The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1899-1900, 1899-04-26

father which he had done before him, 4"
and OF King Azariah: HE did that
which was right in the sight of the
Lord, according to all that his father
Amaziah had DONE" We owe debt to
those who have gone before in our line
as certainly as we have obligations to
those who subsequently appear in the
household. Not so sacred is your old
fathers walking staff, which you keep
in his memory, orr the eyeglasses
through which your mother studied the
Bible in her old age as the name they
bore, 4 the name which you inherited.
Keepit bright, charge you. Keep it
suggestive of something elevated in
character. Trample not underfoot
that which to your father and mother
was dearsr than life itself. Defend their
graves as they defended your cradle.
Family coat of arms, escutcheons, en-
signs armorial, lion couchant, or lion
rampant, or lion combatant, may at
tract attention, but better than all her
aldie inscription is family name which
means from generation to generation
faith in God, self-sacrifice, duty per-
formed life well lived and q death
happily died, and Heaven gloriously
won. That was the kind of name that
Justice Field augmented and adorned
and perpetuated-7a name honorable at
the close of the eighteenth century,
hnnnra1 Of hn al r.R h.
nineteenth.
Notice also that our illustrious friend
was great in reasonable and genial dis
sent. OF the 1,042 opinions he rendered
none was more potent or memorable
than those rendered while he was in
small minority and sometimes in a mi
nority of one. A learned and distin-
guished lawyer of this country said he
would rather be the author of Judge
Fields dissenting opinions than to be
the author of the constitution of the
United States. The tendency is to go
with the multitude, to think what 9TH
ers think, to say and do what others do.
Sometimes the majority are wrong,
and it requires heroes to take the mega
tive, but to do that logically and in
good humor requires some elements of
make up not often found in judicial dis
senters or, indeed, in any class of men.
The Declaration of American Inde-
pendence was a dissenting opinion.
The Free Church of Scotland, under
Chalmers and his compeers was a dis
senting movement. The Bible itself.
Old Testament and New Testament, is
protest against the theories that
would have destroyed the world. and is
dissenting as well as a Divnely in
spired book. The Decalogue on Sinai
repeated ten times "Thou shalt not.v
For ages to come will be quoted from
law books in courtrooms Justice Fields
magnificent dissenting opinions.
Notice that our ascended friend had
such character as assault and peril
alone can develop. He had not come to
the soft cushions of the supreme court
bench stepping on cloth of gold and sa-
luted all along the line by handicap
ping of applause. Country personages
do not rock their babies in satin-lined
cradle or afterward send them out into
the world with enough in their hand to
purchase place and power. Pastors
salaries in the early part of this CEN
tury hardly ever reached $700 a year.
Economies that sometimes cut into the
bone characterized many of the homes
OF the New England clergymen. The
young lawyer of whom we speak to-
day arrived in San Francisco in 1s49
with only ten dollars in his pocket.
Williamstown college was only intro
ductory to postgraduate course which
our illustrious friend took while admin
istering justice and halting rufhanisn
amid the mining camps of California.
Oh, those ''forty-niners," as they were
called, through what privations,
through what narrow escapes, amid
what exposures they moved Admins
tering and executing law among out
laws never has been an easy undertake
ing Among mountaineers, many of
whom had no regard for human life;
and where the snap of pistol and bang
OF gun were not unusual responses, re-
quired courage of the highest metal.
Behind dry goods box, surrounded
by tallow candles, Judge Field began
his judicial career. What exciting
scenes he passed through An internal
machine was handed TO him, and in
side the lid OF the box was pasted his
decision in the Pueblo case, the decis-
ion that had baked unprincipled specu-
lators. Ten years ago his life would
have passed out had not an officer
OF the law shot down his assailant. 1t
took long training of hardship and
abuse and misinterpretation and threat
of violence and flash of assassin's knife
to fit him for the high place where he
could defy legislatures and congresses
and presidents and the world when he
knew he was right. Hardship is the
grindstone that sharpens intellectual
faculties and the sword with which to
strike effectively for God and ones
country.
Notice also how much our friend did
for the honor of the judiciary. What
momentous scenes have been witnessed
in our United States supreme court, on
the bench and before the bench, wheth-
er far back it held its sessions in the
upper room of the exchange at New
York or afterward for ten years in the
city hall at Philadelphia or later in the
cellar of yonder capitol, the place where
for many years the congressional IL
braryi was kept, a sepulcher where
books were buried alive, the hole called
by John Randolph "the Gave of Tropho-
niust", What mighty men stood before
that bar pleading in immortal elo- /
quence on questions of national importl
= How suggestive the invitation which
William Writ, the great Virginian,
wrote his friend inviting him TO wonder