The Saint Paul globe., 1901-01-03
IGNATIUS DoNNELLY.

In the death Of Ignatius DonnelIy the
state of Minnesota has lost one of its
most prominent public characters. and
the country one of its most remarkable
and gifted men. In many respects Mr..
Donnellys abilities represented a close
approach TO genius. Indeed it would be
no exaggeration to say that as an orator
1gnatius Donnelly was inspired by trce
genius. No one of his contemporaries
among his own countrymen might be
said to surpass him. Henry Ward
Beecher, Robert C. Ingersol, and Wen
dell Phillips alone rivalled him; but no
one of these great men was his equal
in eXtemporaneous public speech, except
possibly the great Brooklyn clergyman
Few men so greatly endowed ever made
so poor use of intellect or opportunity
Lawyer, literateyr and politician, he
might have eXcelled in any one of these
characters. But that one for which
Nature had least fitted him, save alone
through his marvellous gift of speech, had
for him charms which led him away
froy' the cultivation of the others. Had
Mr. Donnelly retired to his library after
his withdrawal from congress, or at any
tiRs up to within ten years, he might
have wrought an enduring place for him
self in American literature Had he
followed the calling Of the law from his
youth upward his name might have been
enrolled among the great ornaments of
the American bar.
Like most men of exceptional ability
there ran through Mr., Donnelly's COM
position vein of egotism in which may
2 be sought the source of his entire failure
in public life. That egotism rendered
him unable to submit TO criticism, 10
tolerate difference of opinion, or to en-
dure rivalry. His own consciousness
of real intellectual power led him to the
false conclusion that other men less
richly endowed could not rightfully con-
tend with him for emnence While he
was essentially a kindly and compan:ona-
bic gentleman his treatment of those
who stood in his path in the accomplish
ment of his political ends might too often
have been justly characterized as rufian-
ly. Such was his treatment OF men of
both political parties whose services to
the state so far transcribed his own as
not to admit of comparison for a mo-
E~.ent
Men more irascible than he, and without
my of the social charms which distin-
guished him in his relations with those
who enjoyed his good will, have sue
ceeded greatly in public life. He failed;
and the secret of his failure is not easy
to define. He was essentially a humane
man, He sympathized with distress, and
Sought most strenuously the ameiioration
of the lot of the common man. The
drift and bent of his mind led him to
seek the accomplishment OF undertakings
In public life which necessarily
brought him into conflict with vested in
terests in numberless directions. He
preached agrarianism. He verged on So
c:alsm. He wrought upon poverty and
ignorance He deified labor ana .denc unced
capital. Yet no friend or adherent of his
remained with him III the later express
sions of his public activity without sur
rendering his individual judgment, un-
less indeed. the instincts of a dema-
gogue and selt-seeker were dominant
From the position which he occupied for
nigh a quarter of a century, of receiving
the homage and devotion of good men IN
every rank and station of life, who re-
Vered nim for his re-eminent qualities of
mind and intellect and for his apparent
devotion to the cause of overbur1ened
and suffering humanity, he had reached
the dead level for some time before his
death of having as his only following a
few arrant rogues or cracked-brained
Missionaries whom no responsible man
would tolerate near him.
II would be easy to shuttle off the en-
dcavor to reach an understanding of
this remarkable mans relation to the
progress of his time by minimizing his
ability or calling his honesty into ques-
tion. But TO any observant man who
had followed his career, who had studied
his writings or had been in personal
touch with him, such treatment of the
life and character of Ignatius Donnelly
will appear foolish. Who will explain the
psychological phenomenon that this ma
jestic intallect. touched with the divine
fire OF genius, wrought upon by q
scholarship at once broad and deep, in
spircd by love of humanity whose genu-
incness cannot be gainsaid, proved itself
in many directions to be little more than
the anlnlating spirit of a mountebank,
u he rigmied in most of its conceptions
of the vast problems which puzzled the
greatest minds among men, and to have
suffered almost complete paralysis
through the personal peculiarities of its
possessor?
The student Of Mr.. Donnelly's literary
work secs revealed there all the inconse-
qucpce, all the misdirection and the pleth-
err of intellectual resource which dis