The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1894-06-21
HON. HOKE SMITH.

HUN. HUkE SMIIH.
INTERESTING SKETCH OF HIS
LIFE.
Early Days Spent at the Univer-
sity---He Returns to Talk to the
Young Men Of To-day---Some-
thing Of His Remarkable Career
His Achievements and Sue
cesses an Inspiration to Others.
Last week we published synopsis
of Secretary Smiths commencement
address at Chapel Hill, written by
Mr.. Josephus Daniels for his paper the
Raleigh North CarolIniaa. Follow
ing is sketch of the man written as
an Introductory to the article in ques-
ton which will no doubt be read with
interest, Mr.. Smith being native of
this State. Mr.. Daniels says:
Thirty years ago, Hoke Smith, the
present Secretary of the Interior, and
son of Prof. H. H. Smith Of the
University Faculty, was the happiest
and jolliest boy that played upon the
campus of this beautiful village. He
was stout, stalwart boy of eight or
nine summers, strong, robust, and the
pride of his loving father. Even in
those days he had an assertiveness and
a self-reliance and love of large
things that marked him as a boy of
sturdy promise. Though he
has made his way to high position in a
REMARKABLY short space of time, he is
not the stamp of man you call preco-
cious. He is not Maud S., and has
not made his success by snowy or fast
trotting He is rather in intellect and
physique Percheron,- large, great,
strong, with wonderful staying quail
ties. Though not an alumnus of this
University, his fame attaches to it, for
he has always been loyal son of the
State and noted the progress of the
University with the loyal zeal of a
most devoted alumnus. He returns
to- day for the second time since he
left these classic halls as youth of ten
summers, to mingle again with the
playmates of his young boyhood and
bring a message of hope and cheer to
the young Carolinians who are to make
the State grow in greatness and
wealth if its future is to be great and
rich. There is not an ounce of
pessimism in his whole makeup.
Indeed, he is an optimist of the most
pronounced kind. He believes that
with work young men can accomplish
anything and that selt-denial and work
combined prove the open-sesame to a
successful career or calling. More
than that, he believes that right here
in North Carolina there awaits future
more glorious, more bright, than in
any other part of the world, and that
if the young men of North Carolina
are wise and wisely industrious there
is greater opportunity to make money
here and to make reputation than
they will find in any of the widely
advertised communities that are seek
ing immigration. Not only is he an
optimist himself, but he inspires
optimism in others. All who come in
contact with him are impressed with
his great energy, strict honesty, and
his belief in the efficacy of hard work
and self-denial.
In Washington there is no man,
not even the President, who is a very
demon of industry, who surpasses him
in labor. In the Interior Department
over which he presides, business closes
for the clerks and under officials at
a o'clock, but he rarely leaves the
Department until or 7 o'clock and
his nights are given to Departmental
work and to study. He has made
more reputation than any man in the
Cabinet. In large measure he came
to Washington an unknown man,
never having held an office of any
kind in his life, and having confined
himself more to law than to politics.
1t soon became we'll understood that
he was the equal of any of the great
men with whom he was associated.
Naturally, he knew little of the in
tricacies of the Indian, Land, and
Pension questions, which Bureaus,
with others, are under his control. He
set himself studiously to work and
mastered the policies and practices of
his predecessors concerning these ques-
tons with which he had to deal and
notwithstanding the great press upon
his time for positions, it was com
paratively short while before the
Commissioners and other officials who
had studied their own Departments
for many years found that the new
Secretary understood the questions
which they had been wrestling with
quite as we'll as they did, and that he
had grasped it in such a way as to
make himself master not only of the
policies but of the details. He has
been the most abused man in the
Cabinet and that has added to his
reputation, because there is nothing in
the world that gives a man so much
reputation as clamorous and unjust
abuse for doing right for rights sake.
Early in his administration he became
convinced that the law governing
pensions under the Act of June, 1890,
had been improperly construed, and
he issued an order reconstruing the law
and ordering re-examination OF cases
which had been illegally considered.
The result of that examination is that
the appropriation for pensions this year
will be twenty millions of dollars less
than that for last year.
1t is not alone in the pension ad
ministration that Secretary Hoke
Smith has shown that he was worthy
of the high praise the late Justice
Lamar gave to him. 1t is generally