The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-13

afterward.
 About 1915 the New Haven Register
 took the lead then, as recently, in ap- | pealing to the people for constitution
 al convention. In the summer of 1918
 the last vigorous effort was made and
 the Federal candidate opposing the
 Register candidate was James Hill | house.
 The fierceness of the opposition may bed iscerned in paragraph copied from one of the papers issued during
 the campaign in which he is referred to
 as "A most desperate and ferocious | prosecutor of the most desperate and | ferocious deeds. God forbid that the | destroyers of the sepulchres of our | fathers should ever receive the suffrage l of our sons" How history repeats it. | self, for the strongest advocate for constitutional convention the past few years has been the New Haven Regis
 ter. And again after period of over eighty years it's representative is sent to constitutional convention Yet, we
 can congratulate ourselves that in the twentieth century the choice of Colonel Osborn was practically unanimous
 one, and exempt from the usual unfor- tunate strife that attends the election for a public office.
 Hillhouse's thought and foresight are
 explained in the following quotation from a speech of his while in congress: He said: The office of president is the
 only one in our government clothed with such powers as might endanger Hharfxy I q m, m 1rf sion that at some future period they may be exerted to overthrow the lber- ties of our country" He thus de- scribes an election going on at that time: Tn whatever direction we turn
 our eyes, we behold the people arrang- ing themselves for the purpose of com mencing the electioneering campaign for the next president and vice pres
 dent. All the passions and feelings of
 the human heart are brought into the
 most active operation. The election-
 eering spirit finds it's way to every fire
 side, pervades our domestic circles and
 threatens to destroy the enjoyment of
 social harmony. The candidates may
 have no agency in business. They may
 be the involuntary objects of such
 competition without the directing or
 controlling storm. The fault is in the
 mode of election, in settling people to
 choose king. The evil Is increasing
 and will increase until it shall termi- nate in civil war and despotism.'' This declaration naturally excited much comment But how true the prophecy as we, who enter the twentieth century, find on reviewing his predictions and how far they have been realized
 Hillhouse was called upon by his fel- low citizens upon all occasions of cere- mony for every form of public service He delivered an oration in honor of General Lafayette at memorial ser vice held in 1884. As early as 17S2 he was elected treasurer of Yale college. The college at that time being in need of funds, his diplomacy was demonstra- ted in his suggesting that the governor and lieutenant governor of the state be made members of the corporation of the college: and an. appropriation of forty thousand dollars was secured from the state and expended under his direction from time to time for new and much needed buildings. He continued in this office uninterruptedly for fifty | years. until his death in 1892, which l long service in itself was most re- markabe record in the history of any | one man or any one college
 The original grant in northern Ohio l to the state of Connecticut known as l the Connecticut reserve including the | land on which the city of Cleveland | now stands, amounting in all to 3,300,- | 900 acres, had been sold to a company | of capitalists by the states the pro- | ceeds from the interest derived to be | pploed to the support of the public | schools, the fund being known as the first school fund. In 1909 the fund | seemed in danger of being lost entirely | to the state The legislature of that | year abolished the board of managers nd turned to Hillhouse as the only man who could solve the difficulty, creating for him the office of school fund com ! missioner. To accept this he resigned 1 from the United States senate and de- voted fifteen years of his life to this work and without litigation or eX- pense for counsel he restored the fund 1 to safety, increasing the value from S1 100000 to $l.700,000 To accomplish this it is said that he sometimes trav- eled from fifty to seyenty-five miles