Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-10-01

civil service laws up to his abandon
ment OF his plain duty as to Porto
Rico.
END OF A BRl-.LIANT CAREER.
The suicide of George H. Welshons,
of Pittsburg, at Harrisburg, Saturday,
removed from the field of newspaper
work in America one of its brightest
men. He was gifted far above the aver
age with all tnat goes to make an ex-
ceptional mentality-a forceful writer
upon original lines, a brilliant speaker,
gentleman and a scholar. And yet
his end was that of the deliberate sui
eide, respondent and disheartened.
Forty-one years of age at the time of
his death, he was a native OF New
Florence, Pa, and a distinguished
graduate of Washington and Jefferson
College. His first newspaper work was
as sub-edtor under the late Thomas
Hewitt, at one time telegraph and night
editor of the Register. From a green
reporter he steadily climbed the ladder
until he became known far and wide
as a man of ability and of learning,
and successfully filed every position
from reporter to managing editor OF
one paper or another, while his special
correspondence and patient investiga-
tons Of particular topics showed his
accuracy and indefatigable industry.
AS a reporter a scoop" was to him
the best thing On earth, and ne got
many of them by intelligent effort,
hardship and personal discomfort
Once he sat up half of an afternoon
and nearly all night in the garnet of a
public hall. fighting rats and reaches,
while he listened to the secret delibera-
lions of an important labor conference
in the room beneath, and again he dill
under bed in hotel room where high
party m2gnates were discussing inner
secrets. by such work he brought
his paper much renown, and himself
great credit and increases in salary.
AS a speaker he had the gift Of elo-
quence. On the occasion Of the death
of fellow newspaper man, some years
ago, he said over his grave:
"He was tender even unto dumb
brutes and beneath the outer vestures
and manner Of his life as it was known
to the casual world, he wore the SEN
citivp fbatic ot,rro MI
have. In his leisure hours he wrote
much which he concealed from all eyes
but his own. or occasionally those of
some intimate friend. Such revela-
lions of his inner self fell into verse by
the natural impulse of his being as the
trees put forth leaves after their kind,
and the blossoms come when it is their
time.
And that he should have died in
the darkness of the night, alone, with
no kindly voice to say goodby, no
friendly hand in his Of all the friends
he loved, no tender touch upon his
closing eyes,"
In the same Grafton Mr.. Welshons
talked of death. His views on the sub
ject were embodied in the following
statement:
There is no death. 1t is transition.
No star goes down but climbs another
sky The sun that seems to set, and
leaves US to the gloom and chill of
night, bears life and radiance with it
to the other climes beyond the farth-
est view of our horizon. After little
while. brief time of darkness and Of
rest, we shall see it again IN
gladness in the dawn of the new day.
So with our friend. And now we take
our leave of him, feeling in the tender
works of those who were his fellows in
the work he loved and honored, that
to somewhere in the mystic spaces of
the universe .Iere is a sweet and quiet
SPOT, where Stephens gentle soul may
rest forever in undisturbed peace
Robert G. Ingersoll never did much
better than that And yet George Well
shons, gifted with mind brilliant in
its scintillaticns of thought, replete
with great ideas, stored with learning,
and beloved by all who knew him, sew
cred the veins of his wrists with a pen
knife in the solitude of a hotel room,
and died with personal friend
near him. Truly. the Fstes are some
times inclined to play strange pranks
with us poor mortals.