San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-01-28
The N4rloN.s DEAD.

Most appropriate this day is the
lamentation-"How are the Mighty
fallen" Poets, patriots, warriors
statesmen; men of letters and of law;
philsnthropists and divines; one by
one the noblest and best loved of the
nation are passing away. Death has
already garnered rich harvest this
new year, it's first month not yet gone.
Smitten by the shafts of the destroy
er, how many of the distinguished
sons of the republi have dropped
bongh of life into the open sepulchre
of death. From Maine and Nassa-
chusetts alone these three, Butler,
Brooks, Blaine. First, the shrewd,
learned, Incompatible constitutional
lawyer. Butler; a great brain, his
great mind warped by his own
fancies, yet withal kind to all of
Earth's poor, and holding malice in
his heart toward none; next,
Brooks, the silver tongued messen ger
of the Bethlehem evangel; won drously
persuasive of speech, wide hearted
that all the world might en- ter In; the
idol of the young aud the instructor of
old age; his breast the home of all the
humanities; the bachelor bishop, who
could not cramp his broad affsc.
tions to embrace single life,
but lavished all his wealth
of nature on his kind; last, Blaine.
Last, but In no sense least. No one
man ever gathered into the lap of his
own life and held tn ere for so long
years as did this man, the affection
ate pride of the nation. 1t, was in
him to be truly great. and he was
great. Ambition early marked him
for her own and forced him into thei
highway OF national activity. Soon
the politician ripened into the states
man; the American matured into the |
aud his thought en-
braced continent. The republic has
not produced man more truly Amer
lean, not even the martyred Lincoln.
His first thought was for the Ma
ton, his second for his party, his last
for himself. 1t was this fact |
appearing in every act of
his public life, that so endesred him
to the Nation and made him the idol
of bis party. He believed in the re-
publican party as truly expressive of
all that was truest and best fitted to
American nationality, and
he was ever ready by any honors to
himself, or any sacrifice of himself to
the standard of that republic
canism. Accepted as the ablest man
Of his party, he never skulked IN his
tent when others less worthy were
preferred before him, but led the hosts
TO victory under the banner of his
rivals. He was too true republican
to think disloyalty to his country or
TO his party. Even after the hand of
the destroyer was heavy upon him he
at his post and gave no
sign of that last conflict In which he
The Plumed Knight" was being Sec
-etly yet surely pressed to the wall by
.he"Rtder upon pale horse" In the
light of this hour how nec-
'ssary was his retirement from
The cabinet, how unkindly the
then pronounced. But
hat is all passed away. flames Gill;
espie Blaine is dead" Men whisper
t with solemn breath, as they whis-
1ered the death of the immortal Lin
'oln almost thirty years ago. Blaine
g dead! The great mind that so long
exercised control and shaped the des-
inies of nation ceases to act for us
he ready tongue and pen that were
he instruction of people are stilled;
he pulses of his life have slowed I
Town to an untimely sluggishness
md stopped; the wheels of life, over
worked, have ceased to move, while
Ill the man was in his prime, and
vary power untouched by age, or by I
iecay undimmed. A nation mourns;
world Ia sad. The republic made
lcher by his life, feels poorer by his I
iesth, whose memory is enshrined In
Ill sorrowing peoples heart, Z
aequiescat in pace!
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