The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-03-14
JOHN ALTeELO.

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DEATH HAS FOREVER SEALED
u the lips OF John 2. Altgeld Of Illi-
nois. but the sacredness Of his tomb
is being violated by those whose de
light has been to heap upon his de-
voted head the most vindictive male
dictions. No public man in the last ten
years Of the country's existence, with
the possible exception of William Jen-
nings Bryan, has been so unsparingly
criticised. 50 uureasonabiy abused, as
John 2. Altgeld And now the ghouls
are busy Decorating his grave.
Altgeld may have made mistakes
ne would not have been human else
but he was not so black as he was
painted, nor was he nearly so black
as many Of his most venomous de
tractors. 1t is strange, passing strange,
that these people cannot even now,
when Altgeld's power for good or evil
is at an end, see anything good in his
character. Yet with almost his last
breath he spoke for liberty in the
valley Of the shadow he spoke for the
oppressed and against the Oppressor-
surely in a man who deliberately
deafened his ears to the rustic of the
wings Of deaths angel in order that
ne might utter q plea for equality be-
fore the law, there must have been
much that was good. And as he lay
half unconscious, the sands of his life
running swiftly out, the watg IS of the
dark river tapping the shore at his
very feet, his uttered thought was Of
his wife Don't make a sensation cut
of this. boys, lie said. Mrs AtgeId
must not be alarmed" And yet the
ghouls would fguratively strip his poor
Ecdy of its cerements and cast the
harmless clay into a roadside ditch.
Shame. shame on American manhood,
that such vandals should be permitted
TO exist, John P AItgeld. born in a
foreign land. sh0uldered his musket
and barred his breast to hostile bullets
in defense of his adopted country. John
p. Altgeld, laboring under handieaps
such as hamper and Cypress few young
men. fought his way from obscurity to
prominence and forced a grudging rec
ignition Of his talents from the ma
ton
X Altgeld had not been an able man
he would not have been so maligned.
If the ghouls did not believe his works
would live after him. the scnctity of
his last resting place would have been
indebted No public man ever cared
.ess for public opinion that did John
F. Altgeld. If he believed a course
was right he pursued that course re-
gardIess of any storm of adverse crit-
clSm that might break apon him.
The first Democratic governor of Hi
nois since the civil war, he pardoned
some Chicago anarchists because lie
thought the evidence did not warrant
their CONNECTION. For this he was de-
nounced from one end of the country
10 the other, no words in all the vo-
cabulary Of vituperation being omitted
by his critics. Then he pardoned a
young man who had been employed as
cashier of the Chicago Tribune and
who stole from his employers. There
Altgeld ran up a score Of hatred which
was not wiped our while ne lived.
In that pardon he called attention to
the fact that the cashier was paid only
q small salary although he handled
thousands Of collars every week. An
incentive to dishonesty was held out TO
him. and when ne fell the governor
justly held that the Tribune was as
much to blame as the criminal Much
OF the aninosity toward him may be
traced " this storm center. for the
Tribune never forgave the merciless
castigation it received.
In the closing years of his life Alt
geld gave am exhibition OF quiet hero
ism such as few men have ever shown.
Attacked by a wasting disease, which
he knew must inevitably prove fatal
he kept at his work. Wherever duty
called him, there he went, regardless
of pain and suffering, regardless of the
near approach Of the destroyer and
the fear that each journey might prove
bis lest
Now he is gone. After Hfes ftful
fever he sleeps well; treason has done
his worst; nor steel nor poison. malice
domestic, foreign levy. nothing can
touch him further" May not his poor
broken body be left now in peace?