Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1896-03-03
Honor TO Whom Honor IS Due.
d DESCRIBED Tribute to G. B. Rorss
By Hon. r. 7. Barton.

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chester, Va, Hon. R. T. Barton, after few
preliminary remarks, said:
This is a sort of birthday party given to Mr..
Rouss by those who have been especially the
benefciaries of his wonderful liberality. The
person to enjoy It but must take his share
mainly by proxy.
Now the man to whom we have assembled
to do this honor tonight is not a great gem
eral, great statesman or a great jurist. He
has not figured conspicuously upon any of
those arenas which fix men in the public gaze
and make them public property. But he has
a great, big, generous, unselfish heart, and in
to it he has taken all the people of this little
city, and gratitude being virtue, all the more
valuable perhaps because of its rarity, this oc-
casion is good for the people who have come
here as well as a gracious act of recognition
of the generosity of your benefactor-
1t is rather a serious thing to celebrate
mans Goth birthday If some 25 or so years
from now, anybody should be disposed to cell
citrate my Goth birthday should feel little
sensitive about it.
Such celebration means that man has
reached the end of his three score years and
entered upon the quarter stretch of the re-
mainlng ten of his limit.
1t means in this instance that very long
time has passed since Charley Rouss, a quick,
active, keen-looking young man. kept a mis-
cellaneous auction store on the west side of
Main street between Water street aud the
bridge.
There ie many gray headed man here, then
little boy, who remembers this WELL Not
Geo. Bushnell there who shakes his head, for
he is too old TO remember anything fLong
laughtcr1 What pile of things one big cop
per cent wonld buy there-a slate pencil, a
sheet of paper, two fish hooks, piece of cord,
and generally something else thrown in.
Then at the auction counter, the wit for
which nothing was charged. have never
forgotten one the cries as the anctioneer
would land down a box of matches for n pen
NY, " here's your fine matches, two boxes for
cent piece. blue heads and no tails and
scented with cinnamon drops" Then that
ambrotype room up stairs (ft was before the
days of photography where for few cents
you could get the least fiattering and most ex-
cruciating ugly likeness of yourself that 1t
was ever in the power of perverted genius to
invent. That was q long time ago. Mr.. Rouss
tho young was then an active man of bust
ness.
Now at this very beginning what has since
so distinguished Mr.. Rouss was true of him
then. He sold with lavish hand, and altho'
his field was small and his opportunity for
profit narrow, of that profit he did not fail to
bestow always generously, upon those who
stood in need of it. He was generous then as
he is now, not because he is richer, but be-
cause he is SO by nature. EApplause.1
Ia "a
might be printed and universally read, the
happenings of his life since those early Win
chester days of his, it would be book that
few could fail to read with profit. '' From
Main street to Broadway might well be the
title; from the little, old-fashioned house and
narrow store in Winchester, to the splendid
mercantile pal ace in New York; from a stock
of goods which few drays could haul, to
enough to stock n thousand stores; from hand.
ling a few thousand dollars in a year to mil
lions in q month; from the small gifts, then so
large in proportion to his power to give, tohis
princely donations to this and other commun-
tiles, go generous, SO wise and so kindly, that
they have made the name of Rouss to be
known wherever men value kindness, unself-
ishness, and the desire to do good in your day
and generation.
The good book says that 1t is better to give
tEan to receive. Ah how quick we all are to
admit this to be true philosophy, and to mod
estly place ourselves among the receivers, un-
selfishly permitting others to enjoy the bles-
sings which fall upon the heads of the givers.
Now truly generous man does not want to
be receiver. If there is virtue in the whole
category that is eminentIY its own reward, it
is the virtue of liberality- If the giver seeks
or expects return. there is no virtue in his
giving; what he does is in the small and mean
spirit of the bargain maker. who wants q dol
lars sreturn for dollar invested
But do not mean by this that giver does
or should dislike gr altitude. He properly ex-
poets it, and If it does not come he finds lack
ing one of the very qualitios which makes q
man worthy of encfsction; for an migrate
full m an is one of the meanest of Gods crea-
lures.
What can the people of Wine hester do for
Mr. Rouss? To give in return would be un-
welcome to him and unworthy of us. If we
essay to erect monuments to him, behold his
wise generosity has erected them in our midst
for himself. There is never an alarm of fire
that each dweIler in this townis not reminded
that we are in debted 20 him for our exception
al means of safety and protection, and
whether the bells in their towers are sounding
the note of danger or the recall of safety once
more assured, their resonant tones seem TO
sing out the name of our benefactor.
We never quench our thirst in the flow of
crystal water that he has enabled us to pour
into all quarters of the town, or bathe our
wearied bodies in the limpid pools which
know no scarcity in drought or pollution from
storm that we are not reminded That Mr..
Rouss is the author of the greatest benefac-
tion which Cmeasured by its needs) was ever
bestowed upon this or any other community
And when our thoughts so often follow in
loving tenderness those who were once TO
the very light of lie itself, up TO their peace
full resting place on our green burial hill. We
remember with sense of gratitude almost
Iinexpressible, that to this same generous hand
do we oweit that those sacred mounds are so
permanently protected against the possibility
of desecration.
We can make no other return for these
things than full and cordial expression OF
the gratitude we feel. The presence of this
great audience here tonight is the fullest
assurance OF our sincerity.
Statues of brass and monuments of marble
/