The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-04-20
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9ai1u eagle
NJ. NJ MURDOCH, Editor.
SOL MILLER IS DEAD

SOL MILLER IS DEAD.
For thirty three years and seven
months, for a third of a century, en-
bracing periods of war and Of peace,
years of prosperous summers and win
tiers of distress, Sol 1Iiller's Chief has
never failed, in single week, of reach
ing our hands, or missed Of being read.
On Friday last our eyes scanned its ia
miliar pages only 10 find their soul alb
sent, their spirit fed. The next even
ing the trembling wires bore the sad
message that our old friend was dead.
In the death of Sol Miller Kansas
loses her most unique character, man
of such marked personality, and editor
of such distinctive originality and
great good common sense as amounted
TO genius. Aggressively bold as he was
as a public writer, he was personally,
as an individual, modest to difidence.
Next to his absorbing love for his life s
chosen work was his marked devotion
TO his principles. while his attachment
and loyalty 10 his personal friends was
so constant as to be akin 10 infatuatlon.
No mistakes or shortcomings in those
he liked were ever too great to be over
looked and forgiven. In his hatred OF
insincerity, pretence and hypocrisy only
did he ever lose his temper. As for pO-
litical opponents and personal enemies.
were their stations high or low, few
,,,o,, o,-o. l,or-r, cn,YlI aoT11a nparpF flaw
ing alive. or of hanging hides higher for
public execration. Such necessary jobs
with him always proved a duty dis |
charged with neatness and dispatch, |
and without any unnecessary after ran
cour.
The editor Of the Kansas Chief was |
a Kansan TO the core. Forty years OF |
devoted and of unfailing service, as a |
writer and as a legislator, 10 his adopt |
ed state, tended TO render him a devo- |
tee Of its citizenship and of its fortunes. |
Being a keen observer of men and a 1
close student of affairs. no man now |
living knows the political and personal |
history of the state so thoroughly and |
infinitely as did Sol Miller. From the /
data found upon the tablets of his re-
tentive memory alone, from which he |
categorically summoned facts and de-
tails at will, and without effort, he
could have written a more Succinct his
tory of the state or of any Of its inStitu-
tons, parties or individuals than could
the average writer by the aid of volum-
inous records and books of reference.
In all of these matters, therefore, he
was unique.
But his life's work is done. Like the
man himself, it was all the way through
an honest and conscientious work, a
work of sincerity, despite its spice of
bright wit and broad humor. Indeed
much of his fame as a writer hinged
upon his whimsical waggery and his
facetiOus drollery. But these were but
the merry squibs and reactionary scin-
tillations Of more serious concerns. but
the involuntary laugh that comes at the
end of a funeral.
The personal acquaintanceship of the
writer of these lines with him who is
their subject dates back to the early
years of the sixties. Later it was
and cemented as we sat
in adjoining seats for two winters in
the Kansas state senate. We never
heard him make speech and never but
one motion, and that one was to adj I
journ. The editorial writers who in |
those early Kansas days crossed swords
with Sol Miller, or approvingly quoted !
him have, all, long since, preceded him ]
TO the profound shades of that impene- ]
trable realm, or non-realm, into which {
his life has lapsed. and about which we {
speculate So much but OF which we i
know so little, or otherwise they have
eschewed the pens whose cunning they i
have forgotten, all save Colonel An
thony CT the Leavenworth Times and I
George Martin of the Kansas City Ga t
zette. That we and these other two /
compatriots and contemporaries of Sol '
Miller can hope for no fairer record or I
more sincere words of praise than they =
and We accord him whose counsel we {
all so appreciated, whose aid we so /
priced, but whom we shall no more 7
see, need not be written. =