genius ever crowded more
Of successful human effort or won a
greater number Of signal victories than
Preston 3. Plumb. A poor, friendless
boy, his native ability supplemented
only by the education Of a printing
office, he won successive victories as an
editor, as a financier, as a soldier, as a
lawyer and as politician and statesman.
But he is dead; home is left desolate. |
indeed, and whole country mourns for
one whose fame was as broad as
The land of his nativity. His |
labors are done, but they are well done, |
and his fame for the present and the |
future is secure. We, as people, shall |
go forth no more to welcome him home
and to urge him on to other honorable |
contests. He is dead, his term unex-
pired, and but scarce half of his pre- |
eminently useful and service-full life |
half reckoned with browning achiev-
ments crowding up for the future in
pleasurable anticipation to a million
people. Living, his name and character
honored American citizenship; of stall
wart manhood, splendid IN the physical |
Development beneath whose sereed out
lines beat heart true as tender: but |
dead, still q name and character that
will be praised through regretful tears
by those who only knew to love and adj
mire, and emulated by the youth of his
state for generations to come.
HE struggled in the worlds rough race
And won at last lofty place;
And then he died; behold before ye
Humanity's brief sum and story
Life, death, and all there is of glory"