The age-herald., 1901-03-07
The Man Frank Pettus.

hS "dH TIdIlN TCA1dSs
 Frank Pettus would have gone to death to serve a friend declared man who had known the lamented leader of the people since boyhood
 He stood always ready to sacrifice his own interests in promoting the interests of others, and he never forgot a service done himself or to General .Pettus,' as he invariably referred to his famous father Even after General Pettus received the higher title of Senator the son continued to refer to him in connection with the title so galantly and so proudly won in battling for the Southern Confederacy l doubt if ever the son for a single in stance referred to the father as Senator
 "The overwhelming influence of General Pettus in Alabama for forty years was due largely to the fact that he never sought public office. He made other men high officers of state; he asked nothing for himself When he decided to make the contest for the Senatorship in 1896 he had a great reserve force in the men whom he had served and, above all, he had his son Frank, unequalled as a po- litical manager. Frank ePttus threw him. self into his fathers campaign with ex- traordinary ardor, and he drew drafts as the phrase goes, on all of his own friends, who were numerous in every one of the sixty-six counties-called upon his friends for political assistance, and they responded with enthusiasm.
 q hope I'll never get through paying my political debts incurred for General IDatf, 1. ing very earnestly of an ambition of his own that he had temporarily put aside My friends stood by General Pettus, and so long as live I'll stand by every man who worked for General Pettus' election to the Senate. I had nothing great to ask for myself, but General Pettus de- sired to go to the Senate and that was everything to me. Most emphatically his fight was my fight, and I'll never cease to be grateful to those men of Alabama who were for him.
 Frank Pettus had dear ambition to win the Governorship of Alabama, but when General Pettus, yielding more to his sons entreaties than to any other in- fluence, consented to enter the Senatorial race, the son postponed indefinitely his own candidacy for the Governorship, and, as events developed, never did offer himself for that office. He had incurred what he, in his wonderfully generous spirit, held to be obligations that he de- lighted in holding himself ready to dis charge. Though I am not aware that he had ever openly confessed it, I believe that latterly he had cherished in his mind the ambition to succeed his illus trious father in the Senate when. in the fullness of years and honors, General Pettus should make way for another. Ger tain 1t Is, that a great number of Frank Pettus more intimate and more useful friends cherished that desire for him; that is 10 say, his friends desired and per haps planned to some extent the election of Frank Pettus to the United States Senate.
 Frank Pettus idolized his great fath- CT, and the father reciprocated the devo- tion in splendid abundance. The devotion of son to father and father to son, and the confidence and warmth of their con- panionship and comradeship, were extra ordinary. In all the eighty years of his great life no blow has come to Senator Pettus in any degree comparable to this passing away of his only son.
 Frank Pettus was personally beloved by more men than any other man in Ala bama. He was in the widest sense a good fellow, a noble companion, a glorious comrade. He was a man of very powerful intellect but greater still was his great good heart. His spirit was filled with the light of unfading love and friendship and goodwill. There never lived a better hearted or truer man! In the tropical luxuriance of his true and loving soul his friends ever found comfort and sweet ness, whether happy in life's calm or tossed by life's turbulence.
 There is none to fill the great place Frank Pettus held without rivalry In Alabama. Another will step forward to occupy the vacancy but none may quite fill it. Frank Pettus was a man apart, a class unto and within himself, and his death is a personal sorrow to every man in Alabama"'